Sermon for 8/18/2013 from Pr. Mark T. Peterson at Christ the King Lutheran Church, Holliston, MA.
Luke
12:49–56
49I
came to bring fire to the earth, and how I wish it were already kindled! 50I have a baptism with which to be
baptized, and what stress I am under until it is completed! 51Do you think that I have come to bring
peace to the earth? No, I tell you, but rather division! 52From now on five in one household will
be divided, three against two and two against three; 53they 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."
54He
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. 55And when you see the south wind blowing,
you say, 'There will be scorching heat'; and it happens. 56You hypocrites! You know how to
interpret the appearance of earth and sky, but why do you not know how to
interpret the present time?
Greetings to you in the name of Jesus Christ,
When I was in high school, I spent a Saturday along with
another student from my school, at this event in Rochester, Minnesota. It was
some sort of visioning thing, where people from the city and surrounding
communities were invited to come and share. I think our principal had asked
myself and the other student if we wanted to attend, and so I was there.
Now, I don’t remember much about our purpose, or what we
were doing, other than there was a lot of those big easel sized legal pads and
markers, with people spewing thoughts and other people, writing them down.
But, what does stand-out, is a woman in our little group
saying that she hated the word “tolerance”, especially in regards to the people
we live with. At first, I was a little
shocked, but then she went on to explain.
Tolerate she said, means that we are in essence putting up with each
other, allowing others into our space, but not necessarily being real happy
about it. Her point was, that rather then just tolerating people, we should instead,
be moving towards acceptance, and community.
I think about this comment quite often, and it has taken
on meaning for me in my journey of faith as well. You see, many people, at
first thought anyway, like to think that we have a “tolerant” God. But, that’s
just not true, and we hear about our intolerant God, as we hear Jesus’ words in
our Gospel today, “ 51Do you think that I
have come to bring peace to the earth? No, I tell you, but rather division!”
This intolerant, divisive Jesus sure doesn’t sound like the same person
who “loves me for the Bible tells me so”. As Jesus goes on to talk about
turning family members against each other, we might have a hard time with some
pretty harsh sounding words. At the very
least, I don’t think we’re going to use these words as a means of inviting
people to join us. “Come and experience Jesus, who will turn father against
son….”
Yet, in the end, the Jesus who gives us these troubling words, is giving
us Good News, and is doing so through his intolerance, through God’s
intolerance. You see, Jesus doesn’t just
tolerate us, and Jesus didn’t come to simply let us remain the people who we
were before he got here. People who are
mired in sin, constantly destroying ourselves and each other, living lives
devoted to looking out for ourselves. No,
Jesus didn’t come to this earth to give us the peace that is defined from merely
tolerating one another. Instead, Jesus came to bring division to that type of
peace, because that isn’t peace at all, that’s simply isolation. That type of
peace would be like sending two squabbling siblings to their separate rooms
forever, and really meaning it.
Ultimately, our God, Jesus Christ, isn’t tolerant. He isn’t tolerant of
the sin that we are all captive to, because he loves each and every one of us
too much. And, it is out of this, unending, intolerant love that we are not
divided, but brought together. Jesus doesn’t come to us a person, a family, or
a pew at a time, leaving us all the same as we were when we got here. Jesus
comes to all of us at the same time, and makes us a body transformed in love,
forgiving of each other, even offering gestures of peace with each other, so
that we make experience his love through our love together, so that we may dine
on his loving meal as a family. And
Jesus us sends us out as that one body, to be as intolerant as he is, and bring
the dividing fire of his baptism to all the world.
This is a fire that burns against the sin that so divides us. It is the
fire that burns against the uneasy “tolerance” that we humans use not to bring
peace and community, but instead use to divide ourselves over things like race,
class, religion, and gender. This is the fire that finally overcomes our sin,
overcomes our divisions, and makes all things new.
This is the fire, the fire of Jesus’ Baptism, that didn’t not leave
three Lutheran denominations wallowing in their divisions 25 years ago, and
instead, brought them together, to form something new, the Evangelical Lutheran
Church of America. This is indeed the same fire that was present this last week
in Pittsburgh, as representatives from ELCA congregations all over the country
met at the Churchwide Assembly. This is
the same fire that stirred up a seemingly boring, slam dunk to re-elect our
exceptional Presiding Bishop, into a calling for a changing of the guard, and
the election of our first, female Presiding Bishop, Elizabeth Eaton. This is the same fire that gave this
particular assembly the theme of “Making all things new” and the same fire, the
fire of the Holy Spirit, the fire given to us as we are washed in the waters of
Jesus’ Baptism that is “Making all things new” right before our very eyes.
The fact that our God is so intolerant, is truly a blessing. Instead of
leaving us be, our God has come and loved us with a love that is so powerful,
it divides us from our sin, and in doing so transforms us into one people of
God. This God, Jesus Christ is here with us today, and as we dine on his body
and blood, may we be made new again, a rekindled people of God, burning for all
people, and all of creation.
In the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit,
Amen
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