Neill Morgan

Sermon Delivered August 19, 2007

Luke 12:49-56

49“I came to bring fire to the earth, and how I wish it were already kindled! 50 I have a baptism with which to be baptized, and what stress I am under until it is completed! 51 Do you think that I have come to bring peace to the earth? No, I tell you, but rather division! 52 From now on five in one household will be divided, three against two and two against three; 53 they 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.”

54 He 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. 55 And when you see the south wind blowing, you say, ‘There will be scorching heat’; and it happens. 56 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?

The Promise of Conflict

“Do you think that I have come to bring peace to the earth?” Jesus asks.

“Well, yes,” we could say.  “That’s what the angels sang when you were born, and it was in this very Gospel: 

“Glory to God in the highest heaven,

        And on earth peace among those whom he favors!”

But here, Jesus answers his own rhetorical question, “No, I tell you, but rather division!”

And with this saying, Jesus hands over all the ammunition the anti-Christian bloggers need, some Islamic, some atheist, to claim that Christianity is not a religion of peace, but rather war and division among people.  Or, to claim that Christianity is inconsistent.

If, as Emerson said, “A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds,” then biblical Christianity truly requires an expansive mind, or at least a mind capable of dealing with paradox, tension, and outright contradictions.

And, as much as we may want to stick with the baby Jesus of whom the angels sang “Peace on earth,” once Jesus begins to talk, he begins disturbing the peace.  His own family gets a hint of what’s to come when the 12-year-old Jesus disappears during the festival of Passover in Jerusalem.  Jesus throws his family into turmoil by going to the temple without even telling his mother where he would be.

In his first sermon, he insults the hometown crowd by telling them they’re no better than Gentiles, then he goes around healing on the Sabbath in the synagogue, challenging the religious authorities, the Pharisees, and calling them hypocrites and pointing out how they say one thing and do another.

By the time Jesus heads toward Jerusalem here in chapter 12, his words about bringing division rather than peace are not only a prediction of the future, but also a reflection and a lament on his own history.  It’s already happened.  Wherever he has been, he has brought a crisis, a decision point, a division between those who have ears to hear and those who conspire against him.

But, the most scandalous, divisive, and crisis-inducing act of all is yet to come:  his death on a cross.  As the scripture in Leviticus says, the one who is nailed to a tree is cursed.  How, then, can the one who is God in human flesh be crucified?  It’s contrary to scripture.   When disciples claim that Jesus’ death on the cross is the means of salvation, and that he defeated death by rising, it creates a crisis everywhere the story is told.  By the time Luke writes the gospel, these words ring true to his readers.  They have lived the reality that because of Jesus, households are divided:

Father against son

And son against father,

Mother against daughter

And daughter against mother,

Mother-in-law against daughter-in-law

And daughter-in-law against mother-in-law.

The story of the early church as Luke tells it in Acts unfolds with men and women coming to a crisis point when they hear the gospel story, making a decision, receiving baptism and becoming disciples.  The jailer of Paul and Silas, the Eunuch in the carriage met by Phillip, Lydia the seller of purple cloth, Cornelius the Roman centurion, then thousands of people at a time hearing the gospel story preached by Peter, repenting of their sins, and becoming disciples of Jesus.

It would be easy to envision the story of the early church as an unqualified success, a sweeping movement that picks up everyone in its momentum, moving steadily toward the day when every knee shall bow and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord.

But, here Luke gives us some insight into the details beneath the surface.  What is happening in the households of those converts as they are baptized and received into the fellowship of the church?  There is division.  There is conflict, just as the early church had to deal with the conflict resulting from all the unclean Gentiles showing up for prayer meetings.

All this is to say that Jesus is not surprised at us today when our families or our churches face conflict.  When we take seriously our faith in Jesus Christ, we find ourselves challenged in every area of our lives to live counter to our culture.  How do we spend our time?  How do we use our money and how much do we give away?  How do we treat those whom our society has thrown away, or those whom our friends and family have told us to avoid?  How do we deal with insult or injury, with failing marriages, rebellious children, ill parents, or people we find obnoxious?

If we address all those important questions of life through the lens of our faith in Jesus Christ, chances are we will get some resistance.  Jesus’ words about family division will ring true for us at some point in life.

When a college student makes the decision to spend a year as a young adult Volunteer in Mission, it is not unusual for their families to resist with gently challenging questions, such as,  “What are you, some kind of a religious fanatic?”

Most of the resistance is related to concern over their safety.  Parents and grandparents don’t want their young adult children or grandchildren to take unnecessary risks.  I can relate to that.  But then there are some who challenge the whole idea of spending a year of one’s life in service to the poor and the outcast.  “How will that get your career off the ground?  While you’re off in some far corner of the world, your peers are getting ahead in grad school or entry-level career positions.  You’ll be paying for this the rest of your life!”

A decision like that of our young adult volunteers in mission only makes sense in light of the gospel of Jesus Christ.  And even then, the personal decision to answer a call in that way, to take that risk of career and personal safety, is only clear to the person whose decision it is.  Very faithful Christians will find themselves in disagreement when it comes to deciding how much risk is reasonable and how much is unwise.

So, where’s the good news in all this conflict, division, and discord?

Why couldn’t the gospel have stuck with the theme of the angels, Peace on earth, goodwill to all?

The good news for us is perhaps more modest than a permanent world peace, but then perhaps it is more extraordinary.  When, in the course of our relationships with family and friends, church and community, and even nations and peoples, we run into division and conflict, strife and dissension, we may feel that we are far from God.  What does God who sent the Prince of Peace have to do with us, mere human beings who raise our hackles, get on our high horse, go tilting at windmills, and rush to war for a righteous cause?

We might be tempted to say, each time we find ourselves in family conflict, “Well, I must be doing something right because this is just what Jesus said would happen, not peace but division!  I must be a super-faithful Christian to have caused all this trouble!”

But, here’s what we can say, and this is crystal clear from the witness of Luke:  When we find ourselves in conflict over our attempts to be faithful to Jesus Christ, Christ is still near.  Whether we are on the right or wrong side, or more likely, both partly right and partly wrong, Jesus does not abandon us in the midst of the conflict.  He is right there with us, working toward reconciliation and right resolution.  He has been there, he knows what it is like to be resisted for doing the right thing.

Now, this is not the same thing as saying that Jesus is always on our side against our opponent.  Humans being what we are, it is highly likely that the things we will fight most passionately about are not pure and spotless in God’s eyes.  The promise is not the promise that Jesus will help us achieve righteous victory, but that ultimately the victory that will be won is not ours but God’s.  On our journey toward that, God will not abandon us to our sin, whether our sin be wrong-headedness, ignorance, or self-righteousness.

Recently, a friend told the story of his independence day.  He was twenty years old, a college student living with his parents for the summer and working the graveyard shift in a factory doing hard physical labor.

When he got home from work one morning, his mother was at the breakfast table reading the newspaper and she lifted a flyer out and said, “They’re having a sale on jeans at Penney’s.  You better go get some before your size is all gone.”

“I might do that.  But I’m tired, I’m going to sleep before I do anything.”

“Before you sleep, you better go get those jeans.  When they’re gone, they’re gone.”

My friend, in telling this story of something that happened 26 years ago, got very intense when he told the next part.  “I’m tired.  I’ve been working all night,” he said.  “I am going to bed, then I’ll think about the jeans.”

Now, he says, “It was a stupid little argument about nothing.  But there was something about that conflict that changed our relationship forever, and for the better.  From that point on, we have related to each other as two adults.  Somehow, that conflict had a redeeming quality to it.”

I repeat that story because it is such a stupid little conflict.  There was nothing particularly righteous in his or her stand, it was just one of those things that happen between children and parents as children become adults.

But even in the midst of a stupid little argument, they both found it redemptive.  God did not abandon them in the conflict, but led them out of it toward a deeper more meaningful and mature relationship.

That’s the good news of this gospel passage.  Whether our conflict is with a family member or friend, a coworker or with God, we are not farther from God because of it.  The promise is that God’s redemptive power in Jesus Christ works through our human divisions.  Nothing in all of creation can separate us from God’s love in Jesus Christ.  Amen.