Jesus Comes to Bring Fire and Division
First born of Mary, provocative preacher,
itinerant teacher, outsider's choice;
Jesus inspires and disarms and confuses
whoever he chooses to hear his voice. John Bell
This week the theme is “Jesus Comes to Bring Fire and Division”. A commentary I found on Google started with “This passage offers a test for preachers – really for any Bible readers. What will we do with it?
Some of you may be familiar with the Lectionary used by many denominations. It is a book suggesting Bible readings for each Sunday – usually 3 or 4. The United Church (and other churches) publish worship helps where a theme is suggested with a scripture. It wouldn't be unusual for a preacher to look at a scripture like today's in Luke and go right to one of the alternate scriptures. On Friday morning, I was kind of wishing I had done that, but felt committed to it. That's when I spent some more time in Google looking up even more inspiration.
Dan Clendenin on the Journey with Jesus blog writes:
'When the American writer Will Durant tried to identify the historically authentic Jesus, he used what he called a "criterion of embarrassment." Simply put, it's hard to see why writers would fabricate embarrassing material that hurts their cause. We hide embarrassing stories, we don't publish them for posterity. Durant gave examples like Peter's denial and the flight of the disciples when Jesus was arrested.
Clendenin would include this week's gospel as another embarrassing example of the authentic Jesus.'
At the time of Jesus birth, Simeon prophesied that Jesus would be “a sign of contradiction”. For the most part, we try to avoid conflict and division in our congregations, yet here is Jesus talking about bringing just that. We want peace and call Jesus the prince of peace, yet here he is saying that's not what he came to bring.
Hebrews 11: 29-40 and 12:1-2 is one of the alternate scriptures. Scholars suggest that Hebrews was written for a second generation of believers - between 64 CE and 70 CE – 30+ years after Jesus' death and just after fire broke out in Rome and destroyed about half the city. Emperor Nero blamed the Christians for the destruction. Chapter 12: 1-2 are familiar verses.
“Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles. And let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us”
The cloud of witnesses are listed in Chapter 11 – those who passed through the Red Sea, Rahab, Gideon, Samson and the prophets. One writer calls it a hall of fame of spiritual superstars. But Hebrews also described those who did not receive what had been promised. “Others were tortured, some faced jeers and flogging, while still others were chained and put in prison. They were stoned; they were sawed in two; put to death by the sword.” This could describe the life of a Christian under emperors like Nero or Diocletian, or modern leaders like Hitler, Stalin, Mao or Saddam Hussein.
Hebrews 11 confirms what Jesus prayed the night before his crucifixion (John 17) - “I have given them your word and the world has hated them.”
This will be foreign to almost all of us. Christianity has long been acceptable in North America. Even today, which many call a post-Christian era, going to church generally causes no controversy.
David Lose, a Lutheran minister in Minnesota writes: “Is the relative ease of the Christian life in this land entirely the result of cultural acceptance or is it because we fail to live into the gospel Jesus announced?” Throughout Luke, Jesus announces the kingdom of God that is governed not by power, but by equity.
I recently read a quote talking about equality versus equity.
“Nick, whom we met on the Pine Ridge reservation in South Dakota, told us that the best definition of equity he had heard came from an eighth grader named Kyle. Kyle said, “I noticed that kids on reservations don't come to school because they're embarrassed that they don't have shoes to wear. And I notice that some kids have really bad shoes, but at least they have shoes. Equality is a truck showing up and giving out only size 8 Nikes. Equity is a truck that shows up and has a size shoe that fits everybody. That way, everyone can walk around.” That's going to stick with me.
Lose continues: “The Kingdom of God is where all those in need are cared for, where forgiveness is the norm, where the poor are privileged, where wealth is shared rather then hoarded, and where the weak and lonely are honoured”. So the government sending a cheque for the same amount to every household is equality. Those of use who didn't need it got it and it could have been equitably distributed who really needed it.
In the scripture reading this morning you heard “‘I came to bring fire to the earth, and how I wish it were already kindled! I have a baptism with which to be baptized, and what stress I am under until it is completed!”
I think I understand what Jesus meant about 'bringing fire'. Although there are references in the Bible to fire as destruction or cataclysm, we heard John the Baptist say that Jesus is coming with a fire of purification and refinement. Exodus 14:24 also refers to 'the Lord in the pillar of fire and cloud' looking down upon the Egyptian army – fire connotes God's presence. The fire Jesus wants to kindle is a fire of change, the fire of God's active presence in the world. Can you hear his frustration??
I know that many members of our congregation were teachers. How many times did you present information to a class and were met with puzzled faces and/or blank stares? You thought you had prepared and spoken clearly about your topic, but most of the class didn't understand.......I imagine that Jesus found this happening all the time. Previous verses in Luke 12 tell the message of the servants waiting all night for their master – keeping the meal ready for when he came – sometimes called “The Faithful or the Unfaithful Slave”. In verse 41 of Luke 12 Peter asked, “Lord, are you telling this parable to us, or to everyone?” Peter – who has been with Jesus for about 3 years and has heard parables told many times – and if Jesus was like most teachers, he told them in a variety of ways.
I like what Robert Funk, Founder of the Jesus Seminar wrote:
Jesus steadily refuses to be explicit.
I believe he wanted us to think – he wasn't going to spoon feed God's word to us.
One of the reasons I attend Comox United Church is because this congregation allows me to question traditional interpretations of the Bible and not be told what to believe. BUT, not everyone is brought up to question.
The woman who cleans our house was born and schooled in a Mennonite community in Paraguay and moved to Canada with her family when she was 12 years old. She was an eager pupil who had to learn English after she arrived – she knew Spanish, Low German and High German. She told me this week about when her teacher in Manitoba asked the class “Where did Christopher Columbus land in the New World?” that she was excited and raised her hand because she knew this. “He landed in Paraguay.” A landlocked country right in the middle of South America. That's what she was taught in school! She realizes now that critical thinking was not a part of her education – she learned what she was told and to not question the teacher.
It is written in Luke: “I have a baptism with which to be baptized, and what stress I am under until it is completed!” Now, that is confusing. Jesus was baptized by John!
As usual, I go to other interpretations of this verse and find 'baptism' is used in 47 of 51 English translations. A commentary tells me that words for baptism and baptized come from the Greek root 'baptizo' which have to do with dipping, immersing or submerging.
It can also mean overwhelmed – the baptism Jesus is about to undergo is a flood of anguish, as he takes on the sins of the world.
Jesus reveals his intense desire here – desire for the world's well-being. If any of us can't appreciate that desire, even with the harsh image of a consuming fire, then it's likely we need help in perceiving the world from the perspective of the suffering, the powerless, and the sinned-against. They pray “thy kingdom come” with a different kind of longing than we do.
Jo Anne Taylor a minister of a United Methodist church writes: “Jesus has not come to validate human institutions and the values those institutions promote. Jesus has come to set into motion God's radical will for the world.” “If we look at this passage in light of the whole gospel story, perhaps it describes division rather than prescribes division”. Perhaps is is not His purpose “to set children against their parent or parents against their children, but this sort of rupture can be the result of the changes brought about by Christ's work.” “The radical purposes of God have completely demolished the status quo. Jesus shatters it with his mission of compassion, mercy, and justice.”
Funk expands on his statement. 'Explicitness is characteristic of an established world where patterns of behaviour are settled.' In Jesus' own vision of the world, everything is in flux because its inhabitants are departing, crossing over to a new time and place.
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. And when you see the south wind blowing, you say, 'There will be scorching heat'; and it happens. 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?”
This scripture had Jesus on a roll – now we're talking about weather!!
I'll bet there isn't a person here who doesn't mention the weather at least once a day – and some days many times. Some of us can even predict weather – from our arthritis aches to sinus pain – fairly accurately.
It feels like Jesus is getting really frustrated. The end is coming for his time on earth and the people listening to him still can't figure out what he is saying. He calls them hypocrites for being able to read the signs of weather change but can't tell that THE DAY OF THE LORD IS NEAR.
Robert Funk concludes - 'The Kingdom of God for Jesus was always beyond the here and now; it was the world being created anew. It was always outstanding. About that world one can never be entirely explicit. All one can say is this: If you think you know what it is, you are mistaken. That future will be a perpetual surprise. If it were not so, human beings would trust themselves and not God.'
I want to repeat that: The future will be a perpetual surprise. If it were not so, human beings would trust themselves and not God.
David Lose writes “But what if faith wasn't about guaranteeing future bliss, but rather was an invitation to live differently NOW, to see those around us neither as souls to be saved or threats to be deterred, but rather to see them – everyone! - as God's children to be loved, honoured, and cared for?
So what if we invited a conversation this weekend that helped us see Church not as an obligation or spiritual destination, but a place to come to be encouraged, equipped, and sent to make a difference to the world........ And a place to return to when living like Jesus creates division. Because it will. But it will also create joy. Because the one who sends us out was himself baptized by fire.”
I want to close with The Message's interpretation of Hebrews 12: 1-3
Do you see what this means—all these pioneers who blazed the way, all these veterans cheering us on? It means we’d better get on with it. Strip down, start running—and never quit! No extra spiritual fat, no parasitic sins. Keep your eyes on Jesus, who both began and finished this race we’re in. Study how he did it. Because he never lost sight of where he was headed—that exhilarating finish in and with God—he could put up with anything along the way: Cross, shame, whatever. And now he’s there, in the place of honour, right alongside God. When you find yourselves flagging in your faith, go over that story again, item by item, that long litany of hostility he plowed through.
That will shoot adrenaline into your souls!