Luke 12:49-56
Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ
When we think of Jesus, we think of him as our Savior and as the one who earned for us, our forgiveness; when we talk about Jesus, we talk about the love that he showed and taught; we rarely see the side of Jesus described in today’s reading from Luke. Fire is not what we expect from Jesus! But Jesus did, in fact, tell the people who were gathered about him, “I came to bring fire to the earth….” And this fire was not the kind of fire that we see as good, the kind of fire that we can depend on for things like cooking, heat and light; the fire that gives us a feeling of security; that kind of fire is what we would expect from the Jesus that we all know and love. But here we find that the fire Jesus brought is like the wild fires burning now in Greece and like those that attack our west coast forests; it is of a kind of fire that kindles the Spirit within, bringing about passion and conviction; it is the kind of fire that can inspire but also burn us. This fire led to Jesus’ suffering and death, but this fire also made it and makes it possible, for those who receive it to stand up against any danger, any threat.
To stand up like that, has its reprucutions. As Jesus suffered and died so did many of Jesus’ Disciples, who were beaten, arrested, imprisoned, expelled from cities, and killed, because they refused to soften the message of Jesus and the message of love, that they had been taught by Jesus. We know that all of the Disciples suffered greatly and that only one of them died of natural causes. And look at the lives of the early Christians; children, young men and wives expelled from their families (kicked out) for confessing their faith in Jesus. This was true in Jewish as well as Gentile families. (And) Isn’t that exactly what Jesus said would happen? Who would have thought that a story about Jesus and his willingness to give up his life for the forgiveness of our sins and a message and command to love one another would cause such a fiery, such a violent response? And yet, the violence and fire, that caused such heartache came not from the telling of Jesus’ story and not from the sharing of Jesus’ love, but from those who, for whatever reason, wanted to squash that word.
And, as time went on, even within the body of the Church the word of forgiveness and love has caused division and anger, separating father from son, and mother from daughter and mother-in-law from daughter-in-law. And, I would add to that list, brother from brother, sister from sister and brother from sister as well as husband from wife. Within the church of Jesus Christ, the institution of the church, fractions arose which divided the institution in way too many ways. Even before the Reformation, Christianity was divided between Gnostics and Marcions and Orthodoxy and then between Eastern and Western rites. At the time of the Reformation, Martin Luther and other reformers risked the fire of the church (literally risking being burned at the stake), for speaking the message of Jesus and his love as spoken back in the time of and among the earliest of Jesus’ followers. We know that Martin Luther was excommunicated and that a bounty was placed on his life; thankfully he was not arrested and killed, but many other reformers who were not given the protection of a Duke (like was Luther) and many of their followers were arrested and some were burned as heretics. You would think that Christianity would have learned from its poor treatment by Jews and Gentiles, by its own past mistakes and from the message of Jesus himself, but it seems it has not; even the segment of Christianity of which we are a part, the Lutheran denomination is divided. This division is such that members of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (of which we are a part) are not welcome to receive Holy Communion in the Missouri Synod Lutheran Church and the Wisconsin Synod Lutheran Church. The fire burns between us even when we all speak the same message of love. I’m not saying that it makes sense, but it is true that Jesus foresaw all this unrest.
Still we must not be afraid of such fire. The worst thing that we can do as the church and as individual Christians is to give in to these fears and try to put out the fire of our faith. Strange as these next words may sound, I believe that we need to rekindle the fire in us, not the kind that keeps us apart, but the kind that makes us passionate about Jesus and about loving God and about loving our neighbor and about sharing the message of Jesus and his love and so sharing all this with our families, with our neighbors and with our friends. We can’t allow our faith to become just a part of the background of our lives. I can’t tell you how amazing it is to sit in a bar and watch as a passionate believer, casually and without making those around uncomfortable, discusses issues of faith with a fellow drinker; two friends simply talking openly about Jesus and his love. I can’t tell you how happy it makes me, as your pastor, to see our members do something like our “Christmas in July” devotion, and others who plan fellowship events and study opportunities, both for children and adults, and others who organize outreach opportunities for our congregation and still others who angst over ways to improve our worship and again others who plan to walk Clover Mill Road to pick up the litter. Here is the fire! And, the stronger the fire, the stronger we are as a church and as individual Christians.
I pray that this fire will spread to all of our members through our one-on-one interactions. That is how a church’s ministry should be; this is how a church grows and this is how we grow our faith. So, go out and share the good word about Jesus, but also about our Christmas in July event, our movies under the stars, our worship opportunities, our Sunday School, Bible study, movie study and Adult Forum, our planned opportunities to help the poor and suffering, our Adopt a Highway program and (this we must not forget) the love we share for each other.