Sermon for August 18, 2019 – St. Matthew’s Church
Proper 15C – RCL Track 1
Jesus
said, "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:
and son against father,and daughter against mother,
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?"
I have to be
honest – I don’t like this passage from Luke!
Every time it comes up I hope that I am not the one who is assigned to
preach. This is not a feel-good passage
about Jesus going after the one lost sheep.
It is not a passage that talks about radical forgiveness like the
parable of the prodigal son. This is a
passage that makes me uncomfortable – and I bet it makes some of you
uncomfortable too. And that is a good
thing for me and for you. It is a good
thing to wrestle with difficult passages.
It is good because they make us think.
It is good because they challenge us to look at our theology and see
where it might be veering into hypocrisy or heresy.
This passage
seems so out of character for Jesus…but is it really? We find it uncharacteristic, uncomfortable,
because we have largely domesticated Jesus.
We want to see the Jesus that we find in stained glass windows or in
children’s Sunday School books. We try
to domesticate God so that we are comfortable.
Our presiding
Bishop likes to say that if it isn’t about love it isn’t about God. And this passage is still about love. Because the fire Jesus yearns to ignite is
the refiners fire that leads to God’s reign of Love coming into our
presence. A reign that is characterized
by love of God and love of our neighbors.
A reign that welcomes those who society would cast into the fire into
the very embrace of God.
The reality
in Jesus time, if only the people would look, is that most people do not want
that kind of society. They don’t want to
let go of their perks that have been given to them by a conquering empire. Humans have a propensity for taking what we
find comfortable and worshiping that as an idol. We do it today.
In Friday’s
Sacramento Bee Marcus Breton had an article on homeless folk and our failure to
provide housing for people. He
chronicled all the reasons that someone will likely die in the cold this
winter. And he lays it at our feet. He points out that all the talk from our
politicians about providing shelters runs into roadblock after roadblock. Anyplace that is proposed for a low barrier
shelter – one that accepts all people, complete with their needs, their pets,
and their partners, someone opposes.
There are limited areas that have the space for a large 100 bed
shelter. And none of the places are
right. None are perfect – and all of
them will be opposed by a set of Sacramento residents. It will not be the same set at each location
but there will be opposition. Some of it
is real and much of it is fear. Fear
that “the others” will bring crime to the neighborhood. Fear that it will drag down the fragile
improvements being made in areas that have the space and sewer and water
connections needed for a large shelter.
The idea of shelters causes division.
Just a Jesus caused division in his community by eating with outcasts
and declaring forgiveness to those who turn towards God.
We live in a
country where division is so pervasive that we hardly even notice the headline
anymore. We only pay attention when
someone dies – and then only long enough for the bodies to be buried. This division is, in part, due to folks being
fearful that if we let someone else have what they need – be that housing,
asylum, medical care, a living wage, God’s love – if somehow we let someone
else have something we will lose out on our privilege. Our society – indeed much of the world – subscribes
to an economy of limitations. An economy
of scarcity. And we put that economy on God.
However, God’s
economy is one of abundance. An
abundance of Love. An abundance of forgiveness. An abundance of welcome. And Jesus came to try and get those around
him to see that economy. To see the need
for radical healing. To see the need to
change how we operate.
Jesus called
us to stop worshiping the idols that separate us from God’s creation. And that kind of talk causes division because
we don’t want to let go of our comforts.
Jesus told the people that just like noticing the weather they should
notice the need for change. And it is
still just a true today. Too many
people, many who call themselves Christians, cannot see the need to
change. They continue to domesticate
Jesus and God.
The good news
is that there are people who advocate for the kind of radical change that Jesus
calls us to make. The good news is that
there are places in our scriptures that make us uncomfortable with how our
world is behaving.
The sad part
is that advocating for the kinds of change that God desires still causes
division. The sad news is that eating
with those society considers outcasts and unclean still causes division.
I invite you
to continue to wrestle with the difficult parts of God’s
word… because
it is those parts that will call us to shake off our sins and to welcome God’s
reign of love into our hearts and into our world. And when we do it will cause division – it
will cause the refiners fire to melt our hard hearts and accept a different
society. The society of love and
forgiveness that is the dream of God.
