Doing Justice and Loving Mercy: Compassion Ministries, Mentor's Guide, MG16

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D O I N G J U S T I C E A N D L O V I N G M E R C Y : C O M P A S S I O N M I N I S T R I E S

mother, a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law’” (Matt. 10.35; Luke 12.53), while Matthew rounds the saying off with a quotation from the Old Testament: “a man’s enemies will be the members of his own household” (Mic. 7.6). One thing is certain: Jesus did not advocate conflict. He taught his followers to offer no resistance or retaliation when they were attacked or ill-treated. “Blessed are the peacemakers,” he said, “for they will be called sons of God” (Matt. 5.9), meaning that God is the God of peace, so that those who seek peace and pursue it reflect his character. When he paid his last visit to Jerusalem, the message which he brought it concerned “what would bring you peace,” and he wept because the city refused his message and was bent on a course that was bound to lead to destruction (Luke 19.41–44). The message that his followers proclaimed in his name after his departure was called the “gospel of peace” (Eph. 6.15) or the “message of reconciliation” (2 Cor. 5.19 RSV). It was called this not merely as a matter of doctrine but as a fact of experience. Individuals and groups formerly estranged from one another found themselves reconciled through their common devotion to Christ. Something of this sort must have been experienced even earlier, in the course of the Galilean ministry: if Simon the Zealot and Matthew the tax collector were able to live together as two of the twelve apostles, the rest of the company must have looked on this as a miracle of grace. But when Jesus spoke of tension and conflict within a family, he probably spoke from personal experience. There are indications in the gospel story that some members of his own family had no sympathy with his ministry; the people who on one occasion tried to restrain him by force because people were saying, “He is out of his mind” are called “his friends” in the KJV but more accurately “his family” in the NIV (Mark 3.21). “Even his own brothers did not believe in him,” we are told in John 7.5. (If it is asked why, in that case, they attained positions of leadership alongside the apostles in the early church, the answer is no doubt to be found in the statement of 1 Corinthians 15.7 that Jesus, risen from the dead, appeared to his brother James.) So, when Jesus said that he had come to bring “not peace but a sword” he meant that this would be the effect of his coming, not that it was the purpose of his coming. His words came true in the life of the early church, and they have verified themselves subsequently in the history of Christian missions. . . . In [the words of Matthew 10.34]