The Sword of Christ
Proper 7, 2026
I went to a very small private high school. This little Christian school was brand new, unaccredited, and thoroughly evangelical. I began attending the first year it opened up and continued until I didn’t graduate with my class three years later. I was a bad student, and while the other three in my class—there were only four seniors that year—excelled at academics, I just didn’t give a shit.
The first year of that school had a lot of choices and opportunities to shape what the school was. Rules about wallet chains and sunglasses were put in place thanks to yours truly. The tone of the student body was established, and we decided (among other things) to have a basketball team.
One of the decisions we had to make in conjunction with our sports team was what mascot would represent us. A lot of ideas were thrown around, but the biggest push came from Simon, a junior who pushed the idea that we should have the same mascot as his previous school: a Crusader.
A small school of white, evangelical kids being represented by a domineering culture that forces conversion by threat of death. Perfect.
Even as a sophomore, something didn’t sit right in my chest about that image. Why did we want a bloody heritage to represent us? Why such colonialist thinking? Wasn’t this antisemitic and Islamophobic? I didn’t like the idea of being represented by such violence, because that wasn’t the Jesus I knew. If we were going to be a Christian school, shouldn’t we look like Jesus?
But that’s the hitch: what does Jesus look like?
There are two distinct popular views of who Jesus is in our culture.
The first is the hyper-masculine, spiritual UFC fighter who will gladly beat your ass if you don’t agree with his nationalistic views. This Jesus views empathy as a sin. This Jesus is coming with vengeance to throw all the weak unbelievers into hell. This Jesus can beat up your Jesus.
On the other side of the church aisle is the liberal Jesus, peaceful and passive. Liberal Jesus wants everyone to get along and be happy. Oh, sure, he’ll take political stances, but in polite, respectable ways. Everyone get’s a pass, and liberal Jesus will never judge you, really challenge you, or rock the boat. This Jesus cares more about being nice than about social change.
There’s a spectrum of Jesus’ between these two Christ polls, mixing these views to form Christ into our likeness. Ultimately, we settle for a Christ that is strong but cares about respectability. We design a Christ that will judge the people we don’t like, but that comforts us, never really demanding anything of us except “faith”.
All the versions of Christ we mold into our favorite God have one thing in common: they all have no teeth.
There’s no bite, no sarcasm, no challenge to us and our part in the systems of capitalism, white supremacy, and patriarchy. There is no table flipping to overturn the systems of oppression, because that would disrupt our daily lives. Jesus’ like these bring golden calves, not swords.
It’s hard for me to talk about Jesus bringing the sword, about creating division in families. I’ve come to understand Jesus as the one who puts an end to violent systems of all kinds because he refused to be changed by them. Jesus refused to enter into the cycle of violence and vengeance.
The Jesus I know shows us that God is kenotic love, a self-donating orientation towards us. That’s not the kind of God that incarnates and comes into creation with a weapon of war. Empire comes with a sword. Is Jesus just empire disguised as a peacemaker?
How am I supposed to trust that Jesus is oriented toward me, towards us, when he promises rifts in my family and demands allegiance to him to the point of hating those people I love?
Here’s the truth: the rifts and chasms are already there.
Some people have dedicated themselves to a false image of Jesus, and in tying themselves to that ideology, they have cut themselves off from sisters, brothers, daughters, and sons. The separation is already happening, and to pretend it’s not is to say, “Peace, peace,” when there is no peace.
People have wedded themselves in faith to capitalism, patriarchy, and white supremacy in the name of Christ. These choices have placed profit and property over people, dehumanized entire ethnic groups, and have oppressed anyone who does not look like the heteronormative stereotype of the white, male father.
This is not peace.
This is war.
It is oppression waged against queer people, against BIPOC individuals and cultures, against women, against anyone of a lower socioeconomic class, and against everyone who doesn’t believe in their version of Jesus.
So, now, finally, the real Jesus stands up, sword in hand, ready to drag corruption done in the dark out into the light. All of these ways that sin has infected us—homophobia, xenophobia, misogyny… the list goes on—are corrupting what it means to be more valuable than many sparrows. Jesus knows each of the hairs on our heads. He knows what we are, how we are made by society and culture. He knows how we try to hold on to and save our own lives.
He knows this, and he still chooses to heal us from the corruption that has infected our beings.
That sword Jesus wields? It’s not the broadsword of violence and desecration. It is the sword of his word, the things he whispers to us in secret, and we shout from the rooftops. The words he says about us to God, the creator of heaven and earth, as we acknowledge Jesus, consenting to who he shows us he is… even in the face of every corrupt system of fear, oppression, violence, and dominance.
Jesus speaks the truth when other prophets choose to lie to appease the state.
Jesus will not call Christian nationalism “peace.” No, he names it as division and corruption, confessing that he will deny it before the God of heaven.
This is the Jesus who will not be silenced.
This is the Jesus whose message of freedom is shouted from rooftop to rooftop, declaring liberation for every and all who will hear, who will come and be healed, and who will let themselves be valued more than the birds of the air.
This is the Jesus who calls us to take up our crosses, come and die to ego, forsaking our lives of comfort and false peace, and instead finding an existence of community, connection, hope, and a future that cannot be stolen from us.
People will lie, saying that this Jesus is a false messiah because he’s not masculine enough or because he’s not nice enough. Jesus, the true Christ, stands in the face of all of that unchanged, unwilling to play the games of empire, unwilling to participate in the cycles of violence. The true Christ comes with words of liberation, freeing us from generational curses that have haunted us, kept us silent, killed some of us, and have kept us all in bondage.
Jesus is not our mascot. Jesus is not a crusader preparing for war. Jesus is not super macho or weak and passive. Jesus is our liberator, the one that calls us to come and die and be raised with him into life incorruptible.
This invitation is for us all, for me, for you.
Jesus beckons us out of our ego, out of our loyalties to false peace, out of the lies we believe about him and ourselves. Jesus calls to the burning in our bones, that place that longs to speak truth and liberation. Jesus calls us home, calls us to him.
So come. Be made incorruptible by the death and resurrection that is our redemption. Be liberated from the games of violence, the lies of capitalism, the oppression of patriarchy, the fear of white supremacy. Cling to the one who will say yes to you before heaven and earth, and who comes with a sword to free us all.