Peace

Charlotte Collins Reed

Christ Church Episcopal

August 18, 2019

15 Proper C

Thursday evening, I had the pleasure of having dinner and spending the night with my aunt in Chicago.  I was in the city for a meeting Friday morning at Bexley-Seabury seminary, where I serve on the board of directors.  Paula, my aunt, was the wife of my father’s older brother, my late uncle, but she is far closer to my age than she was to that of Uncle George.  Their children are about the same age as my sons.  While we were together Thursday evening, we looked at some old family photos.  There are photos of my dad and my uncle when they were little boys, photos of the 8 cousins, the grandparents we had in common, and photos of various family reunions over the decades.  Those photos tell the story of a family made up of different views on pretty much everything, including the family story, but also made up of people who care deeply about each other, share a set of experiences and family resemblances.  The photos are reminders of the important role we have played in each other’s lives.  I was reminded of the way I feel at home when I am with family, even when I am far from home.

          Family is important, so Jesus’ words come as a shock to me this morning.  Jesus seems to be something of a home-wrecker when he says “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.”  Then Jesus goes on in some detail about what that division looks like.  If these words were the only words we had from Jesus, we would be hard pressed to say why this is good news and we might wonder how Jesus ever attracted any followers! 

But these are not the only words we have from or about Jesus.   When Jesus is born, the angels light up the sky and sing “Glory to God in the highest heaven, and on earth peace among those whom he favors!” To the woman who anoints his feet with costly ointment, Jesus says “Go in peace, your faith has saved you,” which is also what he says to the woman healed of her hemorrhage.  And at the end of Luke’s gospel, when Jesus appears to the disciples, he says “Peace be with you.” 

Clearly, Jesus has nothing against peace.  So, what is Jesus up to this morning with his gloom and doom talk about family division?

There are two places in Luke’s gospel where we find a basic job description for Jesus.  First, when Mary went to visit Elizabeth when both women were pregnant, the child in Elizabeth’s womb, aka John the Baptist, leapt for joy.  Then Mary sang the words many of us know as the Magnificat.  The Magnificat, based on the Song of Hannah in 1 Samuel, includes these words:  

He has shown strength with his arm;

   he has scattered the proud in the thoughts of their hearts.

He has brought down the powerful from their thrones,

   and lifted up the lowly;

he has filled the hungry with good things,

   and sent the rich away empty.

This is part 1 of Jesus’ job description.  The second part of the job description is in Luke 4 at the very beginning of Jesus’ ministry when he enters the synagogue in Nazareth and reads from the scroll of the prophet Isaiah. 

‘The Spirit of the Lord is upon me,

   because he has anointed me

     to bring good news to the poor.

He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives

   and recovery of sight to the blind,

     to let the oppressed go free,

to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favour.”

When Jesus finishes, he says to the congregation “Today, this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing.”  At first, the people listening are amazed at the gracious words coming from Jesus.  But then, when they realize that Jesus’ gracious words are not for them alone, they are furious and want to throw Jesus off a cliff. 

In these two passages, we hear that Jesus has come to turn the world upside down.  He has come to bring good news to the poor and show the rich what real wealth is.  He has come to lift the lowly, and show the powerful what true power looks like.  He has come to feed the hungry and show the rich the food that really satisfies.  In the gospel world of Jesus, the outsiders are insiders, the rich are poor, the last are first, and death brings life.   This is what the Kingdom of God looks like.  

This morning, Jesus tells us that he has come to make the Kingdom of God a present reality and to light a fire under us.  In the Hebrew scriptures, fire is a sign of the divine presence as God led the Hebrew people out of Egypt as a pillar of cloud by day and a pillar of fire by night.  Fire is also about purification, as we hear from John the Baptist at the beginning of Luke’s gospel when he warns the gathered crowds that “every tree therefore that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire.”  Jesus has come to bring gospel values to earth and he is as serious as fire about his mission.

Jesus has nothing against peace.  But he is not competing in a popularity contest either.  Jesus is clear this morning that he has a job to do, a mission to fulfill, and he knows there will be deep resistance to his words just as there was deep resistance in Nazareth when he started his ministry.  Some will choose to follow him and others will not.  Even within families, some will choose to follow and others will not, and that choice will create division in those families.  Jesus does not say this morning that families are bad, or that division is good or some goal to be achieved.  Jesus is being honest and telling his followers that division happens.  In the late first century world in which Luke was written, Christians were experiencing exactly what Jesus describes this morning as some in a family chose to follow Jesus and pay the price and others did not.  Today, some families are deeply divided over issues of faith.  If peace is the goal of following Jesus, those in families that have divided over whether or how to follow Jesus can easily feel like failures.  Jesus tells his followers that division is not failure, but division may be part of the price we pay for following him.  Jesus never claims that being his follower will be easy.  Jesus’ claim is that following him faithfully will have a cost.  Jesus’ promise is that following him will make the Kingdom of God a more present reality on earth, and that following him always leads to life. 

                                                          Amen.