I want to start by making a claim about modern politics and then make a claim about the Christian life. Here is the first claim: at the foundation of modern politics is the conviction that human beings are violent and possessive creatures. You can go read the classical texts by the greatest political minds in modern history and in their works you will find these convictions about human beings. Thomas Hobbes said that in a state of nature— in a world without good politics—human beings live in a war of all against all.1 Jean-Jacques Rousseau once wrote that: I can discover nothing in any mere animal but an ingenious machine, to which nature has given senses to wind itself up, and guard . . . against everything that might destroy or disorder it.2 And John Locke wrote that such is the natural viciousness of human beings that government has no other end than the preservation of property.3
The way we do politics today is a consequence of these convictions about human nature. Laws, legislation, elections, compromise, state and national constitutions: these are the tools of modern politics, and these tools are used to make peace possible for human beings who—so the story goes—would only do violence to one another without the help of politics. The problem that politics hopes to solve is a wickedness in human nature and the goal of politics is to make peace possible.
I think that one of the reasons that Christianity at times gets along so well with modern politics—and at times becomes so confused with modern politics—is because, as far as stories go, Christianity tells a similar story. The contours of these two narratives have much in common. Like the story told by modern politics, we Christians believe that there is a brokenness in human nature that stands in need of healing. And like the story told by modern politics, we Christians believe that peace is a proper goal for a nation, a society, a culture, a world. Both the story told by modern politics and the story told by Christianity respond to weakness in human nature with the hope of building peace.
The problem is that despite these similarities, modern politics and Christianity approach reality from completely different perspectives. The story of modern politics is a story of violent, vicious, and possessive human beings that foregoes any mention of original sin, first parents, or creation in God’s image. And modern politics speaks of peace but the peace of which it speaks is not the peace of Christianity. Christian peace is deeper, more engaging, and more fundamental to what it means to be a human person than the peace we hear spoken of by politicians and activists.
Which is why we hear Christ say in the Gospel today: Do you think that I have come to establish peace on the earth? No, I tell you, but rather division. What we can’t conclude from Christ’s words that Christianity is not a religion of peace. As one theologian has written: Christianity has from its beginning portrayed itself as a gospel of peace, a way of reconciliation . . . and a new model of human community, offering the ‘peace which passes all understanding’ to a world enmeshed in sin and violence.4 So, the key to making sense of Christ’s teaching in the Gospel today is that the peace of which Christ speaks is the peace of politics—and not Christian peace.
We need to understand the difference between these two kinds of peace. When St. Thomas Aquinas speaks of peace, he makes a distinction between peace and concord.5 Concord is the kind of peace we hear spoken about in politics: concord exists when two or more people agree on something that matters. Concord is when everyone gets along; when there is no violence or conflict that drives people apart from one another. But concord is not the same as authentic Christian peace. Christian peace is all about our interior lives. Those experiences that we have—experiences of conflict between our desires, when we can’t decide what we want the most, or when a part of us deeply desires something that another part of us rejects—Christian peace is when we don’t experience that kind of conflict and division in our interior lives. We experience Christian peace when our lives are complete, when our lives are made whole. We experience peace when we have found what it is we most desire; when there is nothing that stands between ourselves and our deepest longings.
The claim that St. Thomas makes about real, authentic peace means that real, authentic peace is only a possibility for the Christian. And this is because what each of us desires most—whether we know it or not—is a relationship—a union—with God. As St. Augustine said, our hearts are restless until they rest in you, O Lord.6 Apart from relationship with God there is no peace. I think it is for this reason that St. Thomas teaches that peace is a consequence of charity—of love. Peace follows from a life of love. The person who loves God with his or her whole heart experiences real and authentic peace because for that person nothing stands between them and what they most desire. The Christian promise is that through Christ and the Church we can know God in these lives of ours; for those who believe in Christ, real and authentic peace is possible.
So, what is happening in today’s Gospel? Christ teaches us that he has not entered the life of the world so that everyone might agree or get along with one another. Christ is not doing politics. The mission of Christ is not a mission of compromise or legislation. Christ came to the world so that we might experience authentic peace for ourselves through a relationship with God that satisfies the deepest desires of our hearts. As we hear in John’s Gospel, Christ has come so that we might have life—union with God—and have it more abundantly.7 It is this union with God that is the source of peace. And the problem is that some people will always reject the offer of authentic peace. Some people will reject relationship with God and the consequence is division: within a family, within a country, within a culture. I think that one of the tragedies of our age is that so many Christians have come to believe that politics can accomplish more than politics is capable of accomplishing. Through legislation and compromise, elections and constitutions, we might use the tools of politics to build up concord in our country or our culture. The tools of politics might help us to get along with one another. But to get along with one another is not peace. Peace comes only through Christ.
I said that I wanted to make a claim about the Christian life and here it is: Christ is the only source of healing for what is broken in our human nature. Politics cannot restore us; politics can only push back against the consequences of what is broken within us. Politics cannot satisfy the deepest desires of our heart; politics cannot unite us to God. The stories told by Christianity and modern politics are not the same at all: the narrative of politics is one of violence and law; the narrative of Christianity is one of sin and redemption. The peace that Christ offers is found only through a life of faith realized through the works of love and the conviction of hope. The world will not know peace until the world knows Christ.
And that claim about the Christian life means that we all have work to do. On Monday, as our Church celebrates the Solemnity of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary, a new year will begin for our own Source of All Hope missionary community. And two new missionaries have come to Baltimore City to join a community that is wholeheartedly committed to the building up of peace. These missionaries have come to do the work of peace in a City that is broken. I know that the language of peace is not the language we first think of when we think of Source. But let me ask you a question: if peace is a consequence of love and love is a consequence of knowing God and the missionaries of Source are committed to bringing Christ and the love of God to the streets of our city, then what else are they doing than building up peace in a city that stands in need of healing? To work for peace is to work to tear down every barrier that stands between a person and a life spent in relationship with Christ. Sometimes those barriers are spiritual; sometimes those barriers are psychological; sometimes those barriers are economic or structural within a society. But to tear down the barriers of division that keep us from Christ is to work for peace, and this is the work that these Source missionaries have come to the City of Baltimore to accomplish.
We are all called to do that same work: to build up peace in our world. And do not think that to do the work of building up Christian peace in our world has no effect on politics. St. Thomas is clear: in a world in which there is authentic Christian peace, there is also concord. In other words: in a world in which every person loves God with their whole heart, we all get along with one another. Such is the effect of charity—of friendship with God—that the person who so loves God so also loves their neighbor. To want an end to the violence and possessiveness and viciousness and conflict that separates us from one another in society—to want the peace of modern politics—means that we have much work to do in our Church and in our culture. Christ says in the Gospel today he has come to set the earth on fire. He wishes it were already blazing. That fire is the fire of divine love; that fire is the love of the Cross. That is the fire that Christ uses to ignite our hearts and minds with love for God. That is the fire that gives peace to a broken and divided world that stands in need of healing. The love of the Cross is the politics of peace.
Thomas Hobbes, De Cive (1642).
Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Discourse on the Origin and Basis of Inequality Among Men (1755).
John Locke, Second Treatise of Government (1690).
David Bentley Hart, The Beauty of the Infinite: The Aesthetics of Christian Truth. Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdman’s, 2003. p. 1.
St. Thomas Aquinas, Summa theologiae. II-II, q. 29, a. 1.
St. Augustine, Confessions. Book 1, chapter 1.
Homily delivered at the Basilica of the National Shrine of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary on August 13th, 2022.
Cf. John 10:10.
Beautifully said.