T R O U B L E M A K E R S

What does this fire that Jesus brings in Sunday's lection do? It disrupts, it divides, it disturbs the "Peace": Pax Romana.

The peace founded on victory in war. The peace defined, justified, legislated and imposed by the powerful, propertied, and privileged. The peace built on the blood and bodies of the displaced, dispossessed, and disfigured. The peace that produces so many widows, orphans, and strangers.

The peace where the father was head of the family and everyone was his property. And the peace where the rich got richer and declared heaven-blessed while the poor got worse and judged accursed! The peace where the Emperor was the father of all fathers.

Historians tell us that Christians were never called peacemakers in the earliest days of the Jesus movement. They were called troublemakers. They disrupted. They divided. They were disturbers of Rome's Peace.

These days, the powerful, propertied, and privileged keepers of "Peace and Order" have different names for troublemakers (who, thank God, still include many Christians). They are called activists, militants, dissenters, leftists, communists, rebels, Palestinians, and yes, terrorists!

Troublemakers are the reasons we have hope!

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*image from "Queer Eye for the Lectionary."