Sermon for August 14, 2022
Sermon title: "Not Peace But Division!"
Scripture: Luke 12:49-56
(Other lectionary choices include Isaiah 5:1-7, Psalm 80:1-2 and 8-19, and Hebrews 11:29 - 12:2.)
Luke 12:49-56
Jesus the Cause of Division
49"I came to bring fire to the earth, and how I wish it were already kindled! 50I have a baptism with which to be baptized, and what stress I am under until it is completed! 51Do you think that I have come to bring peace to the earth? No, I tell you, but rather division! 52From now on five in one household will be divided, three against two and two against three; 53they will be divided: father against son and son against father, mother against daughter and daughter against mother, mother-in-law against her daughter-in-law and daughter-in-law against mother-in-law."
Interpreting the Time
54He also said to the crowds, "When you see a cloud rising in the west, you immediately say, ‘It is going to rain’; and so it happens. 55And when you see the south wind blowing, you say, ‘There will be scorching heat’; and it happens. 56You hypocrites! You know how to interpret the appearance of earth and sky, but why do you not know how to interpret the present time?
The sermon title is "Not Peace But Division", and the words of Jesus that we heard today from Luke's Gospel are a little bit shocking, I think, to most of us. I know that some of you like to watch Joel Osteen on TV, and if you get some sort of inspiration from him, I'm glad. But keep in mind that Joel's good-feeling message isn't the ONLY part of the Gospel message. Did you hear Jesus's words today? "Do you think that I have come to bring peace to the earth? No, I tell you, but rather division!" What does he mean? Those words certainly don't sound like "Gentle Jesus, meek and mild", do they? By the way, I have said it before and I'll say it again: that phrase "Gentle Jesus, meek and mild" is NOT Biblical! Somebody INVENTED that phrase, and I'm going to guess it was back in the 19th century. What Jesus means is that his message is not all sweetness and light. The fact that he uses the word "fire" means that JUDGMENT is involved. And his listeners would understand: that word "fire" meant judgment to the Jews of Jesus's day. We might keep that in mind in our own day. While I'm not a "fire and brimstone" preacher - and our denomination is not much for that, either - and while we are "saved" by the grace of God, that doesn't give us a special status in God's eyes, a status that lets us ignore those who may be suffering. I am not saying that any of you do, but Jesus was warning his fellow Jews that just because they were children of Abraham did NOT mean that God was going to give THEM a free ride.
Before Jesus talks about fire, he talks about a certain baptism he must undergo. What is THAT about? The Greek word "baptizo" means to overflow with water, and it can also mean to be submerged in a grim and terrible experience, and that is what Jesus means here. His grim and terrible experience is his upcoming death on the Cross. He is OF COURSE stressed out about it, and he lets us know in the passage we heard today.
Something else that may shock you from what Jesus said in today's Scripture lesson: families will be torn apart because of him and his message. And that's true, isn't it? That may seem silly to fight over religion, but that's not what this is about. The fight is over truth, GOD's truth, and Jesus calls each one of us to be true to GOD first, even over the family.
Remember the Ten Commandments? What's the first one? Thou shalt have no other gods before ME. That means our allegiance to God comes FIRST, over every other allegiance, including country and family. That allegiance also means that God's Truth comes first, over country and over family. Last week I preached about Abraham and Sarah, and how they had a son late in life. That was Isaac, and later on in Genesis, Abraham is told by God to sacrifice him to God. Abraham can't believe it! Sacrifice his only son, after all the trouble he and Sarah had in getting pregnant? But Abraham WAS prepared to sacrifice his only son because God commanded it. At the last instant, God or an angel of the Lord stops Abraham's hand from killing his only son Isaac. What that terrible story says is that GOD comes before even family, even your one and only child!
That's a tough message, isn't it? But it's in the Bible, and it's in there more than once. What we heard from Luke's Gospel today is another iteration of having no other gods before ME. And such a stance, says Jesus, has a great possibility of alienating family members. Are you going to be loyal to family first or God first? Are you going to be loyal to your family's version of the truth, or are you going to be loyal to God's Truth? Back in the Book of Joshua in the Old Testament the challenge is laid down: "Choose this day whom you will serve. As for me and my household, we will serve the Lord." That would be a great place to end this sermon, but I have more to say! The Scottish scholar William Barclay puts it this way: "His {Jesus's} coming would inevitably mean division; in point of fact, it did. That was one of the great reasons why the Romans hated Christianity -- it tore families in two. Over and over again people had to decide whether they loved better their families or Christ. The essence of Christianity is that loyalty to Christ has to take precedence over the dearest loyalties of this earth." Oh, is that a hard message to preach and for you to hear! But it's part of our faith. We may yearn for the "Gentle Jesus", but sometimes he lays down the law, such as what we heard today in the Gospel lesson.
I just thought of something else: in Mark's Gospel, I believe, Jesus is teaching in somebody's house, and his mother and brothers show up to bring him home. They knew that any "Messiah" talk could get Jesus in trouble, and they wanted to bring him home and keep him safe. But what did Jesus say? He looked around at those he was teaching and said something like, "Whoever hears and does the will of my Father in heaven are my mother and my brothers." See? Even then Jesus realized that obedience to God and God's Truth was more important than his own family.
The last part of today's Scripture lesson talks about the weather. Well, not really the weather! Jesus is simply pointing out that his listeners were weather-wise, in that they could interpret certain signs as meaning that a storm was brewing, or a heat wave was approaching. I think he was frustrated in that his listeners could recognize weather events, but they "could not, or would not, read the signs of the times", says William Barclay. "If they had, they would have seen that the kingdom of God was on the way."
N. T. Wright points out that the church throughout the ages has looked at today's Scripture reading and interpreted it as meaning that every generation needs to read the signs of the times. Says he, "If the kingdom of God is to come on earth as it is in heaven, part of the prophetic role of the church is to understand the events of earth and to seek to address them with the message of heaven. And if, like Jesus, we find that we seem to be bringing division, and that we ourselves become caught up in the crisis, so be it. What else would we expect?"
Have we become too comfortable? Years ago, there was a book called "The Comfortable Pew", with the idea that maybe we WERE too comfortable. Maybe we were no longer the salt of the earth, as Jesus put it. "Sometimes, for instance", says Wright, "the selections of Bible readings for church services omit all the passages that speak of judgment, of warnings, of the stern demands of God's holiness. Maybe there are times when, like Jesus himself on this occasion, we need to wake people up.... There are, after all, plenty of warnings in the Bible about the dangers of going to sleep on the job." Amen.
Pastor Skip
