Fire upon the Earth?

Luke 12:49-56

Thirteenth Sunday after Pentecost Year C

August 18, 2013

First Presbyterian Church, Clarksville

And

Harmony Presbyterian Church

Dr. Robert Wm Lowry

            It has happened to all of us at one time or another.

            You are sitting around with friends or family and the conversation turns from vacations and stories about the kids to politics or some other equally divisive issue.  The conversation gets more focused, the voices more rigid, the tone more severe.  Eventually the atmosphere gets so tense you could cut it with a knife.  That is when someone asks the question.

            Every tense conversation has “the question.” It might change from group to group or family to family, but it is always there.  When the conversation gets tough, when the tension gets too high, when friendships and relationships are starting to strain, someone asks…”how about this weather we’ve been having?”

            Your question may be different.  In my family, we ask “what about the Cardinals this year?”

            No matter what your question is, that old stand-by to break the tension in polite conversation is always available: the weather.  The most neutral and neutralizing of questions.  Asking about the weather is like tossing baking soda on a grease fire.  It tampers the flames and tempers the situation.

            How about this weather we’ve been having?

            Living in a community visited by Jesus must have been a double edged sword.  On the one hand, this increasingly famous Rabbi was coming to our town- maybe even our street!  We like to think of the crowds being quiet and reverent and standing in rapt prayerful attention, but part of me things that someone as famous as Jesus must have caused at least a bit of a stir.  After all, he was the theological rock star of the early first century.   It might not have been quite as much bedlam as the Beatles landing at JFK on their first American visit or Justin Beiber coming on an arena stage to screaming throngs of teenagers.  But Jesus coming to town was a big deal.

            The other side of the equation, however, is the fact that what Jesus brought was more controversial than a mop haircut or saccharine pop lyrics.  When Jesus came to town, the status quo began to tremble.  What Jesus taught stood as a challenge to the assumptions about how the world works and how God works in and through the world. 

            What, I wonder, happened when one who heard Jesus teaching brought what they heard home?  “I was in the square today and heard this rabbi talking.  He says that the law is fulfilled in him.” How would his devout father who observes and respects the law of Moses reply?  What about the mother who spent the day preparing the kosher supper?

            Jesus’s teachings must have come into homes and families like a ticking bomb waiting to explode and exploit different opinions and perspectives in the same household.  Conversations around dinner tables after a Jesus question was dropped in the middle of the conversation must have taken a turn for the tense.   Let’s face it, there is no way to talk about Jesus’s teachings without things getting at least a little tense.  After all, most of us were taught that you don’t discuss politics, money or religion in polite company.  There must be a reason behind that advice.

            So when Jesus’s words started to make things tense, someone acting as self-appointed peacemaker would ask the question: “how about this weather we’ve been having?”

            Someone would turn the relief valve to let the tension out of the situation and give everyone a chance to get back to normal- to ratchet the passion down a notch- to  keep things from coming to the boiling point when a household is divided against itself- father against son and daughter against mother and…

            But wait.

            That can’t be right.

            I seem to remember Jesus saying something about that whole division of the family thing.

From now on, a household of five will be divided—three against two and two against three.   Father will square off against son and son against father; mother against daughter and daughter against mother; and mother-in-law against daughter-in-law and daughter-in-law against mother-in-law.”

            He knew that if we take that word home and live with it and wrestle with it and hold fast to it, the world as we know it is going to be turned on its head.  He goes on to say…

            “Do you think I have come to bring peace to the earth?  No, I have come to bring division.”

            Jesus knew that his word would threaten and upset the status quo and he warns us from the very beginning that if we take it seriously- if we stand with and in his word- we may find ourselves in uncomfortable or even conflicted circumstances. 

            If just to drive the point home, Jesus even warns us about changing the subject back to the weather!  Why, he demands, do you keep talking about the weather?  Your heads are full of clouds and wind directions when what you really need to be talking about- really need to be thinking about is the Word of God revealed to you here and now.  Stop being distracted and start tending to the work of the Word of God.

            Left in the distant past, Jesus’s words stand as a reminder of the importance of not neglecting the message of and priorities of God.  They nudge us toward a greater willingness to draw near and hear God’s Word.

            But Jesus’s words never stay in the distant past.  They are right here.  Right now.

            Jesus’s message is not speaking to us from far away in the distant past.  And as is the case with Jesus’s words, they speak the truth. 

            And I think that is perhaps the most terrifying thing about this text. 

            Just as when he first said them, Jesus’s words often bring division and conflict and even discomfort.

            And just like the people who first heard them, we would rather talk about the weather than live in the midst of the tension of the Word of God.

            Jesus knew that and knows that so before we even have a chance to do it, he warns us away from asking the question; he warns us away from changing the subject.

            You will find my words disagreeable, he says, but don’t even think about bailing out to talk about the weather!

            This lesson from Jesus leaves us in a bit of a quandary.  He tells us that his word will lead to division and even rancor not just in the world but in our own households.  That doesn’t sound too pleasant.

            “Do you think I have come to bring peace to the earth?  No, I have come to bring division.”

            I was unsure how to get past my surface discomfort with this text until yesterday afternoon.  I was watching some news show- I cannot remember which one- and two commentators were blathering on about politics.  One was defending Congress saying that they were absolutely right and the President was absolutely wrong while the other one did the opposite.  Neither was willing to give any ground.  Neither was willing to even listen to the other one.  Neither was willing to see even a shred of truth in what the other had to say.

            It occurs to me that we tend to read this text from Luke through that lens; through the lens of our contemporary political divisions which present themselves as absolute, inflexible and intransigent.  We read this text as if Jesus is saying that households will be divided completely and in every way possible just like our modern politics are.

            On second glance, it becomes pretty clear that Jesus is not saying that at all.  He never says that father will square off against son because one of them is absolutely right and one is absolutely wrong.  That is how the church tends to read this text traditionally, but I am not convinced that Jesus is really saying that.  In fact that reading of the text seems to go against what scripture says about our comprehension of Jesus’s teachings and about God. 

            None of us can be absolutely right in our knowledge of God because none of us can know God absolutely.  Jesus is not warning us that only some will know the whole truth while others will know none of it.  What I hear Jesus saying here is that his word is so big, so vast that no one person can know it fully.  As Paul would later say to the Christians at Corinth, we all see through the glass dimly.

            The conflict Jesus brings is not simply conflict between those who see and those who do not see but between those who see but do not see the same thing.

            One of the persistent conflicts in the church is how to use our resources.  Some think the church should sell all of its property and use every dime to help those in need.  That is certainly a biblical notion- Jesus tells the wealthy young man to give away all that he has to the poor.  Others think we need to preserve our sacred spaces because the church needs a place set aside in the world for the worship of God.  That too is biblical.  When Jesus tears apart the temple it is because it is being misused not because it is unnecessary. 

            If living in the family of the church teaches us anything, it is that people of good faith can and often do disagree.  Two people may read the same words and find vastly different meanings.

            When Jesus tells the crowd that he comes not to bring peace but to bring division, he is acknowledging that at times his teachings will lead to differences of opinion that run deep and may even have the tendency to divide families over the interpretation of his word. 

            He knew that would happen and he makes no attempt to keep it from happening.  Instead, he warns us from doing what we so often do; change the subject.  When the sparks begin to fly and we risk lighting a fire in our midst, when we begin to disagree…

            … “how about this weather we’ve been having?”

            We throw some baking soda on the fire to keep it from getting out of control.  We douse the flames before they can get too big.

            Still, Jesus warns us against doing that; he warns us against avoiding the discomfort and even division that may come from his word and instead calls on us to lean and live into it.  Fundamentally this text is a call to courage amidst the ambiguity of a life of faith.  It is about recognizing that none of us has fully comprehension- full knowledge- full grasp of the Word of God or even the words of Jesus.

            It is telling, I think, that Jesus does not say that the household that is divided three against two is driven apart.  Father may rise up against son but the text says nothing about the father casting the son out of his home.  Beneath the visible division, there is an unspoken unity that exists.  Yes we may be divided over our understanding and interpretation of Jesus’s words, but we are still one family.  We may lack uniformity but, in Christ, we retain our unity.  We are still family.

            The limits of our own spiritual imaginations may drive wedges between us, but somewhere, perhaps deep down in the bottom of our souls, Jesus holds us together.  Since almost the beginning the church has been a house divided- East and West, Protestant and Catholic, Presbyterian and Methodist- you name it.  Yet from the beginning, the people of God though divided by doctrine and discipline are united in the unbreakable bond of Christ.

            This is a text about having courage in that bond- about putting our faith in that bond- about trusting that bond to hold us together even when our house is divided against itself.

            When we can learn to trust our unity in Christ and look beyond the discomfort in our own household of faith;

            when we quit changing the subject;

            when the living gets tough; when we stop putting out the fires of spiritual passion in our midst;

            we become the fire that Jesus came to cast upon the earth. 

            The fire of the Spirit;

                        the fire of the passion of the people of God;

                                     the fire of the word of God proclaimed and lived. 

            May the flames of the Spirit be fanned in our midst and may we, as a family in Christ, have the courage not to change the subject but in our unity in Christ share the light of that flame with the world.

            Amen and amen.