EDITOR'S NOTE: In October 2017 I began a new venture as a synodically authorized minister at Faith Lutheran Church in Wolverton, Minn. The ride over the past 2.5 years has been an amazing journey of learning, growing and the deepening of my theological mind. This sermon originally took place on Aug. 4, 2019.
So, whoa. … Talk about a really difficult gospel passage to hear for us Christians who have been brought up on a healthy dose of the peaceful and loving savior whom we’ve all come to know and love.
Quote … “Jesus said: ‘I came to bring fire to the earth, and how I wish it were already kindled!’”
That’s a far cry from the image of the gentle shepherd many of us are used to.
And … “Do you think that I have come to bring peace to the earth? No, I tell you, but rather division! From now on five in one household will be divided, three against two and two against three; they will be divided …”
That’s way different than the conciliator that we are used to from our Sunday school stories. … The picture of the savior sitting on a rock, surrounded by his adoring subjects.
And finally … “You hypocrites! You know how to interpret the appearance of earth and sky, but why do you not know how to interpret the present time?”
Name-calling isn’t something we usually associate with our Lord Jesus either. … Now is it?
So just what is it that we are to make of this week’s Gospel? To be sure, as a pastor, there is a temptation to skip over it. ... Move to another lesson from the week, or go off script altogether.
Develop a sermon from another life lesson that I learned this week. And I’m sure that you would have been fine with that. We would have went about our weeks none the more challenged. None the more jarred.
But the truth is that it’s difficult passages like today’s gospel that we as Christians need to come to terms with. Because even though Jesus is a Lord of peace and love and unity, there is another truth. ... Jesus is also a Lord of correction and criticism and, yes ... even judgement.
If you are like me, this is a sometimes difficult message: That the one who is our key to heaven, the one who connects us with our Creator, is also the one charged with deciding whether we are living as we ought to ... living as we are commanded to.
And in this particular passage Jesus is pointing his finger at the gathered crowd -- just as that finger is pointed at us today -- and chastising them for their actions … or possibly lack of action.
Especially disheartening is his final sentence of the discourse, where he points out that this very wise 1st century crowd of people can look to the skies and discern what the local weather is going to be, but they can’t take a look around them to their immediate surroundings and understand what is taking place.
Greed, selfishness, a lust for power, the taking advantage of the powerless, destruction of the Creator’s earth.
Jesus isn’t pulling any punches here. Today’s gospel is not a soft and gentle message of love and forgiveness. … Not in the least.
This is a full-blown judgement that that 1st century crowd he was speaking to -- and, of course, even us today -- is hypocritical. ... When he rhetorically asks why it is that we can’t interpret the present time, he’s blatantly asking us why it is that we can’t take a look around and see the devastation taking place. All of the injustice.
In other words, we are as guilty of the same crime as that 1st century crowd was. … And I don’t know about you, but that makes me cringe. … Kind of makes me embarrassed. Makes me want to hide from our Lord as I did when I was a child.
After all, what am I doing about all the division around me? What am I doing to fight injustice? … What am I doing to give voice to the powerless? … How am I fighting the multiple systems that keep so many oppressed and downtrodden?
This is a tough message to hear. … Because it puts us on the spot. … It asks more of us as followers of Jesus, and frankly ... that can be daunting at times.
“Hypocrites?” … Ouch! … We’re not used to hearing that from our Lord.
But, as difficult as it is to hear, maybe it’s exactly the message we need to move us from our complacency.
After all, we need to come to terms with the fact that as much as Jesus was sent to earth to spread love and bring unity, he also was sent here to combat evil, in whatever form that may take, including greed and selfishness and racism and environmental destruction and the hoarding of wealth.
And sometimes the fight against such forces is going to get ugly … “I came to bring fire to the earth, and how I wish it were already kindled!”
Jesus knew the stakes, and he wasn’t shy with what this meant for his followers. When he talks about the division he brings with him, he isn’t talking about the trivial disagreements between one U.S. political party and the other.
The division he was talking about is what it means to be a Jesus follower, and how that separates Jesus followers from the rest of the world.
Quoting from the gospel: “father against son, and son against father, mother against daughter, and daughter against mother,” etc.
In the 1st century, as people converted to Christianity … converted to become Jesus followers … it meant that they’d often be at odds with even their loved ones. … A son might convert, and be at odds with his father’s beliefs. And so on.
What Jesus meant to tell us is that following in his footsteps was going to separate us from those who belong to this world, those who have adopted the earthly value systems as their own. And so we will be in the middle of the division.
Don’t misunderstand Jesus here: He isn’t insinuating that the trivial misguided divisions that separate us here on earth are his doing. That’s all on us.
The division for which he is responsible and brings with him is the division of Jesus follower versus the rest of the earthly believers. … A division that may put us at odds even with those we love the most. … And that, my friends, can be terrifying.
So, again, I ask, just what is that we are to do with today’s gospel. A gospel that both casts judgement us as being hypocritical, earthly dwellers, but also tells us that there is a path, a way through the difficult challenges this world presents us.
We can all acknowledge that we live in a difficult time. I don’t feel qualified to decide whether it’s any more divisive of an age than any other, but it sure seems so in my short four and a half decades on this earth.
I don’t think it’s an exaggeration to say that society seems to be tearing itself apart, and the divisions are many: politics, religious disagreements, international discord, fights over the environment, abortion, access to health care … and this list goes on.
But the radical question I have for you is: What if it is Jesus himself that is responsible for these divisions? ... What if in our arrogance we’ve assumed that the “other” side is to be blamed … when after all it was Christ himself exposing us for the hypocrites we really are?
As Luther professor Dr. Michael Chan recently wrote in a commentary based on this gospel passage: “But those moments of crisis call us to cling to Christ, thank him for his fire, and acknowledge that he is present, exposing us for what we are, and ultimately offering us the gift of true peace.”
Yes, today’s gospel reminds us that Christ brings his fire to this earth to expose all that is wrong with it. … But Jesus also brings his peace to us as well, and in this age when the divisiveness feels so acute, that is what we must cling to.
And that is the good news for this Sunday. … Amen.
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