Following Jesus Into Division

 



Following Jesus Into Division

 

Luke 12:49-56, Psalm 82

Time After Pentecost     Lectionary 20     August 14, 2022

St. Mark Lutheran Church, Yorktown, VA

 

 

            “I came to bring fire to the earth, and how I wish it were already kindled.” 

Is there any gospel passage more unsettling than the one we read today?

            “Do you think that I have come to bring peace to the earth?  No, I tell you, but rather division!”  

            These words of Jesus are shocking to those of us who are racially and economically comfortable.  They come near the end of this chapter 12 in the gospel of Luke, which we have been reading through during the past three Sundays.  Chapter 12 is a collection of stories and sayings about living in the kingdom that Jesus has brought into our world, in his flesh and blood.  Jesus teaches and tells stories with the point that we cannot be secure, if we’re relying on ourselves and our stuff!  We are out of control of what might happen to us tomorrow.  Our only security is in trusting God, who gives us what we need for today; for this day.  Our only security is to live as citizens of the kingdom that Jesus has brought into our world. 

In this chapter 12, in the face of dangers that scare the bejeebers out of us, we read, “[D]o not worry about your life,…”  (v. 22)  And, “Do not be afraid, little flock, for it is your Father’s good pleasure to give you the kingdom.” (v. 32)  But, then: “Do you think that I have come to bring peace to the earth?  No, I tell you, but rather division!”  That’s because living in the kingdom calls for a total transformation from what the world prizes, instead, allowing the Spirit to transform us into people who love without condition, who include without restriction; to favor those who are disenfranchised and outcast – as Jesus did; to identify radically with the poor, the sick, the hungry – as Jesus did.  Living in the kingdom calls us to take seriously God’s desires which we spoke in this morning’s Psalm:

“Save the weak and the orphan; defend the humble and needy;

rescue the weak and the poor; deliver them from the power of the wicked.”[1]

Well, this will cause division!  This will provoke opposition from those who want to preserve their status, their privilege! 

*  *  *

This gospel reading comes up every three years in our Sunday morning lectionary, and I marvel at how much more impact it has this year compared to even three years ago – because of the divisions we Americans are suffering.  In fact, have you seen that many of the divisions are in the name of Jesus?  Here’s what I want to speak about for a few minutes: how to discern what it means to follow Jesus into the divisions we’re experiencing.

For instance, I was dismayed to see, in news pictures of the violence at the United States Capital building on January 6 of last year, that many in the mob were waving flags that said Jesus, in addition to flags saying “Trump.”  In other words, many in the mob overwhelming the police, and smashing windows and doors, and breaking into the capital thought they were engaging in such violence in the name of Jesus!

Well, here’s a most dramatic division among those who say they follow Jesus.  As a follower of Jesus, my own understanding is that such violence is absolutely antithetical to the kingdom that Jesus has brought into our world.  My understanding arises from prayer over what the Bible witnesses to Jesus, who became flesh and blood to reveal what God desires: for us to be people who love without condition, who include without restriction, who favor those who are disenfranchised and outcast, who radically identify with the poor, the sick, the hungry; who act, in other words, according to this morning’s Psalm.  This reading of the Bible encourages us to name structures of inequality and injustice to be sin, and to partner with God in transforming the way the world works.

What deep division there is, though, between those of us who understand those to be God’s desires, as opposed to those who also claim to follow Jesus, but who are fearfully trying to preserve the status quo in the name of Jesus.

*  *  *

“Do you think that I have come to bring peace to the earth?  “No, I tell you, but rather division!”  We are living in a time when such divisions are stark.  How do we follow Jesus into the divisions that he causes?  (How’s that for a question?!)

The most important thing is that we actually follow Jesus – and not some idea of Jesus that we’ve constructed to support a prior political position.  What’s necessary for that to happen is to take the Bible seriously.  What I mean by that is that we must allow the Bible to witness to who Jesus actually reveals God to be, through what Jesus said and did.  Following this Jesus leads us into discomfort.  Following this Jesus leads us into transformation, and through transformation comes good news.

Our Lutheran perspective is especially helpful here.  That comes to mind because, the other day, in the daily prayer book I use, I came across one of Martin Luther’s prayers in preparation for that day’s Bible readings: “O Everlasting God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ: Grant us thy grace that we may study the holy scriptures diligently, and, with our whole heart, seek and find Christ therein and through him obtain everlasting life, through the same Jesus Christ, our Lord.  Amen.”[2]  To “seek and find Christ therein.”  Luther teaches us to read the Bible with this purpose: to find Christ in it. 

You can cherry pick passages from the Bible to support anything you want to believe, can’t you?  But when we read the Bible as Luther teaches, we give greatest importance to what Jesus said and did.  Then we interpret the rest of the Bible through that lens.  And so, not everything in the Bible carries the same authority!  We give more emphasis to passages in the Bible that are consistent with what Jesus said and did (such as this morning’s Psalm, from the Hebrew Bible).  We do not spend much time on what’s in the Bible that contradicts what Jesus said and did.

And so, rooted in that study and prayer over what Jesus said and did, we follow Jesus into the divisions between Christians opposing abortion and Christians supporting abortion rights.  We follow Jesus in the divisions between Christians opposing same-sex marriage and Christians celebrating the same-sex marriages of their friends and family.  We follow Jesus into the divisions between Christians over the issues of Israel and Palestine; over vaccines and the government’s role in public health measures; over “Black Lives Matter”; over immigration; over whether there should be restrictions on various types of guns.

How does this translate into your life?  Into your political life?  That’s up to you, in your journey or prayer and study.  What’s important is that you and I follow Jesus, taking seriously what Jesus actually said and did, instead of some construction of Jesus that supports a prior political position.

*  *  *

Did you know that there are more and more who identify as “evangelical” Christians who are searching for new forms of church, because they believe that “evangelicalism” has become a political movement that has nothing to do with what Jesus said and did?  This doesn’t mean that you can’t be conservative, politically!  One of my heroes is the conservative political columnist, David Brooks, who said in a recent interview that he was raised with the view of “a very classy kind of God, and sort of appropriately Britishly restrained kind of Jesus.”  Brooks said, “And I think I sometimes wrestle against that, like, Jesus was a Jewish guy from the Middle East. And when you actually see him through the Jewish lens, living in Jerusalem in a land of vicious conflict, a series of highly organized power structures, which he upsets all at once, you realize, Jesus is a total badass, he’s not like, a guy in a tweed jacket. And so I came to defend the much more aggressive Jesus that shocks.”[3]

I love that!

So in somewhat of a self-confessional mode, let me move towards one specific of what it means to follow the Jesus of the Bible into the divisions that we’re experiencing. 

In what he said and what he did, Jesus causes “a…transformation of how one understands God and how one understands the transformation of the world purposed by this God.”[4]  This transformation is disruptive!  In particular, Jesus causes divisions that demolish any construction of false peace.  (I think of the prophet Jeremiah calling out those who say, “‘Peace, peace,’ but there is no peace.”[5]  Jesus is firmly in that prophetic tradition.)

“Do you think that I have come to bring peace to the earth?  No, I tell you, but rather division!”  Following Jesus into the divisions he has created, our first steps must be to uncover places where we have deluded ourselves into thinking there is peace, when there has not been peace.

I’ll speak from my own experience, as a comfortable and privileged old white guy!  I’m thinking of following the Jesus of the Bible into the division that is our American racial reckoning, as one specific.  I’m thinking of the necessary first steps: for those of us who are white to finally listen to what our African American brothers and sisters have been trying to tell us for many generations.  I have thought there was peace, but there was no peace.  My own interactions have been painful.  But now, following Jesus into this discomfort and division, God is leading us into transformation, and towards reconciliation, and in that is good news of the gospel!

            Jesus reveals who God is and what God desires.  In what he said and did, according to what the Bible witnesses, Jesus loved without condition, and included without restriction, and favored those who are disenfranchised and outcast, and identified radically with the poor, the sick, the hungry.  And Jesus reveals God’s desire: for us to act in the same way as we follow Jesus into the divisions he causes.

            In the name of God, who is Father and Son and Holy Spirit.  Amen.

 

 

-- Pastor Andy Ballentine


[1] Psalm 82:3-4

[2] Frederick J. Schumacher, ed.: For All the Saints: A Prayer Book For and By the Church, Volume IV: Year 2, The Season After Pentecost (The American Lutheran Publicity Bureau, 1996), p. 425.

[4] Joel B. Green, The Gospel of Luke (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans Publishing Co., 1997), p. 509.

[5] Jeremiah 6:14 and 8:11.

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