This is a Jesus we're not always used to seeing. We're more familiar with the gentle Jesus, the teaching and healing Jesus, the giving and self-giving Jesus. When Jesus asks, this morning, "Do you think I've come to bring peace to the earth?" the obvious response is yes, of course, I think you've come to bring peace .. "Peace on earth .. is what the angels sang about at Christmas .. I thought it was what you were all about." And it is. But the question is, what kind of peace?

Do you remember the familiar saying: "Peace is not the absence of conflict. Peace is the presence of justice."? I think that's what's drives Jesus bonkers.- when we don't get it - that the love of God, the gentle, creative, abundant, all-inclusive love of God is also the passion of God - God's fierce, furious, consuming passion for justice and righteousness.

In my parish in Massachusetts, I remember a young man in his 30s who simply had no conception of God's .. greatness. I don't remember exactly what this young man's words were, but he told me that for him God was kind of a cozy figure .maybe like Santa Claus ... kind .. forgiving. - but not more than that. His teachers had bent so far over backward to tell him about God's love and God's nearness, that somehow he had never gotten to hear about what Barack Obama calls our awesome God, the God of the universe, the God whose blinding radiance pierces our human blindness, the God whose rage for justice and goodness and kindness and mercy tears through the created order like a hurricane, ripping the roofs off, tearing apart the little complacent shelters we build, and forcing us - sometimes very much against our will - to see how things really are .. and what we have done .. and what we have left undone.

Christianity, faith in God through Christ Jesus, is not, primarily, about being nice. Not that there's anything wrong with niceness. Civility, simply behaving decently to one another, is the great healing oil that keeps communities together, that makes living together more bearable than it might otherwise be. But niceness can also be destructive. Sweeping significant controversy under the rug can allow evil to fester. Jesus asks for truth, and truth can be controversial. What *is* the right thing to do in any situation? The answer isn't always clear, and disagreement can be healthy, as people work things out together. And not talking about things, because there are subjects we don't want to bring up, can violate the righteousness of God. Child abuse, for instance, is a terrible subject. I have a dear friend who was abused by his brother as a child. When, as an adult, he tried to talk about the abuse with his family, their only response was silence. "Do we have to talk about things like that?" his mother asked. And so they didn't. And the family sin remained unconfessed, and unhealed. And God's world remained corrupt in that place, God's righteousness violated.