Jesus the Cause of Division - Luke 12:49-56

“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?

Commentary

In today's lesson, Jesus tells us “Do you think I have come to bring peace? No, I tell you, but rather division.” What happened to that loving Jesus we have learned to trust?

We need to once again remind ourselves that Jesus is often teaching to the crowds. He preaches in parables because that is the fastest way to get a complex message over to a large group of people. The advantage of this approach is that everyone embellishes the story in ways that they most need to hear. The disadvantage is that everyone hears the story a little differently. And because the parables are their own little self contained stories, we jump from one to another with no apparent transition, or even relationship.

When I read today's lesson, my first thought was, OK I need to put this in context. So I went back to the start of the chapter to read forward from there. Do you know what the first 4 words of the 12th chapter of the book of Luke are? “In the mean time”. Do you see what that says? The 11th chapter of Luke is, pretty much like the 12th, a series of teachings of Jesus strung one after another. Being used to thinking of stories as telling a chronology, I get lulled in to thinking this is the record of a certain day at a certain place, and Jesus is teaching. And then I am hit with “In the mean time”, followed immediately by another set of stories told by Jesus. So its the same speaker in as near as we can tell the same place, continuing on with the job started in chapter 11. But NO, chapter 12 is “In the mean time” to chapter 11. The only thing I can make of that is that the writer is telling us pretty bluntly that there is no intended relationship between any one part and another of this, other than that they are all the teachings of Jesus. So, if we want context, we are going to have to figure it out for ourselves, which I think means we are going to have to put all the teachings together into one composite and see what we get.

Our reading starts with the 49th verse of the 12th chapter of Luke. Our reading for last week started on verse 32 of the same chapter. Basically a paragraph or two before today's reading. And that reading started out “Do not be afraid, little flock, for it is your Father's good pleasure to give you the kingdom.” So in two paragraphs we have gone from Do not be afraid, to I bring division. Are you confused? I am. I think we tend to incorrectly beat ourselves up about this confusion. I think the reason we are confused is because it is confusing. I think Jesus himself must have found it confusing, and I think the confusion goes all the way back to God. Our God claims to be the God of compassion and the God of justice. In my limited mind, those two are pretty close to complete opposites. I have faith that in God's mind, they are not. But mere mortal that I am, I'm confused. Any time I start down the road of what I think looks like justice, I don't get to far before I find myself asking, “Is this compassionate?” Same result if I start from the other side.

So what I am left with, once again, are the facts that God's kingdom is not of this world. God's time is not our time, God's plan is beyond our comprehension. We are not asked to understand and agree. We are asked to follow in faith.

That said, we can return to the actual text, and if we keep in mind ALL the teachings of Jesus, there really isn't anything in this that is all that surprising. Jesus has told us repeatedly that if we can not see the spirit, we will never see God. Held up against the lens of materialism, this is inherently a divisive point of view. In fact the only thing I find surprising about the first 5 verses is that he gives us such good odds. Many are called but few are chosen doesn't sound to me anywhere close to 2 in 5.

I am a little insulted when he calls me a hypocrite. I tend to think of myself as erring from ignorance, but I know that isn't really true. The fact that I can get insulted gives me away. Why is it that we do not know how to interpret the present time? Or more in line with the charge of hypocrisy, why is it that we chose NOT to interpret the present time even though we clearly understand what is going on?

I would suggest it goes back to the confusion between compassion and justice. I would suggest we do not interpret the present time because we fear it would be too divisive to do so. I think that God is offering to get in our court, but only if we make the question one that God is interested in. I think that our time is not that different from what Jesus faced. People can't see God because they refuse to see the spirit. The spirit that is at work in them as surely as it is in the rest of us. But people are blinded by me and mine. God asks us to offer people another alternative. Not a different church, or a different political party, but a different way to see themselves as beloved children of God. 2100 years later that is still the state of the present time that we are asked to interpret. With God's help it can be done.

Amen