Preached on Sunday, June 21, 2026, the Fourth Sunday after Pentecost, at Trinity Episcopal Cathedral, Little Rock.

Jesus said, “Do not think that I have come to bring peace to the earth; I have not come to bring peace, but a sword … One’s foes will be members of one’s own household.” (Matthew 10:34, 36)

Happy Father’s Day.

No, but seriously, that’s a bit strange, isn’t it? Surely, Jesus doesn’t mean all of that. Didn’t the angels sing otherwise? “Glory to God in the highest heaven, and on earth peace” (Luke 2:14). And doesn’t Jesus tell Peter just a few chapters after this one, “Put your sword back into its place” (Matthew 26:52)? Last week’s Gospel told us that governors and kings will turn against us because of our Christianity––but now our families? Why not peace? Why a sword? And why bring a sword to, of all places, our families?

It is easy—all too easy!—to hear a passage like this one from Matthew’s Gospel and to think that this is just the stuff of antiquity, old news, the way things used to be, but not the way things are today. And of course, there is truth to that sort of thinking. This was the reality of the earliest Christians. Those who entered the Christian community entered a new way of ordering the world. It “supplant[ed] all other loyalties” [1].

The new Christian was “adopted as God’s child…receiving a new family…The natural kinship structure into which the person [had] been born and which previously defined [her] place and connections with the society [was then] supplanted by a new set of relationships” [2]. They left behind their religious life, their economic stability, and even their intrinsic sense of identity as given to them by their families. When those earliest Christians began to follow Christ, they felt a sword strike their own lives. The cost of discipleship was not theoretical. It was painfully personal.

And yet, this sword is known not just back then, but here and now, too.

A few years ago, I read an essay in The Atlantic by psychologist Joshua Coleman about the growing phenomenon of family estrangement in the United States [3]. He tells the stories of parents and children who no longer speak to one another, of siblings who have become strangers, and of grandparents who have never met their grandchildren––it’s all terribly tragic. The details vary, but beneath so many of these stories lies a common reality: a change in loyalties. People embrace new convictions, new communities, new understandings of themselves, and old relationships are strained by the change.

Maybe what Jesus is talking about isn’t so foreign to us, after all. In fact, we know exactly what Jesus is talking about. Some newly claimed loyalties become so demanding that they cut through other loyalties, even those as intimate as our families.

This is what can happen when one claims loyalty to Christ. Following Christ is not simply one commitment among many. It is not one more item on our calendar, one more hour of our weekend, one more box to check alongside work, politics, hobbies, and family. Christian discipleship is a loyalty that places every other loyalty in perspective. Christ does not ask for a corner of our life. He demands the whole thing. He lays claim to our ambitions, our fears, our loves, our prejudices, our assumptions, and yes, even our closest relationships. We do not simply add Jesus to our lives. We surrender our lives to Him.

And that means our discipleship will often cut against loyalties even as strong as our families. Our families hand down stories and habits. They teach us how to speak and what to value. They pass along traditions and expectations. They shape our politics, our assumptions, our hopes, and our fears. Many of these gifts are beautiful and good. Yet even these inheritances must stand beneath the Lordship of Christ. Sometimes Christ confirms what our families have taught us. Sometimes He purifies it. And sometimes, He overturns it altogether. Christ is no advocate of family estrangement––after all, He was born into a family of His Own––but He is quite honest about the cost of following Him over any other.

Many of you know this sword quite well. Over my years of working in the Church, I have talked with many people who have found their Christianity at odds with—even in utter opposition to—other loyalties in life: leaving one denomination for another; leaving a job you could no longer stomach; ending a relationship that was drawing you away from God; saying no to a project that you couldn’t put your name on; refusing to participate in business practices you knew were wrong; standing against the prejudices and resentments held by those you once admired; choosing forgiveness when everyone around you demanded revenge; and yes, maybe even abandoning those things we received from our families. You know something of the sword.

The stories are unique to each season, but the experience is perennial. Christians throughout the ages have felt the cutting edge of the Gospel, separating us from allegiances that are hell bent on holding us back.

I’m thinking of one Christian who knew all this to be true, Dietrich Bonhoeffer. You’ll remember that Bonhoeffer refused to give his allegiance to Adolf Hitler and the Nazi regime, even when much of the German Church had done exactly that. His resistance cost him his position, his freedom, and eventually his life. Arrested and imprisoned for his involvement in Operation Valkyrie, he was executed only weeks before the end of the War. He, too, knew the sword.

Here’s a quote from one of his famous works, The Cost of Discipleship:

The cross is God’s sword on this earth. It creates division. The son against the father, the daughter against the mother, the household against its head, and all that for the sake of God’s kingdom and its peace––that is the work of Christ on earth! No wonder the world accuses him…of hatred toward human beings! Who dares to speak about a father’s love and a mother’s love to a son or daughter in such a way, if not either the destroyer of all life or the creator of a new life? Who can claim the people’s love and sacrifice so exclusively, if not the enemy of humanity or the savior of humanity? Who will carry the sword into their houses, if not the devil or Christ, the Prince of Peace? God’s love for the people and human love for their own kind are utterly different. God’s love for the people brings the cross and discipleship, but these, in turn, mean life and resurrection. “Anyone who loses [their] life for my sake will find it.” This affirmation is given by the one who has the power over death, the Son of God, who goes to the cross to resurrection and takes those who are his with him. [4]

Or as Bonhoeffer puts it more bluntly earlier in that book: “When Christ calls [someone], He bids [them] come and die” [5]. Those words are not an invitation to suffering, but they are a warning: something always dies in following Jesus. And yes, sometimes, the relationships that formed us, or the identities they formed in us, must die, as well––so that something new might live.

Christ does not want suffering. He simply wants us to know the truth about walking in His way. He never promised that discipleship would be easy. He never promised that everyone would understand. He never promised that following Him would spare us from loss. But He did promise that this way leads to life. For “those who lose their life for [His] sake will find it” (Matthew 10:39).

If any of you here today know something of the sword, you are very welcome here, and I hope that this is a place of healing for you. But also know that such is the way of our Lord Jesus Christ, Who cuts away at that which holds us back, and Who bids us to lose our life. For in so doing, by His grace, we find it. Amen.

[1] Wayne A. Meeks, The First Urban Christians: The Social World of the Apostle Paul, 2nd edition (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2003), 78.

[2] Meeks, The First Urban Christians, 88.

[3] Joshua Coleman, “A Shift in American Family Values Is Fueling Estrangement,” The Atlantic, January 10, 2021.

[4] Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Discipleship, translated by Barbara Green and Reinhard Krauss (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2001), 197, italics mine.

[5] Bonhoeffer, Discipleship, 44.