Like Fire
A sermon
delivered by Rev. Peter T. Atkinson
August 18, 2013
at Gordonsville
Presbyterian Church, Gordonsville, Virginia
Luke 12: 49-56
Let us pray,
Help us to see despite our eyes
Help us to think outside of our minds
Help us to be more than our lives
For your eyes show the way
Your
mind knows the truth
Your
being is the life.
Amen.
49 “I came to
bring fire to the earth, and how I wish it were already kindled! 50 I
have a baptism with which to be baptized, and what stress I am under until it
is completed! 51 Do you think that I have come to bring peace to the
earth? No, I tell you, but rather division! 52 From now on five in
one household will be divided, three against two and two against three; 53
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.”
54 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. 55 And when you see the
south wind blowing, you say, ‘There will be scorching heat’; and it happens. 56
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? [1]
The first sermon I ever gave after
entering seminary was based on this very passage. It was my third sermon all
time. As a senior in high school, a few weeks before graduating I gave my first
sermon. It was youth Sunday, I was drafted, and I swore I would never do it
again. Then right before entering seminary, as I was leaving Christchurch after
teaching there six years, I was asked to preach, and so I did. Then I entered
seminary, and I was under care at First Presbyterian Church, in Gloucester, and
was given the chance to preach. I had no idea what to preach about, and at that
point was very rules conscious, so I decided to look at the lectionary. It was
six years ago this week, so this passage was it. Can you imagine? Talk about a
tough draw. You've got Jesus Christ, the Prince of Peace, the God of love's
only begotten son, coming forward and saying that he isn't bringing peace, but
instead a sword, and is going to drive wedges between family members, and is
going to set the world on fire, as soon as possible, and in and according to
his words he wishes the fire was already started. Not an easy passage, to say
the least. It was six years ago, and I wish I could say that I was closer to
sure about what this text is all about now, but to be absolutely honest, I'm
not. Six years, two of which were spent studying at Seminary, two serving as a
ministry intern at a church in Hampton, a summer at a camp in New York, and
almost two years now here, looking at the Bible constantly I'm still blown away
by this passage.
Six years ago, basically I said that
Jesus is dynamic. That being human and being infinite as God, there was much to
him, and that even after years and years of studying the Bible we can still get
surprised by an aspect of him that we never knew before. I still find that to
be very true. So I challenged the congregation then to dig a little deeper in
their relationship with Jesus, to not put him in a box, but instead to dig
past, open to the possibilities and challenges of a real relationship. I also
then challenged them to dig deeper in their relationships with each other. I
knew the church, and thought that it was good advice for them. That building
relationships based in real depth of knowledge about each other was always a
good thing. To tell you the truth, that was a safe sermon, in a way I skirted
the issue here about the Prince of Peace brandishing a sword. How does that
work? How is it possible that the Prince of Peace is captaining division and
apparent violence? Frankly, the nonsense poem, the Jabberwocky makes more
sense, with the vorpal sword going snicker-snack against the frubious
bandersnitch.
So I've been doing a fair amount of
research this week, trying to look at what other people are saying. Now I found
a lot of people trying to apologize this text away. Saying that Jesus really
didn't mean it, really didn't mean it literally anyway, was just testing the
disciples. These people tend to compare this passage to the angels calling
Jesus the Prince of Peace to the shepherds at Christmas, and then that he tells
Peter to put away his sword, being that those who choose to live by the sword,
die by the sword, two beats out one, so this text is just an anomaly, their conclusion
being that it must just be Jesus testing the disciples in some way. It's
possible, perhaps. But testing them how and for what? Is that like me six years
ago, saying that Jesus is trying to keep them on their toes, one step ahead,
making sure they don't for once think they've got it all figured out? Again
possibly. It certainly works that way, but is there more?
Another group I found this week is
focusing on the idea that Jesus probably really did say this. There is a
academic quest that has been popular in the last 50 some years to find the
historical Jesus, trying to get passed the hype, get passed the agendas, get
passed the glossing, and get at exactly who Jesus was and what he really did. Historical
Jesus is often code for the human Jesus, the non Christian Jesus, the not at all
God, Jesus. A book like that just came out, they do every few years, with some
new view point analyzing the historical data, trying to find out what is
legitimate and what isn't. They have certain criteria for judging which parts
of the text of the gospels are authentic, or at least more or less authentic. Now
remember I said that this text is one they typically find to be authentic. One
of the tests is whether an event is attested in more than one gospel. This is,
both Matthew and Luke include it, though the surrounding text in both is
somewhat different. Another of their criteria is what they call the
embarrassment factor. If a text seems to not fit the typical selling narrative
or casts the characters in a negative light, they figure that it is likely authentic,
based on the idea, that "who would make that up about themselves."
It's really scientific stuff. . . really puts the right stuff into perspective,
doesn't it, and again it doesn't get us any closer really to wrestling with the
difficult, and/or embarrassing part of this difficult text, it just acknowledges
the realness of it.
As I kept thinking this week though,
I wondered why it is that we have a problem with this passage, why it is
embarrassing to us, why it is troubling, why it is difficult, because it is one
hundred percent true, isn't it. It is exactly what Christ brings. Look at
history. Christian history- swords? check, fire? check, division? check. It's
all there. Look at Christ's life according to the rest of the gospels, swords
and division, yes there. . . check and check. Look at today's world, violence
and division, based in Christianity or at least surrounding Christianity. In
Egypt just this week, the fires of violence erupted with Christianity, with
Christ's name at least being involved this time as victim. Division, the sword,
fire. Families are divided over belief and non belief, or even more simply over
what belief means. This little town alone has at least 5 different churches,
divided on all kinds of details about what Jesus is about. Division is all
around us. So it shouldn't surprise us, or shock us that Jesus would foretell
it. The problem that we may have is that it seems that Jesus isn't saying that
these things are bad. And we really want them to be bad, they really seem so
bad, and they really make us uncomfortable. He is saying he can't wait until it
all begins, when the fire of his baptism could already be kindled. We could run
from this, hiding behind the historical questions, hiding in the safety of
metaphor, hiding in the well he couldn't have really meant that, But let us not
run from truth, so quickly.
Is it possible that, though we dislike it,
there is something very positive in this division Jesus is describing, there is
something very positive in argument, there is something very positive in
discord. For what is the source of the division that Christ brings to the
world. It's truth, isn't it. Truth like this passage that we don't like. Truth
like breaking up the status quo in the world. Truth like speaking out against
hypocrisy and the act that we all play. Truth like we are loved, and created
for greatness beyond our wildest imaginings, truth like on the other side of
the cross there is life, truth like there shouldn't be buying and selling in the
temple, truth like a crippled man has it in him to rise and take up his map and
walk, truth like I know you will deny me three times, truth like I know I will
be betrayed, truth like let this cup pass from me, truth like father forgive
them they know not what they do.
This stuff shakes our status quo,
and that makes people afraid, and when people are afraid they go crazy trying
to protect themselves. Have you all seen the movie Moneyball, about Billy Beane, the General Manager for the Oakland
A's? The movie depicts him seeking to change the way that people assess talent
in baseball. He uses statistics that no one else is using and other analytics
and puts together a winning major league baseball team for millions of dollars
less than the competition, truly less than half of what the Yankees paid for the
exact same number of wins. At the end of the movie, one of the richest teams in
baseball, The Red Sox tries to hire him, and the owner pitches to him exactly
what it is he accomplished. He says to him, "I know you're taking it on
the chin out there, but the first guy through the wall he always gets bloody.
Always, cause its threatening not just a way of doing business, or a game, but
their livelihood, their jobs, it's threatening the way that they do things. And
every time that happens, whether it's the government, or a way of doing
business or whatever it is, the people who are holding the reigns, and have
their hands on the switch, they go bat ($$$$) crazy". And that is just baseball,
just a game, just a sport. Jesus is offering a completely different way of seeing
the world, a different way of seeing humanity, a different way of seeing God, don't
you think the swords would be flying, sure but no sword can stop fire. They can't
stop the truth. It will come, it's baptism is slow but its end is sure. It ends
in peace, eternal, perfect, Godly peace, the kind of peace that only lives on the
other side of the cross, and through the fire, the kind of peace that we would do
anything in our power to prevent because it completely changes the way we do business,
the way we live, the way we are, and so we divide we fight against, but it is a
process that ends in truth because truth cannot be stopped.
Jesus goes on to talk about how we can
judge the weather, but can't tell the times. Perhaps even our judging of the weather
ain't all that good, since it was supposed to rain all day yesterday, and there
wasn't a drop, but it did finally come. I think Jesus says this about the weather
right after this because as much as we are uncomfortable with division, we can't
judge effectively how well it is working because we just can't. We don't know, but faith suggests, and the rest
of Jesus' life attests to the authenticity of his message, and that the cross leads
to the resurrection, and through the baptism of fire we come out clean. That's the
thing though it's out of our control, like fire, though we try to tend it, though
we use it, though we feel like we are the ones in control of it, we just aren't,
but Christ is. We are uncomfortable with alot about what we see, but faith in truth,
and it's happening maybe can give us some comfort, and strength to go on despite
our fears and misgivings.
When seen through these eyes it seems
pretty simple doesn't it, which is why I'm not sure I got it all, and why after
six years I'm just as far away as I was six years ago. Because there is nothing further away
from Jesus than a simple answer, even if it is a difficult one, but I think it helps
to pose them, and it helps to think through them, and each time we do we get closer
and closer, not running from the truth, not claiming to know the entire truth, but
doing what we can to try and stand in its all encompassing fire, believing that
Christ is there with us.
[1]The
Holy Bible : New Revised Standard Version. 1989 (Lk 12:49-56). Nashville:
Thomas Nelson Publishers.
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