Do you think that I have come to establish peace on the earth? No, I tell you, but rather division. (Luke 12:51) They are extraordinary words by Jesus. Then Jesus’ words continue to jolt us as he says a household of five will be divided because of him, three against two and two against three. In Matthew’s Gospel, Jesus’ words are even more strident: I have not come to bring peace, but a sword. (Matt 10:34)
Division could occur when some try to make Jesus into the kind of Jesus they want, and others accept Jesus of the gospels. Division could occur when some members of a family or some of a group of friends or some in the workplace want a “progressive Jesus” who will allow them to do whatever they want, and the others take Jesus to heart and make their lives revolve around Jesus so that Jesus is governing their lives. Sometimes when following Jesus you have a choose a side. Choosing a side is not easy but not choosing the side of Jesus to keep the peace is not a real peace.
When you are having coffee with your friends and they bash the teaching of the Church, you have a choice: join them in bashing the Church or stand up for your beliefs. If you don’t feel that you have the freedom to stand up for your beliefs with your friends and that you have to say as they say, are they real friends? How could you really enjoy a cup of coffee with them if you don’t have the freedom to stand up for your beliefs? Surely a pluralistic society means being open to the Catholic viewpoint because it has something to offer.
No one likes divisions and we hope all divisions can be overcome and healed. In the first reading (Jer 38), Ebed-melech, one of the king’s servants, intervened to overcome the division surrounding the prophet Jeremiah. Some had taken a dislike to Jeremiah because his preaching challenged them. There was a false prophet called Hananiah preaching a message acceptable to the people at the time of Jeremiah. The false prophets were lovely, really lovely people. They said such nice things. You would love to listen to them. The problem was they were false, while what Jeremiah said was what he was instructed to say by God. In retaliation against Jeremiah for preaching a challenging message, he was thrown into a well as we heard in our first reading. Luckily for Jeremiah, there was no water in the well and Ebed-melech informed the king who ordered that Jeremiah be rescued from the well.
Jeremiah suffered for preaching what he was called to preach. There can be an element of persecution or suffering of some kind for standing up for one’s faith. I have read of nurses in other countries who lost their jobs because they refused to take part in abortions. In an educational setting, people can be ostracized if they teach the Catholic faith or stand up for the Catholic faith. But our faith is something of which to be proud, not something to hide. Being proud of our Catholic faith and not hiding it can help others come to a new understanding and inspire them. I remember a teacher I met in the UK. He was not raised Catholic but was so impressed by the Catholic teachers in his school where he taught that he converted and became Catholic. Our faith is so beautiful when understood and lived. It inspires others. That is part of the reason so many young protestants around the world are converting and became Catholic this year. Lax alternatives is one of the reasons given by some why they considered Catholicism and then converted. The lax alternatives don’t give happiness. One young Catholic gentleman said to me that he had tried everything and nothing gave him happiness, so he returned to the Catholic Church.
As I said, no one likes divisions, and we hope all divisions can be overcome and healed. One evangelical who misunderstood Catholic teaching and became Catholic years ago has written about his and his wife’s journey to our faith:
Why had we so profoundly misunderstood these teachings of the Catholic Church? We had assumed without question that they were all wrong-headed and unbiblical . . . I never realized the degree of dishonesty and lack of integrity I had as . . . “anti-Catholic” until I started rereading the books and listening again to tapes mass-produced by anti-Catholics and comparing them with the actual, historical teaching of the Catholic Church. I had misrepresented the Church’s teachings, not out of malice, but out of ignorance and prejudice. We are saddened now by the many people who unwittingly take these caricatures of the Catholic Church so seriously. Our . . . prejudices blinded us. We are grateful to God for giving us the courage to be honest and the honesty to be fair in our investigations. (Stephen K. Ray Crossing the Tiber: Evangelical Protestants Discover the Historical Church p61)
Our faith is something of which to be proud, not something to hide. Our faith is so beautiful when understood and lived. It inspires others and overcomes division.
© Fr. Tommy Lane 2025
This homily was delivered in a parish in Ireland.
More Homilies for the Twentieth Sunday Year C