Mutual Indwelling and the Cost of Love

The Gospel That Draws the Sword: Nonviolence does not feel peaceful to a world built on coercion

Entering the Story

It is really hard to talk about the themes of this time of year, about incarnation and the birth of the Christ child, given everything that is happening in the world.

There is the fictitious “war on Christmas,” where people try to weaponize the very idea of Christmas. There are the ongoing genocides and fights throughout the world. The message of God entering the world through the vulnerability of a child is one that many of us do not want to hear.

We want a God of strength.

A God of might.

A Zeus standing on Mount Olympus, raining lightning bolts down on our enemies.

But the God we meet in these stories is one who comes as a baby. A child who has to flee, run, and hide because terrible things are being done to end his life before his ministry ever truly begins.

The Gospel is a message of peace. We call Jesus the Prince of Peace, and yet, two thousand years later, there is still so much violence in the world, much of it done in his name.

So we have to ask what kind of Gospel this actually is. We have to look at the story of mutual indwelling that arises through the Nativity and through the days that follow Christmas, and ask how that Gospel lives in a world ruled by the sword.

The Sword Running Through Matthew

Throughout the Gospel of Matthew, there is a theme that is often taken out of context. It appears in three separate passages, at three separate moments, but together they form a single through line.

Jesus tells us he did not come to bring peace, but a sword (Matthew 10:34).

He tells us that from the time of John until now the kingdom has suffered violence, and the violent are trying to take it, to rob it, to plunder it (Matthew 11:12).

And at the very end of the story, in the garden, he tells Peter to lay down his sword, because the one who takes up the sword will perish by it (Matthew 26:52).

That message runs throughout the Gospel of Matthew and paints a very coherent picture. We see it already present in the Nativity story itself.

Jesus comes into the world and is instantly divisive, not because of something he does, but because of the culture he arrives in.

Mary is pregnant.

Women are not supposed to be pregnant outside of marriage.

The law says she should be cast out.

The law says she should be punished.

Joseph has to struggle with that system inside himself.

The sword is already there. But Mary and Joseph do not take it up.

They make peace with one another.

Nonviolence at the Beginning

When they arrive in Bethlehem, they find a place for the child to be born. They do not push their way in. They do not take by force.

When they are warned that Herod is sending troops into the city, they flee. Joseph does not take up the sword. Mary does not take up the sword. They run. They hide. They protect the child.

The stories surrounding the birth of Jesus are stories of nonviolent resistance and mutual care.

The great mystery of Christmas is that God chooses to be born as a helpless, fragile child. Mystery here does not mean something to be solved. Mystery is something you enter. It is something like a Zen koan. You chew on it. You live inside it.

Mary gives birth to her Creator.

And the God who created Mary now depends on her.

That is the Gospel of mutual indwelling.

God is in all things.

All things are in God.

And because of that, we depend on one another.

Why Mutual Care Provokes Violence

Deep down, mutual indwelling awakens care. We feel the need to take care of the Christ child, not just within ourselves, not just within our families, but within our communities and the circles that stretch outward from us.

But this does not bring peace.

It does not bring peace because mutual care is at odds with the way the world prefers to function. The world prefers hierarchy. It prefers separation. It prefers systems where some people are greater and better than others.

That is why Herod sends the troops.

Power in the world is dictated, not shared. It is exercised for the benefit of the few, not for the well-being of everyone.

This is why the Gospel is experienced as dangerous. Not because it attacks the world, but because it reveals it.

The Sword Misused

Most of the time when people encounter Jesus saying he did not come to bring peace but a sword, they either gloss over it or weaponize it.

Some use it to justify violent rhetoric, to say we are warriors for Christ, that we should pick up the sword and bring the kingdom of God by force. But when you actually look at the story, that interpretation collapses.

Jesus does not come into the world with a sword. His arrival causes others to take theirs up. The slaughter of the innocents is not incidental to the Christmas story. It is part of it. It is the world responding to mutual indwelling with violence.

The kingdom is not advancing by force. It is being met with force.

The Cleansing of the Temple

This misunderstanding often shows up in how people read the cleansing of the temple.

Jesus does not pick up a sword. He picks up something used to corral animals (Matthew 21:12-17). The text does not say he beats people. It does not say he wounds anyone. It says he overturns tables and drives the animals out. It then says he healed people and was praised by the children. And that displeased those in power.

This is not an act of violence or the children would be afraid. This is not an act of war. It is a prophetic disruption.

And even here, the violence people imagine is projected onto Jesus by those who need him to justify their own coercion.

The Refusal in the Garden

The sword appears one final time in Matthew in the garden.

Peter draws it.

Jesus tells him to put it away.

Those who take the sword will perish by the sword.

This is the closure of the motif. The Gospel is not confused. It is consistent.

The Gospel does not draw the sword. Instead, it invites people into a different way of being that the coercive imperial world sees as hostile.

If all we know is coercion, then nonviolence is resistance.

Consent is resistance to coercion.

Because of that, consent is seen as a threat.

This is what causes empire to draw its sword.

Law, Coercion, and the “Or Else”

This is why the Gospel clashes so deeply with systems built on law as punishment.

Law that controls brings death (Roman 7:10-11).

Law that threatens brings punishment (Roman 7:9).

The law of the Spirit is different (Roman 8:2). It is not built on “or else.”

When Jesus names the greatest commandments, neither of them is a “thou shalt not.”

Matthew 22:34-40

34. But the Pharisees, when they heard that he had silenced the Sadducees, gathered themselves together.

35. One of them, a lawyer, asked him a question, testing him.

36. “Teacher, which is the greatest commandment in the law?”

37. Jesus said to him, “‘You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind.’

38. This is the first and great commandment.

39. A second likewise is this, ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’

40. The whole law and the prophets depend on these two commandments.”

Love that is coerced is not love.

Compassion that requires threat is not compassion.

People who cannot imagine a world without coercion try to add the “or else” back in. They want obedience enforced. They want love backed by threat.

When they cannot have it, they reach for the sword.

Via Positiva · Living Awake

We begin this work in the Via Positiva because faith begins in awe, wonder, and delight. This is how the ground is prepared. This is how the seed is nourished.

As we step back into our ordinary lives, we are invited to notice where we are bowing to coercion and giving up our right to consent.

Consent must be given.

It cannot be taken.

We do not obey in advance.

We do not obey at all.

We consent to live together in mutual care.

This is the Gospel that draws the sword. Not because it wields it, but because it reveals a world that cannot live without it.

---

Would you like more? Here is an episode of Creation’s Paths where we talk about the gospel that draws the sword.