Scripture: Luke 12:49-56
“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! Do you think
that I have come to bring peace to the earth? No, I tell you, but rather
division! From now on
five in one household will be divided, three against two and two against three; 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.”
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?
Sermon
When Jesus was born, the
gospel of Luke tells us that the angelic host proclaimed “Glory to God in the
highest, and peace on earth.” When Jesus rose from the dead, he came to the
room where the disciples had hidden away and greeted them with the words “Peace
be with you.” Jesus is “the prince of peace” we proclaim in scripture and
hymns. And yet, what peace followed in his wake? The disciples faced
persecution and often violence, and Jesus himself saw conflict and cruelty rise
up against him leading finally to his arrest and his execution. What gives? Is
the way of Jesus a way of peace or is it a source of division? Even Jesus seems
to contradict that he is the prince of peace when he says “do you think that I
have come to bring peace to the earth? No I tell you, but rather division.” And
the division will go down even to the most basic of relational ties: households
will be divided, parents against children and children against parents.
To get behind this
question of peace and division I want to look more widely at the teaching of
Jesus, and in particular one of the parables he told which is remembered in the
gospel according to Luke. It is the well known parable of the prodigal son, and
it’s a story we can't tell often enough. A wealthy landowner has two sons and
the younger one comes to him and says “give me my share of the inheritance.” He
takes his share and he leaves. Well, usually the inheritance is distributed
upon the parent's death, so not only has the young son forced the family to
sell off a portion of land and assets in order to give him cash to leave, he
has also treated his parents as if they are already dead. This son goes off to
a foreign country where he wastes all of his life's inheritance while still a
young man.
He hires himself out on a
farm to care for, of all things, pigs, an unclean animal among his own people.
Could he fall any further than this? He’s a poor man in a foreign land caring
for unclean animals, and he’s so hungry that the food they eat looks good to
him. Even the most menial workers on the old family farm ate and lived better
than this. So he decides to go home,
knowing he has given up rights to be the son, to at least be a hired hand. He
composes a speech: “father, I have sinned against heaven and before you. I am
no longer worthy to be your son, but take me on as one of the hired hands.”
Have you ever practiced a speech? Can't you picture him walking the long way
home, practicing... “father, I have sinned. Father, I'm no longer worthy. Hire
me on.”
But you remember what
happens. While still a long way off, the father sees him (has the father been
looking for him all this time?) and he runs off down the road (running down the
road is not what respectable landowners do – but he runs) and he throws his
arms around his son. The son begins his speech “father, I have sinned against
heaven and before you. I am no longer worthy to be your son, but...but...” but
that's all he gets out before the father is telling his people to get a robe
and shoes for this haggard son, and to put the family ring on his finger,
because he was lost and is now found, and he will be restored as a son! Not because he deserves it, but because the
grace of God, the justice of God, does not work according to what we deserve
but according to what will restore us as people, whatever we have done.
This kind of grace, this
kind of welcome, this kind of love is what the peace of Jesus looks like. Glory
to God in the highest, and peace on earth. Indeed.
Except: do you remember
what it does to the older brother - the brother who has stayed with his parents
on what's left of the land, all of which should one day be his portion of the
inheritance? The grace and peace of God which we celebrate in the father's
restoration of the prodigal son is the very act that brings division between
father and elder son, between son and father, brother and brother. And Jesus
leaves the story unfinished. Will the elder son come in and join the party to
welcome his brother home, or will he continue to act as if his brother is dead?
Will there be peace in the house or will it remain in division?
Peace and division. Jesus
reminds us that not all peace is created equal. The peace of Caesar within the
Roman Empire, the so-called Pax Romana, was a peace that was maintained by
keeping people in fear of resisting the injustice of the ruling class…and
executing them when they did resist. That kind of peace is not really peace. That
kind of peace is the kind that says “don't cause any trouble.” That kind of
peace says “just give it another chance, no matter what your spouse has said…or
done…to you.” That kind of peace says “you'll never get ahead by ruffling
feathers. It's best just to fit in, be more like everyone else.” That’s not
peace. It is only silence in the face of oppression, conformity, intolerance of
differences, abuse.
The peace that the older
brother wanted was to let his brother face the consequences of his own actions,
and that way no one would be bothered. “He dug his grave; let him lie in it.”
How often do we catch ourselves feeling the same way. They did this to
themselves, it’s not our responsibility. Instead of the peace of people
restored, we like the peace of people keeping their problems to themselves, in
other countries, other neighborhoods, locked up.
Some people told Jesus to
cool it. “Stop bothering people, they're just looking for a reason to arrest
you!” But that's not the peace he came to give. In God's peace, that which is
broken gets restored. It doesn't get left broken.
At the end of this month
is the 50th anniversary of Martin Luther King's “I Have a Dream”
speech from the steps of the Lincoln Monument during the March on Washington of
1963. This was before the civil rights act had passed, before segregation had
been ended and voting rights protected. A few months earlier, King had read a
published letter from a number of white ministers from Birmingham who thought
that he and the movement should stop causing so much trouble with their sit-ins
and marches and acts of civil disobedience. You should negotiate, they said.
And Rev. King, writing from the Birmingham jail, told them that there were
different kinds of peace. They'd tried negotiating. They'd tried to make their
voices heard. And until they engaged in nonviolent protest that brought the
injustice of society into the open, the peacefulness of negotiation was only
helping the ones who enjoyed the privileges of segregation. Sometimes,
restoring peace means exposing division.
Division is not the goal,
of course! Jesus did not stir up trouble for the sake of trouble. Justice is
the goal. Restoration is the goal. But in a world of injustice and broken
people, the act of resisting evil will cause division among those of us who
were comfortable with the way things were.
When Jesus says that he is
bringing fire to the earth, that households will be divided with parents
against children, this isn't his goal! This is not the prescription that God
has for the world, it is the description of what happens when the comfort of
the familiar is challenged by the work of God to make us new. There is
something in us that resists change, resists giving up the old ordered way that
we knew and by which we understood the world.
Jesus asks if we can read
the signs. You know that dark clouds mean rain. You know that a southern front
means warm air. So, read the signs of a society with concentrated power. Read
the signs of a culture in which you get what you deserve. Read the signs of a
family that wants everything to stay just as it is. And now what do you think
will happen if God is at work to upset inequality and make justice, to forgive
people instead of punishing them as they deserve, to restore us and make us new
instead of leaving us as we are. What do you think? Read the signs. Yes, there
will be division, but that's not all. That’s not all.
Beyond the trying times of
division will be a day when God has restored us all, and we are no longer
divided but united in peace - real peace that is the result of God’s grace at
work. We will be united in the peace that the angels proclaimed when Jesus was
born. The peace that the prophet Isaiah envisioned when he said that the lion
will lie down with the lamb, and people who benefited from the suffering of
others will live together like siblings. The peace that Dr. King saw when he
dreamed of a time when children of all colors would join hands and walk as
sisters and brothers, and his four children would not be judged by the color of
their skin but by the content of their character. The peace that we sing about
when we end our worship service and hope that we will go now in peace and never
be afraid. Real peace.
God frees us from the fear
of division and forms us into a people who will resist false peace, and strive
with God for real peace, in which all people are restored as God’s sons and
daughters, and God’s will is done on earth as it is in heaven.
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