Worship > Sermon Archive

The Reverend James Derkits
August 19, 2007
Proper 15 year C
Luke 12.49-56

Living out the Gospel of Jesus disrupts our Status Quo

Our Gospel is a bit jarring today. Luke, who at the beginning of his gospel gives us the song of Simeon, which reads, "You are dismissing your servant in peace, according to your word." (Lk 2.29) Now has Jesus saying that he did not come to bring peace at all but division. This is not one of those easy gospels. Not one that might show up in "Chicken Soup for the Whatever" books. This is not one either that we will likely base our VBS on. Funny, isn't it that today is the day for the children's sermon at the 10:30!

This is a challenging Gospel reading, talking about division of families, mothers and daughters, dads and sons, and in-laws: division. And it is uneven division, threes and twos people are taking sides, and there are winners and losers in Jesus message. It is difficult for us to hear because our families have been divided, our families have had difficulty. We know how painful divisions in families are, and we wonder: is this of God? Why do we have to hear this lesson of Jesus, the Christ, the anointed: the one who is supposed to bring peace to the nations talking about fire and division instead.

Let's consider who the original hearers of this gospel were. Unlike the church some of us grew up in, Luke's church was in a very different context. This is the underground early church, the small and young church, not yet the state church it later became with Constantine. This was the church, growing out of, and wrestling away from Judaism. The early Christians were only a sect from the Faithful people of the Torah, who had found the Messiah, Jesus Christ. This church was embedded in the Greek social context in which the family you were from was your source of well-being. To break away from the family structure was permanently damaging socially, and therefore economically. Your security, your livelihood, your life was bound to the family. So what happens when one or two members of a family encounter these followers of Jesus? Here is the rub, there will be division in those families where some become believers and some remain in the state religion, or maintain their faith to the conventional Judaism of the time. Following the way of Jesus calls these early Christians into a new way of being in which they are God's friends, and are invited to dine with Jesus. But that is what quickly causes problems for the status quo. The balance, and the relative peace provided by Roman military force, in which Judaism had, in some ways managed to carve out a niche. Jesus in Luke's gospel is acknowledging the trouble his way causes. He is encouraging those who find themselves in that situation, that that sort of conflict, that sort of tension, that sort of overturning of the status quo is to be expected, and can even be a sign that they are following the path of Jesus. He is giving warning and also encouraging them in their difficult times that they are on the path to eternal life.

Luke's community was different from our own in many ways, yet we might find a similar message of encouragement from him, and even a warning to us of the reality of the Christian journey. I hope the places we find Jesus leading us to division is not in our family. Jesus hopes the same thing. But if we hear his message clearly, we might hear him warning us that there will be divisions! There will be difficulties, in our own day, in our own context. The status quo we find around us will be upset if we take this Jesus character seriously. I mentioned the song of Simeon, and the hope of peace that Jesus brings in the beginning of this Gospel. Before that is the Song of our Matron St Mary, in which she foretells "God has brought down the powerful from their thrones, and lifted up the lowly." (Lk 1.52) Here, early on, Luke warns us that this Jesus character has something different in mind for us. He is bringing forth his Kingdom, and all are welcome including the weak, including the poor and hungry, those who are outcast. That threatens those who are in power, because if all are welcome in the Kingdom, then they maintain no place of privilege! And we know it was not only the songs about him and his teaching, Jesus also lived out this example in his life, associating with the outcasts such as Lepers (Lk 5.12ff), and associating with women the clergy thought he should not be associating with (Lk 7.36 ff.)

Jesus leads us on paths that reveal the world to us in a new way, not with our social conventions as primary, but with Jesus as primary. He becomes the basis of all our relationships, and the example for us to follow. In the time of Luke's community it was about seeing Jesus as the head of the family, and knowing that that could bring division to the Greek family structure. In our own time there are many social structures that we see oppressing those around us. Jesus invites us to step across those divisions, and begin to see others as God sees all of us: as one family. That division Jesus is bringing to our lives can come in the form of Choices in the way we spend our time, and how we look at others in the world. It takes a great deal of courage to be who God has made us to be, to be the carriers of the message of love into the world. And that message as we tell it, or more importantly as we act it out in the world will upset the current order of things. It may even upset our own lives and how we see ourselves. It may lead us to peel away the image we have built up around ourselves, and make ourselves vulnerable and honest in world where honesty is not valued.

The pain that Jesus speaks of is a pain that comes from being honest with ourselves, and with others about who we are. I had a friend in high school, Jason, who felt he was unable to live his life with honesty. Unfortunately, much of that came from the teachings of this family's religion. Jason was gay, and he knew it, but he knew that it would cause a lot of difficulty if he came out, in our small town, and in his church, and in his family. He made it through high school and managed to find his way into the Episcopal church in college, where he found a good mentor that offered him support, and helped him to begin to be honest about who he was with himself first, and eventually his friends and then finally his parents. Before he spoke to his parents he told me that he thought it would be more difficult to tell them that he had become Episcopalian, than to tell them he was gay. Jason is now a priest in the church, leading an internship program in another diocese helping young adults serve the needy.

I find hope in the courage that Jason showed in being honest about who he is in a context that he knew would feel that pain of division Jesus speaks about. I also find hope Jesus led him beyond that place of division to being a leader helping to realize St Mary's song, filling the hungry with good things and lifting up the lowly.

Our gospel today is not an easy one, it is one that reminds us of the challenges that come with living our Christian lives with integrity in the world. Jesus reminds us that the social structures we find around us are not necessarily of the Kingdom of God, and even tells us that his own "mother and brothers are those who hear the word of God and do it." (Lk 8.21) We are called to be part of Jesus' family, and see the world as God sees it. We are called to face the difficulty of division and put our trust in Jesus who "welcomes sinners and eats with them." (Lk 15.2) and who leads us in the way of ultimate peace in the Kingdom of God.

AMEN

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