Gospel: Luke 12:49-56
I see my role as preacher being made up of different components, with one or another coming into play based on the text chosen for my sermons. Sometimes I try to provide a bit of scholarly context or theological background on a particular passage. From time to time I look at the problems in today’s world – at the conflict and division we’re exposed to so often – and try to bring them into balance by offering the hope and encouragement rooted in the Scriptures. I look at things that might be going wrong around us and explore how we’re called by God to try to set them right. Most importantly, with everything I stand here and share I always try to speak in a way I honestly feel is guided by the Holy Spirit.
There are of course moments for me and for many who stand in pulpits around the world on Sunday mornings when a reading is scheduled that brings us up short and is quite frankly problematic to us as preachers. Problematic isn’t even accurate; dreadful is perhaps more on point. Today’s passage from Luke is one such reading, one I’d wager preachers often look at and respond to by looking for the nearest emergency exit.
Here we have Jesus seeming to speak of his mission on earth as one of tearing families apart, of sowing disagreement between parents and children and in-laws. I’m not here to unite, he says, but rather to divide. It seems to run so completely counter to the message of Jesus we’re used to hearing – a message of love, and hope, and the promise of the coming kingdom. Instead of a Jesus who calmly walks into the room, quietly sits down among us and gives us a vision of God’s love, this seems to be a Messiah who runs in, pulls the fire alarm, and then stands at the door chastising us as we try to flee.
How does someone preach on this? How do you and others sitting in pews in churches near and far receive this seemingly fearful message? Where do we find the good news?
If I could return to my list of preaching components earlier for a moment, the answer is there – the key to preaching and receiving a message. It’s the last one I offered. We simply allow ourselves to be guided by the Holy Spirit, and when we turn ourselves over to the Spirit we’ll quickly find that our journey doesn’t end at the surface of what Jesus is saying. The Spirit will take us to a meaning that is underneath, one that is deeper and more hopeful.
So what do I see as the deeper, more hopeful message of this seemingly hopeless passage?
We must remember that for many in Jesus’ day he was the embodiment of hope, the hope of an oppressed people that a messiah would come to free them from the shackles of their bondage. They were praying for change: a move from captivity to freedom; a shift from despair to joy; an end to the status quo of their existence. Jesus brought all of that – he was the realization of change – but he brought it in a way that was surprising and sometimes uncomfortable. I think the people of Jesus’ time were expecting a messiah to turn over a few tables in the process of changing the world; what I don’t think they expected was that some of the tables would be theirs.
The message of Jesus wasn’t always easy to accept, and it did (and does still) bring division. Here he talks about the division within families, but I believe there was also division that grew out of how his message was understood by others: the poor and the rich; the hungry and the fed; the homeless and the housed; the oppressed and the powerful; the sick and the healthy; the wounded and the whole; the lonely and the popular; the fearful and the assured; the anguished and the relieved.
Here, though, is where I think we get to the deeper level where the Spirit leads us. It’s something that I find echoed in the Book of Revelation, “See, I am making all things new.”[1] On the surface, Jesus is talking about division and tearing down, but below that he is talking about re-creation and building up. Families may be divided by differences in how the message of Jesus is heard, but new families are being built, rooted in that same message: families of the faithful; families of believers; families like the one gathered here this morning.
That I think is where we find one possible source of hope for today’s world, a source of hope in the face of the division we see. It’s not difficult even now to find how conflict grows out of the way the message of Jesus is understood by various groups … various denominations … various segments of the human family. But I hope that at some point the brothers and sisters in the family of God in the here and now will, like we are asked to do with this reading from Luke, move beneath the surface.
I hope that we in the human family will discover that the true test is not how much we can tear down, but how much we can build up. I hope that we in the human family will see that it’s not a question of capturing something old but creating something new. I hope that we in the human family will see turning over tables doesn’t simply end the story but instead gives us opportunities to set them back up in a new way, one that allows us to invite more people to come and sit and begin a new story.
And I pray that it is a hope … a dream … that we share with one another and with all we meet.
Amen.
[1] Revelation 21:5 (NRSV).