Time, peace, and division
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: father against son and son against father, mother against daughter and daughter against mother, mother-in-law against her daughter-in-law 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?"
Here ends the reading.
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Well. I bet you are all both dying and at the same time dreading to hear what I have to say about Jesus’s words in the first part of Luke’s Gospel lesson today, where Jesus says he didn’t come to bring peace but to bring division.
After all, we call Jesus the Prince of Peace and recall all those times when Jesus says to his disciples, peace be with you, I leave you my peace, peace be still. But today he says he brings fire and division — and not only that but he wishes that fire was already taking effect.
Whew.
But here we are, so I will cut to the chase, and in doing so I bring up something that resonated with me when I read what Frank Logue, Bishop of Georgia had to say about this passage one time. He said, there is a distinction between true peace and “keeping the peace.”
We keep the peace when we look the other way while wrong-doing is happening around us, in our families, in our communities, in our relationships, in our world. We don’t want to upset people by telling the truth, by demanding honesty and integrity, by intervening in destructive behavior patterns that our families and friends or our priests or teachers or elected officials engage in that destroy the fabric of our society, community, families — that destroy people.
So sometimes keeping the peace means pretending that there is no wrong-doing at all, a willful denial of reality. Keeping the peace might mean not confronting the affair of the spouse to save face or not telling about cruel behavior by the boss at the office or the misconduct by the clergy — to protect reputations, by explaining away the thing you know is happening.
But keeping the peace allows the abuser or the liar, or the cheater to keep abusing, and lying and cheating, even destroying, out of some misplaced loyalty and magical hope that somehow the victim of that wrongdoing is not really being damaged or destroyed. Keeping the peace out of some kind of loyalty allows those who are being hurt to continue to be hurt.
But Jesus demands loyalty to God alone. True peace is not the absence of strife, it’s knowing that we are joining in God’s work of protecting the vulnerable and the lost and the grieving and the poor even if it means upsetting someone, even upsetting someone you love, even your mother or father or brother or sister or your priest or your boss.
And so following Jesus can indeed bring division and indeed demands division when we are faced with the choice of telling the truth or keeping the peace. Which leads me to the second part of Jesus’s words today, which is connected to the first part, in which he urges his followers to learn how to read the signs of the times.
But first, a short story. One summer evening I said to my husband, “let’s walk up the street to that Mexican restaurant for a quick dinner. The weather app says it’s not going to rain again for a couple of hours.” So off we go for our 10 minute walk and 5 minutes in, he looks at the sky and says, “I don’t think we’ve got 2 hours. That sky looks ominous.” And I, looking at the same sky, but wishing mightily for the tacos I’ve been thinking about all afternoon, said, “Oh, no, it isn’t going to rain yet. We’ve got enough time. The weather app says so.”
We had thirty minutes. And yes, we got wet during our walk home. And one of us was gracious enough not to say, “I told you so.” I let wishful thinking cloud my judgment to the point that I ignored the reality around me.
Now that’s a small story, but it’s an example of the kind of behavior that makes the same point as any story — if we are going to interpret the times, we have to be able to acknowledge the realities around us instead of engaging in wishful thinking. With his harsh words we know that Jesus is not messing around here - so it is crucial that we attend to that difference.
Many of us feel that a major shift has occurred in the world around us. Things are not the way they used to be in many many areas of life. There are some of you who are experiencing change in their own lives or families, too.
Some of these changes are good and we’ve rolled with them, but some of them have left us feeling lost. We have been in a period of change, both in the world and in our church, that can make us very anxious. And the impulse in a time of anxiety is to do everything possible to just go back to the way it used to be. Even if that way is no longer life-giving, even if it is no longer possible.
In terms of the church, parishes in transition like ours are susceptible to wishful thinking, to experiencing a reality gap, ignoring the signs of the times around us.
And these are the times for the church: Christianity is not dead, but some of the ways we have practiced Christianity for the last few generations have run their course. And that’s ok. Because something new is wanting to be born. Something new is wanting to be born here at St. James’s. Something new is wanting to be born in you in your own life. Because God is always doing new things.
And God is going to be doing a new thing here, a new life-giving thing, a new way of being in the world that enlarges your life instead of limiting it to the way things used to be. We can try to shape that future by planning and forecasting and strategizing, but in the end it might be best to simply train our eyes outward, toward what God is doing in the world, and giving ourselves over to wondering instead of trying to control what God is in control of, and making room for a new passion for following Jesus to be born in this community as you move into your next chapter as a parish. It might be best to give ourselves over to wonder what God has in store for any of us when we are in a place of anxiety.
This can feel pretty scary. But as we heard Jesus say last week, do not be afraid little flock, for God wants to give you everything. God wants to give you everything. God wants to do a new thing here! And because God is good, God’s new thing will be good. God’s new thing will always be good.
All you have to do is open your hands and open your hearts to receive it.
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