Sermon 17 August

Saint Margaret’s

Anglican Church

Budapest, Hungary

17 August 2025

Isaiah 5:1-7; Psalm 80:1-2, 8-18

Hebrews 11:29-12:2; Luke 12:49-56

Do you think that I have come to bring peace to the earth…?

President Donald Trump of the United States and President Vladimir Putin of Russia, two

very different men with vastly different backgrounds and personalities, nevertheless met

this past Friday ostensibly to discuss the goal of humankind’s longest, and so far alas, least-

successful, quest, that for lasting peace. That they met in Alaska, once a frontier outpost of

Russia and still today often called America’s Last Frontier, to deliberate peace in Ukraine,

a land yet again as different and far from Alaska as it is possible to imagine, is perhaps

emblematic in itself of humanity’s elusive, and sometimes quixotic, search for peace.

Whether their efforts will bear any fruit in the days to come is at this point anybody’s guess.

Although, I must add, everybody on Facebook I am familiar with seems to know the

answer. Which prompts the question: So, why don’t they do something…?

Back in 1965, the then pope, Paul the Sixth, a world leader in his way different again from

either Trump or Putin, also embarked on a journey in quest of peace, traveling from Rome

and the Vatican, not to Alaska, but to far-off New York City and the United Nations

General Assembly gathered there. I believe this was two firsts for a sitting pope, first time in

the United States and the first time addressing the United Nations. Believe it or not, I

actually remember watching that speech on black-and-white television, though only one line

has stuck with me over the decades.

“If you want peace,” emphasised the Pope, looking directly at the assembled statesmen in

front of him, they were all men back then, “If you want peace, work for justice.” An

admirable sentiment, to be sure: justice as the foundation or basis of peace. Still, whether

his journey to New York and his speech there represented in any way a turning point along

the long and winding road to peace I will leave to the historians to decide, or more likely

hotly debate. It seems the path to peace is as much filled with traffic as it is with obstacles.

“Do you think that I have come to bring peace to the earth?” asks our Lord in the account

this morning from the Gospel of Luke. “Do you think that I have come to bring peace to

the earth?” Before anyone can pipe up and say, why, yes, Jesus, we do think just that, our

Lord answers his own rhetorical question, “No, I tell you but rather division!” Not peace.

“But rather division!” If you ask me, this is just about as jarring a statement from the lips

of our Lord, proclaimed at his birth the Prince of Peace, about as jarring a statement of his

as you will find anywhere in Scripture.

And keep in mind that, at this point in Luke’s Gospel telling, Jesus, along with his disciples,

is also on the road, on a journey from Galilee to Jerusalem, a journey from home to theunknown, a journey finally to the Cross, the ultimate sign of contradiction and conflict, yet

at the same time the only crossroads along humankind’s prolonged and tortuous trek which

paradoxically brings lasting peace.

Yet, that peace is won at a cost. It is not cheap. It sometimes first brings, as our Lord

himself bluntly tells us, the polar opposite of peace, at least as we imagine peace. It brings

division. “From now on,” says Jesus, “five in one household will be divided, three against

two and two against three.” Families too will be divided, he goes on to say. What to make

of it…? Well, our Lord is speaking of course about the cost of discipleship, as martyred

twentieth-century German theologian, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, once called it.

The cost of discipleship. A cost not paid in rubles or dollars, euros or forints, tariffs or

taxes, but only in grace. A cost paid in full at the Cross. So, perhaps the Pope decades ago

should also have reminded the world that if you do indeed want peace, if you do indeed

work for justice in the world, you had better be prepared as well for all hell to break loose,

if you will excuse the expression. That is the consequence of sin. That is the world we

inhabit.

If peace is won only in the paradox and pain of the Cross, justice too is not cheap. It is also

hard-won. We see this in the Middle East, the very land of the Prince of Peace; and we see

it in Ukraine today as well, among our neighbours and friends to the East. We see it too in

other parts of the world, from Central Africa to Central America, and beyond. But the

same is as true in families at home and in small communities as it is in major societies and

great nation-states. And in spite of the Pope’s plea years ago, the elusive goal of peace

remains as distant as ever it was, as distant, say, as Alaska.

“I have come,” says Jesus yet again in our Gospel account, “I have come to bring fire to the

earth,” the fire no doubt of the Burning Bush and God’s abiding presence among his

people; the fire of purification and transformation as experienced by Isaiah, the fire of

compassion fueled by the yearning for justice. The Gospel in other words, though it may

begin as a lantern flame flickering along the dark path of life, is nevertheless destined to

become a spiritual conflagration which can illumine and change the world. More

importantly, change hearts. Change us

So, is it any wonder that Jesus got himself into so much trouble…? He challenged not only

the accepted way of doing things. He challenged our thinking, our very understanding of

what it means to be who we are, to be a part of the Kingdom of Heaven. If Jesus had only

been a political radical or social media activist, he would have long ago been forgotten. But

the message of Jesus’ Gospel remains with us still today to light our way to the Cross and

ultimate peace. To illumine our hearts with its fire and flame.

The Gospel, my friends, the Gospel of justice and peace, is still too hot to handle.

Amen.

The Rev. Canon Dr. Frank Hegedűs