No More of This!
Jesus responds to swords
Yesterday, our passage ended with Jesus saying, “Enough of this!” to the disciples’ remark that they have two swords among them. Jesus had just suggested that in order to look like they were among criminals, they should sell their clothes to purchase swords that he might appear to be counted among criminals. It’s probably not an exact parallel, but imagine today a group of twelve individuals walking around the streets brandishing hand guns. They likely would not be regarded as the highest of society’s upstanding individuals.
But the disciples again missed the point, noted that among themselves they do have two swords, and Jesus had had enough and verbalized it - That’s enough! - as a statement not of sufficiency, but of exasperation.
Today’s passage begins with Jesus taking his disciples into what he intends to be a place of prayer. You know the story well - it’s his biggest moment of anguish to this point, pouring his life out in prayer, and the disciples slumber along nearby. Twice Jesus tells them to pray, specifically that they won’t give in to temptation. They don’t pray. So they are likely not prepared when temptation comes. Which it does very soon.
Their very next question shows it - Lord, should we fight with our swords now?
And before Jesus answers, or perhaps in a intentional silence to fulfill what he said earlier - he was counted among criminals - one of them decides to do it anyway, cutting off the ear of Caiaphas’ servant. Jesus yet again says, “Stop! No more of this!”1
And in the midst of the violence, his display of action is yet again healing. That is what he told us in Nazareth he would do. Imagine the moment, if you can. In just a bit, he’ll hang on a cross between criminals. But it began here in what he commanded to be a place of prayer.2 Yet his disciples, not unlike the merchants in the temple, made it something other than a place of prayer. Slumber and violence.
Jesus’ disciples chose slumber and violence.
In the midst of such highs and lows - apathy and intensity - bad choices are easy to make. Who of us, amidst the things of the temptation that comes when we are either tired or threatened, hasn’t felt the utterly strong pull to give in to bodily vices or the desire to react in anger and violence? These are both activities that we easily fall into, compulsive behaviors lazily made without wisdom and discernment as to what the Kingdom actually looks like in moments of weakness, threat, and crisis.
Our passage ends with Peter’s anguish among it all. We can each likely identify with what he may have been feeling as he was challenged by identification with Christ. I myself can picture it on something like a schoolyard playground, with a crowd of kids gathered around pretending they know things. My response was to just deny, cover my face/butt, and get out of there as soon as possible. At least I didn’t choose a sword. But the choice of indifference is just as bad.
And we know it. So we weep bitterly.
Luke 22:39-62
Jesus left and made his way to the Mount of Olives, as was his custom, and the disciples followed him. When he arrived, he said to them, “Pray that you won’t give in to temptation.” He withdrew from them about a stone’s throw, knelt down, and prayed. He said, “Father, if it’s your will, take this cup of suffering away from me. However, not my will but your will must be done.” Then a heavenly angel appeared to him and strengthened him. He was in anguish and prayed even more earnestly. His sweat became like drops of blood falling on the ground. When he got up from praying, he went to the disciples. He found them asleep, overcome by grief. He said to them, “Why are you sleeping? Get up and pray so that you won’t give in to temptation.”
While Jesus was still speaking, a crowd appeared, and the one called Judas, one of the Twelve, was leading them. He approached Jesus to kiss him.
Jesus said to him, “Judas, would you betray the Human One with a kiss?”
When those around him recognized what was about to happen, they said, “Lord, should we fight with our swords?” One of them struck the high priest’s servant, cutting off his right ear.
Jesus responded, “Stop! No more of this!” He touched the slave’s ear and healed him.
Then Jesus said to the chief priests, the officers of the temple guard, and the elders who had come to get him, “Have you come with swords and clubs to arrest me, as though I were a thief? Day after day I was with you in the temple, but you didn’t arrest me. But this is your time, when darkness rules.”
After they arrested Jesus, they led him away and brought him to the high priest’s house. Peter followed from a distance. When they lit a fire in the middle of the courtyard and sat down together, Peter sat among them.
Then a servant woman saw him sitting in the firelight. She stared at him and said, “This man was with him too.”
But Peter denied it, saying, “Woman, I don’t know him!”
A little while later, someone else saw him and said, “You are one of them too.”
But Peter said, “Man, I’m not!”
An hour or so later, someone else insisted, “This man must have been with him, because he is a Galilean too.”
Peter responded, “Man, I don’t know what you are talking about!” At that very moment, while he was still speaking, a rooster crowed. The Lord turned and looked straight at Peter, and Peter remembered the Lord’s words: “Before a rooster crows today, you will deny me three times.” And Peter went out and cried uncontrollably.
Prayer & Psalm (adpated from Psalm 141:3-4)
God,
Set a guard over my mouth. Keep close watch over the door that is my lips. Don’t let my heart turn aside to evil things, so that I don’t do wicked things with evildoers, so I don’t taste their delicacies.
The choice is easy to defend the comforts I enjoy through the things of violence, or more often, to pay others to hold violence or its threat for me. We live so enmeshed in it, we hardly recognize it.
Help us, God.
By your Spirit & in Christ,
Amen.
The Greek phrases in these two moment in which Jesus says something like “Stop!” are different, though they both have a meaning that tells the disciples to cease what they are saying (the first time) and doing (the second time). The first time, the Greek is a declarative cutting off of conversation - (“It is enough!”); the second time, an urgent command - “Stop right there!” The ethical twisting and gymnastics some people have gone through to make the first instance a place in which Jesus tells his disciples to arm themselves is extremely unfortunate and totally antithetical to what he is setting forth for his Kingdom overall. His Kingdom is not of this world and will not operate or look like Kingdoms of this world, scrambling on top of each other with swords and spears.
In the context of the Roman Empire, Jews gathered with swords would certainly have been seen as an act of defiance and intended revolt. Indeed, we know of such moments in which Jews with swords indeed meant for revolt. And we know that elements of zealousness were among the disciples. But Jesus was calling for another way.