Do not think that I have come to bring peace upon the earth.
I have come to bring not peace but the sword.
Many people believe, and more once believed, that this division Jesus came to unleash went neatly down the lines of political parties. We were allowed to believe this because for a while it was sexual morality and the adjacent issue of abortion that were sufficiently controversial to cause division. People were addicted to their sexual self expression and willing to go to bat politically to preserve their freedom. But we should remember that even when there was a political party that represented the contrary ideal, that of chastity, it was never perfectly represented. It was a compromise consensus designed to appeal to a majority. And so the real ideal of treating others as persons and not at objects was only occasionally even in view. But now neither party particularly cares about such issues. One has sexual liberation a party platform and the other no longer sees any stance on the subject as particularly relevant to their platform.
In the days of the moral majority it might have seemed like social issues around sexuality and the family were the only ones which might cause division, and might therefore matter to disciples of Jesus. The rest of politics seemed to be more a matter of opinions about the most efficient ways to order the economy, or other practical concerns. But in our own time we have seen evidence that there are other aspects of the Kingdom that can cause controversy. They all still seem to revolve around the value of human life, and when, if ever, it is OK to treat others as less than human. Abortion was just a crack in the gate which allowed us to view others as less than human for various reasons that all basically come down to the fact that they and their needs are inconvenient for us.
For I have come to set
a man against his father,
a daughter against her mother,
and a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law;
and one's enemies will be those of his household.
Political parties seem to be incapable of representing the implications of the Gospel of Jesus. But perhaps this isn't that surprising since they are implicitly expected not to talk about him, and to ignore the origins of their belief in human dignity. We might think that it would be more likely that families, at least, could be unified groups supporting the teachings of Jesus. But although this is not impossible, we have seen that it isn't the default or even necessarily common. Families are often so focused on the exigencies of daily life that they can't properly prioritize the Kingdom. They are designed to maintain their own self-interest. This means it isn't a stretch for them to go too far in a willingness to use or trample the rights of others to improve their own lot. Many often tend toward self-affirmation, rather than moral self-correction. It is too easy for families to become little tyrannical states pursuing their own goals apart from the common good.
Jesus entered the human scene and found no preexisting groups that were automatically always going to be aligned with his teachings. It is not that there is any group that cannot be thus aligned. It is just that perverse incentives seem to make most of them not fully achieve it. This means that as Christians there can be no group on earth, political, familiar, or otherwise, that holds our allegiance more completely than Jesus and his Church.
Because those pursuing the Kingdom often lack much support from others Jesus put a premium on the value of the support we ourselves can provide.
Whoever receives a prophet because he is a prophet
will receive a prophet's reward,
and whoever receives a righteous man
because he is righteous
will receive a righteous man's reward.
We might not all be prophets, but we can still receive a prophet's reward just by showing one hospitality. We may not all be as righteous as we would like, but in showing kindness to those who are, to the saints in our midst, we can share in the reward their righteousness merits, rather than what we truly deserve. Even small contributions such as we are able to make are valuable. A cup of water might not mean much on its own. But when it is given for the sake of the Kingdom, because one is a disciple, it becomes much more than it would otherwise be.
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