Sermon: "I Came to Bring Fire and to Divide" - What's that All About?

Date Preached: Sunday 15th August 2009

Bible Reference: Luke Chapter 12, verses 49 to 56

Beethoven, the great composer sometimes used to play a nasty trick on his polite high society salon audiences – especially if he thought they weren’t really interested in serious music. He’d perform a piece on the piano – one of his beautiful, gentle slow movements – lulling everyone into thinking the world was a soft, cosy place to be – relaxing them and enfolding them so they’d be almost falling asleep. Then just as the final notes were dying away, he’d bring his whole forearm down with a crash across the keyboard – and laugh at the shock reaction he’d caused.

It was a bit cruel and impolite perhaps – and Beethoven could have found less antisocial ways of telling his hearers that the world was full of pain as well as beauty. But the shock of the discordant crash to his upper crust audience is a good picture for what Jesus had to say at the end of Luke chapter 12 – because it comes as a huge shock.

You can imagine people thinking “But I thought this was supposed to be the Prince of Peace” – why is he turning all the nice cosy stuff about caring for others on its head by saying he’s the Prince of Division? 

The feast of Mary the Mother of Our Lord coincides with today – and if Jesus’ mother had been in the crowd that day, I don’t think she’d have been a bit surprised by his words. She knew from the beginning that he was going to be controversial; that Jesus was the key to God’s plan to “bring down the powerful from their thrones and lift up the lowly, to fill the hungry with good things and send the rich away empty.” We get the Magnificat at the beginning of Luke in chapter 2 (v52-53). And then she’d have remembered that day in the temple, when Jesus was just a little baby - with the old man Simeon holding the infant Messiah in his arms, relishing the moment that he’d waited for so long. Remember he looked Mary in the eye and said,

“This child marks both the failure and the recovery of many in Israel, a figure misunderstood and  contradicted - the pain of a sword-thrust through you—
But the rejection will force honesty, as God reveals who they really are. (Luke 2:34-35 The Message)

And don’t forget Mary had heard all about Jesus’ very first sermon, confirming her fear—or rather her expectation—that her son would have a turbulent ministry. Luke’s account of Jesus’ ministry begins in his hometown synagogue in Nazareth with Jesus reading from the prophet Isaiah that day, and the congregation was so comforted by his peaceful words that they drove him out of town and tried to throw him over a cliff!! (Luke 4:16-30) So if we think about it, the preaching and teaching of Jesus, the Prince of Peace, routinely brought about division.

Neither would Mary have been at all surprised at Jesus’ apparent lack of regard for family loyalties. He had already denied her, his own mother, in public on at least one occasion - when Mary and Jesus’ brothers came to see him but couldn’t get near because he was being mobbed. When he was told that they were waiting to see him, he responded, “My mother and my brothers are those who hear the Word of God and put it into practice.” (Luke 8:19-21). So:

·         Already Jesus was redefining family.

·         Already Jesus was demonstrating, in his own life the prime importance of the call to discipleship over any other relationships—even his closest ties.

Jesus didn’t come to mollycoddle us. He came to bring fire to the earth! To set it alight. To make all things new! It’s a totally new way of thinking and behaving.  This is how a writer called Rudy Wiebe (in The Blue Mountains of China) put it:

“you show wisdom… by trusting people;
you handle leadership…(by lording it over?) – no! - by serving; you handle offenders, by (labelling them, punishing them and shutting them away?) No – by forgiving; you handle money, by sharing;
(you handle) enemies, by loving;
and you handle violence, by suffering.

Which means repentance isn’t about feeling bad, it’s about thinking differently.”
(Wiebe, Rudy, The Blue Mountains of China, McClellan and Stewart, 1970.)

Luke’s Gospel makes clear that this totally new thing Jesus wants to do isn’t just a matter of personal attitude – like church giving us a bit of psychic comfort from the stresses of the modern world. Yes there is that comfort, but in the context of all things becoming new.

Doesn’t all this sound just a little different from what we’re used to? Peace coming through a Cross; power and strength being found in weakness; greatness evident in submission, humility, and service.

But haven’t we been seeing this recently as we’ve been digging into the gospels? That this is a completely upside-down kingdom. Or maybe the right-side up if we start looking from God’s perspective. Faith always tends to subvert what we’ve learned and got used to in our world.

Maybe that’s why this text is so-ooo hard, because it reminds us that the decision to follow Christ is not a ‘walk in the park’. It’s not about just being nice, and polite, and minding our own business. To follow where Jesus leads is to be picked up and turned upside-down. And when that happens it’s going to be painful at times, and people around us—maybe even our own families—are not always going to understand. There’s going to be friction. “Aren’t you taking this Christianity thing just a little too seriously?” Sometimes there’s even going to be division. Jesus is simply telling the truth—that following him wasn’t – isn’t - meant to be easy or comfortable – but it is meant to be a joy!!

Because let’s not misunderstand either. The peace of Christ is not about opposition for the sake of it – not about being obnoxious tub-thumping killjoys – like that Harry Enfield character – “You don’t want to do that”. The peace of Christ – in fact the purpose of the Church - has only one agenda (and its not to keep the church going) – it’s to make all things new in accordance with the promise of the Kingdom. Following Jesus means living each moment of each day with him at the centre. To say that Jesus Christ is Lord in those days was to say that Caesar was not! Today we’re supposed to bow down to our modern gods of success, fame, money, self-importance, financial security. So these days, to say “Jesus is Lord” is to proclaim that whatever those idols are, they are also – not to be worshipped!

You’ might have heard of Dietrich Bonhoeffer. Well when Hitler and the Nazi party came to power in Germany in the 1930s, ,this Lutheran pastor and theologian, had the opportunity to leave Germany but he chose to stay and resist. For him following Christ brought him into conflict with his world. He was very vocal in opposing the Nazi regime and its policies, and as a result spent two years in a concentration camp, and was executed just a few days before the Allies liberated the camp.

So if the cost of discipleship is potentially so high, if the decision to follow Christ inevitably leads to division, why on earth do it?

·         Why did the disciples leave everything behind and follow Jesus at the sound of his call?

·         Why did the early Christians suffer persecution and death to follow him?

·                     Why, throughout the centuries, have there always been those who willingly accepted the cost of standing up for the downright subversive and dangerous upside-down ways of the kingdom? (We don’t need to look further than the list we have in Hebrews 11)

Maybe there are few tangible, material rewards; little promise that life will be smooth. But (as someone had to remind me this week) what deep joy there is when hooked up to Jesus – sharing friendship with him and knowing that whatever life throws at us … we belong, we have an identity, a purpose for being. - we matter – we’re loved unconditionally – we’re forgiven, even when we blow it (as I tend to continuously) and have to crawl back.

It’s just that the call of Christ overrides any other loyalty, and other commitment, any other relationship. The call of Christ overrides worldly logic – but then that’s really all about me and my own importance. Here’s the good news: the joy of being in a relationship with Jesus overrides any fear of having to be at the centre – because it’s then all about him. Here’s one of Bonhoeffer’s prayers:

God of the day and of the night, in me there is darkness, but with you there is light. I am alone, but you will not leave me. I am weak, but you will come to my help. I am restless, but you are my peace. I am in haste, but you are the God of infinite patience. I am confused and lost, but you are eternal wisdom and you direct my path; now and for ever. Amen