Luke 12: 49-56
As parents of four children who in one breath dearly loved each other and…in the next…dearly loved to pester and rack on each other…
- Susan and I cannot say we were thrilled when we read the Gospel text for today…much less that I was to preach on it.
This text mocked me all week long.
- Like remembering way back in time…when…one morning…all before breakfast…we found ourselves refereeing spats between the kids.
- Or when Susan and I bickered about something one evening so important that now…I cannot remember what it was about…the Lord be with you.
I kept thinking…Really…Jesus?
- You’ve come to bring division to families? That’s your good news for our fractured and divided world?
- Well…if that’s the message of Christ…why bother?
- We have managed to come up with enough division on our own…thank you very much.
- In fact…we are quite good at it.
- For example…this week…many students returned to school…
- Where they will be subjected to division upon division upon division.
- They will be judged on what clothes they wear to school…how their hair looks…what they say…how they walk…whether they are too smart…or not smart enough…attractive enough or not…athletic enough or not.
- Even as adults…we are constantly dividing ourselves into groups…the insiders and the outsiders…the good guys and the bad guys…Republicans and Democrats…Lutherans and everybody else.
So…we are supposed to wring good news…somehow…out of Jesus’ proclamation that he comes to bring division to families?
- Even Jesus didn’t seem to have a stellar relationship with his family.
- If you pay close attention to the synoptic Gospels (Matthew…Mark and Luke) …Jesus’ relationship to his mother and brothers borders on the dysfunctional!
- They think he’s gone crazy and they are worried for his safety…
- To say nothing of the shame he’s likely bringing on their family.
- At one point…his mother and brothers show up at one his jam-packed teachings…Jesus disowns them in public.
- He says: That’s not my mom…and those aren’t my brothers. My family are those here gathered with me and those who are journeying with me on this path toward Jerusalem and the cross!
- He rejects his own family in front of a multitude and then goes on to accept into his new family…
- Prostitutes…tax collectors and outcasts…that cause division within polite society.
- He tells would-be followers not to bother burying their parents…
- An outrageous and insulting suggestion to the people of the time.
- He proclaims that anyone who leaves a family for him is blessed by God.
- Jesus seems to have an unusual perspective on family values.
This is good news?
- Well…in a way…yes.
- Because Jesus is not teaching about family values as we understand them as modern Americans.
- Rather…Jesus is saying something about identity and who we understand ourselves to be.
- It can be confusing for us who pride ourselves on individualism and uniqueness.
- But for people in Jesus’ time…identity was not something they spent a lot of time thinking about.
- Instead…identity was formed by one’s family and relatives.
- The son of a carpenter grew up to become a carpenter.
- The son of a field laborer grew up and became a field laborer.
- And if you were a daughter…well…you fared even worse.
- As a woman…you were a second-class citizen…part of the family’s property.
- You married who your family told you to marry.
- So…your primary identity revolved around whose child you were.
- That is why…when people heard Jesus’ teaching and witnessed his miracles…
- They were shocked and said: Wait…isn’t that Joseph’s boy from Nazareth?
In their eyes…carpenter’s sons were not saviors…they were carpenters.
- Family identity was so important that even sin could be inherited.
- And that is why we sometimes hear the crowds in the gospels asking Jesus who in a family had sinned…
- To cause a man to be blind…lame…deaf…or mute.
- The assumption was that God was so vengeful…
- God would punish a person for the sins of an ancestor just to prove a point.
But Jesus pushes back against all this.
- For Jesus…our identity begins not with our earthly family but our divine family.
- That is…our biological families…are often riddled with sibling rivalries…unworthiness…abuse…neglect…
- And sometimes just not being loved for who we are.
- But here’s the thing…in the household of God…we are beloved…above all and without exception.
That is our identity: We are fully loved by God…even as we are fully known by God.
- It is what we proclaim at baptism…that God sees us as children of God…and that we are marked as Christ’s own forever.
- And nothing can ever break that bond…we are Christ’s forever…loved eternally.
- God no longer calls us strangers…no longer calls us slaves…but calls us sons and daughters.
- The love of God dares to believe that love transforms more profoundly than punishment…
- It dares to believe that love never ends…and that the greatest of these…is love.
Now…our temptation…though…is to think of love in terms of holding hands around a campfire…and feeling warm fuzzy feelings.
- But this love…our gospel tells us today…is more likely to bring us stress and division rather than peace and harmony.
- And this is Good News…because God’s love is inclusive enough and wide enough…
- To upset those who want to limit love to a chosen few.
That is…God’s love tests our own safety and security.
- It forces us to confront who we are…that we are by nature sinful and unclean.
- God’s love shows us a way forward into a right relationship with all of God’s beloved children.
- It asks us to see our worth…not in what we have…but in what we give away.
- Neither death…nor life…nor angels…nor rulers…nor things present…nor things to come…nor powers…nor height…nor depth…nor anything else in all creation will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.
Proclaim to the world that there is a nonnegotiable consequence for our sin.
- But…in God’s eternal love…that consequence is not death…is not damnation…is not unquenchable fires.
- The consequence of our sins is forgiveness.
- It seems so irresponsible…so dangerous.
- But then love always is dangerous.
And if we…like Jesus…proclaim this message…
- Then we should not be surprised when our friends and our families show up…
- Divided and embarrassed by it all…wondering whether maybe we have gone a little crazy.
Will it cause division to stand with those our dominant society deems unworthy:
- The marginalized…the poor…the oppressed?
- Will it cause division to stand against injustice…racism…and classism?
- Will it cause division to go out into the world and proclaim this unconditional and unbounded love of God for all?
- Most certainly.
So…thanks be to God that the love of God causes division.
- Thanks be to God that the love of God is so great it will make us uncomfortable.
- Thanks be to God that the love of God is big enough not just to handle division but to spark it.
- Thanks be to God that we are God’s beloved.