{"id":316,"date":"2019-08-18T14:03:24","date_gmt":"2019-08-18T14:03:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.stpeterschestersprings.org\/wordpress\/?p=316"},"modified":"2019-08-19T14:11:08","modified_gmt":"2019-08-19T14:11:08","slug":"tenth-sunday-after-pentecost","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.stpeterschestersprings.org\/wordpress\/2019\/08\/18\/tenth-sunday-after-pentecost\/","title":{"rendered":"Tenth Sunday after Pentecost"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Luke 12:49-56<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Grace to you and peace\nfrom God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ<\/p>\n\n\n\n

When\nwe think of Jesus, we think of him as our Savior and as the one who earned for\nus, our forgiveness; when we talk about Jesus, we talk about the love that he showed\nand taught; we rarely see the side of Jesus described in today\u2019s reading from\nLuke. Fire is not what we expect from Jesus! But Jesus did, in fact, tell the\npeople who were gathered about him, \u201cI came to bring fire to the earth\u2026.\u201d And this\nfire was not the kind of fire that we see as good, the kind of fire that we can\ndepend on for things like cooking, heat and light; the fire that gives us a\nfeeling of security; that kind of fire is what we would expect from the Jesus that\nwe all know and love. But here we find that the fire Jesus brought is like the\nwild fires burning now in Greece and like those that attack our west coast\nforests; it is of a kind of fire that kindles the Spirit within, bringing about\npassion and conviction; it is the kind of fire that can inspire but also burn\nus. This fire led to Jesus\u2019 suffering and death, but this fire also made it and\nmakes it possible, for those who receive it to stand up against any danger, any\nthreat. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

To\nstand up like that, has its reprucutions. As Jesus suffered and died so did\nmany of Jesus\u2019 Disciples, who were beaten, arrested, imprisoned, expelled from cities,\nand killed, because they refused to soften the message of Jesus and the message\nof love, that they had been taught by Jesus. We know that all of the Disciples suffered\ngreatly and that only one of them died of natural causes. And look at the lives\nof the early Christians; children, young men and wives expelled from their\nfamilies (kicked out) for confessing their faith in Jesus. This was true in\nJewish as well as Gentile families. (And) Isn\u2019t that exactly what Jesus said\nwould happen? Who would have thought that a story about Jesus and his\nwillingness to give up his life for the forgiveness of our sins and a message\nand command to love one another would cause such a fiery, such a violent\nresponse? And yet, the violence and fire, that caused such heartache came not\nfrom the telling of Jesus\u2019 story and not from the sharing of Jesus\u2019 love, but\nfrom those who, for whatever reason, wanted to squash that word.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And,\nas time went on, even within the body of the Church the word of forgiveness and\nlove has caused division and anger, separating father from son, and mother from\ndaughter and mother-in-law from daughter-in-law. And, I would add to that list,\nbrother from brother, sister from sister and brother from sister as well as\nhusband from wife. Within the church of Jesus Christ, the institution of the church,\nfractions arose which divided the institution in way too many ways. Even before\nthe Reformation, Christianity was divided between Gnostics and Marcions and Orthodoxy\nand then between Eastern and Western rites. At the time of the Reformation,\nMartin Luther and other reformers risked the fire of the church (literally risking\nbeing burned at the stake), for speaking the message of Jesus and his love as\nspoken back in the time of and among the earliest of Jesus\u2019 followers. We know\nthat Martin Luther was excommunicated and that a bounty was placed on his life;\nthankfully he was not arrested and killed, but many other reformers who were\nnot given the protection of a Duke (like was Luther) and many of their\nfollowers were arrested and some were burned as heretics. You would think that\nChristianity would have learned from its poor treatment by Jews and Gentiles,\nby its own past mistakes and from the message of Jesus himself, but it seems it\nhas not; even the segment of Christianity of which we are a part, the Lutheran\ndenomination is divided. This division is such that members of the Evangelical\nLutheran Church in America (of which we are a part) are not welcome to receive\nHoly Communion in the Missouri Synod Lutheran Church and the Wisconsin Synod Lutheran\nChurch. The fire burns between us even when we all speak the same message of\nlove. I\u2019m not saying that it makes sense, but it is true that Jesus foresaw all\nthis unrest.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Still\nwe must not be afraid of such fire. The worst thing that we can do as the\nchurch and as individual Christians is to give in to these fears and try to put\nout the fire of our faith. Strange as these next words may sound, I believe\nthat we need to rekindle the fire in us, not the kind that keeps us apart, but\nthe kind that makes us passionate about Jesus and about loving God and about\nloving our neighbor and about sharing the message of Jesus and his love and so\nsharing all this with our families, with our neighbors and with our friends. We\ncan\u2019t allow our faith to become just a part of the background of our lives. I\ncan\u2019t tell you how amazing it is to sit in a bar and watch as a passionate\nbeliever, casually and without making those around uncomfortable, discusses\nissues of faith with a fellow drinker; two friends simply talking openly about\nJesus and his love. I can\u2019t tell you how happy it makes me, as your pastor, to\nsee our members do something like our \u201cChristmas in July\u201d devotion, and others\nwho plan fellowship events and study opportunities, both for children and\nadults, and others who organize outreach opportunities for our congregation and\nstill others who angst over ways to improve our worship and again others who plan\nto walk Clover Mill Road to pick up the litter. Here is the fire! And, the\nstronger the fire, the stronger we are as a church and as individual Christians.\n<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I\npray that this fire will spread to all of our members through our one-on-one\ninteractions. That is how a church\u2019s ministry should be; this is how a church grows\nand this is how we grow our faith. So, go out and share the good word about\nJesus, but also about our Christmas in July event, our movies under the stars,\nour worship opportunities, our Sunday School, Bible study, movie study and\nAdult Forum, our planned opportunities to help the poor and suffering, our\nAdopt a Highway program and (this we must not forget) the love we share for\neach other.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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 Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-316","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-sermons-and-services"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.stpeterschestersprings.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/316","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.stpeterschestersprings.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.stpeterschestersprings.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.stpeterschestersprings.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.stpeterschestersprings.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=316"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.stpeterschestersprings.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/316\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":317,"href":"https:\/\/www.stpeterschestersprings.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/316\/revisions\/317"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.stpeterschestersprings.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=316"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.stpeterschestersprings.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=316"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.stpeterschestersprings.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=316"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}