Lead in: I am about to begin my second year in seminary through the Iona Eastern Shore program, which allows our cohort to continue working while we are in seminary. August 13-14 was a preaching weekend for me at Christ Church Easton. This is the text of the sermon I gave.
Churches/denominations that use the Revised Common Lectionary have prescribed readings for each day and Gospel readings for each Sunday. So we don’t get to pick what Gospel we preach on.
The Gospel reading for August 14 was Luke 12:49-56, which begins with Jesus saying “I have come to cast fire upon the earth and how I wish it were already ablaze!” and then gets more confusing from there.
For my last two preaching weekends, I have had demoniacs and fire-casting Jesus, both of which ask us to get our thinking caps on. The upside to getting the more obscure or confusing Gospel passages is that I generally have a lot of room to work with. We’re all kind of left scratching our heads and wondering what Jesus, and Luke, are talking about.
I think it is safe to say that the disciples were doing the same thing. I can imagine them looking back and forth to each other going, “I have no idea what he is talking about…”
And that is a theme throughout the Gospels: Jesus delivering a message that people didn’t understand or weren’t ready for. Or in some cases, that people didn’t want to hear.
One of the things we find Jesus talking about repeatedly is the way the world is…and the way the Kingdom of Heaven or the Kingdom of God is. And he wants to help us bring about the Kingdom of Heaven. Which is not how things were, and not how they in the world now. But they could be.
Jesus was not one for the status quo. He didn’t want things to just keep going the way they were. He came to be different and to show us how to be different, and how to live differently.
Thinking about Jesus’s strange message in today’s Gospel, I thought it might be helpful to point out a few things that Jesus IS NOT KNOWN TO HAVE SAID.
Here we go:
Jesus never said, “It’s all good.”
Jesus never said, “You do you.”
Jesus never said, “As long as you don’t hurt anyone.”
And Jesus never said, “Just keep doing what you’re doing.”
Jesus followed more in the sandals (not shoes) of John the Baptist, who said, “Repent.” Turn around. Stop doing what you are doing and live differently.
It’s important to put today’s message in context of Luke’s Gospel and the passages that are going on around it.
Over the last couple weeks, we’ve heard Father Charlie Barton distill the preceding Gospel messages to a few key phrases:
“Be rich toward God—don’t make your life about material things or treasures.”
And “Where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.”
I am a fan of a Franciscan Friar/Monk named Richard Rohr. In talking about Luke 12, he says:
“The simplest rule of thumb for each of us to ask, ‘Where do we spend our time and where do we spend our money?’ That’s where our treasure is, we can be sure. The focus of your time and money will tell you what your God is and what is important in your life. As others have wisely said, your checkbook and your calendar reveal your true belief system.”
Where we focus, what we value most, that will determine who we become and how we act in the world. So focus on God. Don’t focus on the things of this world, but on what Jesus has been telling us is more important. Things like caring for the poor and the sick, lifting each other up, loving God and our neighbor.
So when Jesus says, “I have come to cast fire upon the earth, and how I wish it were already ablaze”—he is talking about the way the world was, those who are storing up earthly treasures, those who are focused on power and not on love.
Burn down the old ways, Jesus is offering something new.
“Do you think I have come to bring peace to the earth? No, I tell you, but rather division.” And what happened to the people of Israel who decided to follow Jesus: division.
Even in and among households. If you are living in the old house and can’t picture what the new one looks like yet, you might not be ready to burn what you’ve got. Or maybe you think this guy is full of nonsense, you have no desire to do what he says or follow where he leads. Some followed, some didn’t. And households became divided.
Well, it’s a good thing we don’t have divided households now [raised eyebrow, pulls at collar] Glad they got that out of the way… or maybe what seemed like a strange, bombastic reading has some relevance.
How many people have family members or close friends who you aren’t speaking to or can’t talk to about religion or politics? How many have divided houses when it comes to big, important issues?
Maybe Jesus was on to something.
We all know the peace-and-love Jesus, and that’s the Jesus we hold dear. That’s the Jesus we want to study and to emulate. And that’s what we should do.
But we also need to remember that Jesus was not afraid to call people out.
Blessed are the peacemakers, absolutely. But the status quo then, AND NOW, isn’t peace. We have a lot of work to do.
Here at Christ Church, in our Bible studies we’ve used commentary by a bishop and theologian named N.T. Wright, and we have found him to be helpful for making sense of Scripture. In talking about this passage, Wright says that there may come a time when Christian teachers and leaders find people have become too cozy and comfortable.
He says that maybe churches might start to omit the Bible readings that talk about judgment, or warnings, or the demands of God’s holiness, because they ask something of us. And that maybe there are times when, like Jesus himself on this occasion, we need to wake people up with a crash. There are, after all, he says, plenty of warnings in the Bible about the dangers of going to sleep on the job.
Cruise control does not serve us well when we are heading in the wrong direction, or off a cliff.
“It’s all good” doesn’t work when it’s not all good for a lot of people, or when power and security are held closer to the heart than love and compassion.
Jesus talks to the crowds about how when you see clouds, you know it’s going to rain and when you see the south wind blowing, you know it’s going to get scorching hot.
Granted, weather forecasters don’t get much credit in our world today, but there are so many things we can know, we can predict, we can figure out. Look at all the technology around us and what we can do. On the simplest scale, I was blown away recently with the thought that I can send my family pictures while I am in Alaska and they get them instantaneously back here.
If we can do so many things, how come we can’t step up for those who can’t stand for themselves? How come we still store up earthly treasures but aren’t rich toward God? Let’s look where our treasure is, where our priorities are, and try to see where our collective heart is?
Jesus came to change the direction humanity was heading.
He came to show us a different way to be—one that isn’t easy, one that not everyone will get… a way that will cause division, and will call for the burning of some of our current, misdirected ways.
And he gave his life for that cause, and in today’s reading, he knew that that’s where he was heading.
Maybe it was fair to call out the crowds. And guess what?
We’re the crowds. Maybe it’s still fair to call us out.
N.T. Wright says:
“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 the earth and to seek to address them with the message of heaven.”
Maybe we need to do a better job of addressing the world with the message of heaven.
Maybe we should help burn down some of what’s broken for a new way, for a more loving way, for a more caring way.
For Jesus’s Way.
Amen.
