Stress and Division (Tenth Sunday after Pentecost)
Sermons on YouTube…
Today Jesus comes along in our Gospel reading and says, “do you think that I have come to bring peace on earth? No, I tell you, but rather division.” And my first reaction is to respond, “Gee, thanks Jesus but I don’t need any more help with division in my life! And yes, I do like to think that you’re about ‘peace on earth’. After all, that’s what the angels announced back about 10 chapters ago when you were born!”
Whenever I come to a passage like this in the Bible, I think, “I really don’t need any of this right now!” You may feel the same way! And truthfully, I’d like to edit out most of today’s Gospel reading! In fact, one of the commentaries I’ve read on this passage said that today’s reading is probably one of the 10 sayings of Jesus almost everyone would like to avoid and edit out.
But with or without today’s sayings of Jesus, it’s always temping to edit Jesus in our lives in such a way that Jesus doesn’t cause us any stress or division. And we do this all time. We edit Jesus by:
- doing things Jesus calls us to do that we’d probably do anyway; and honestly then we’ll be too busy to do other, more uncomfortable things …
- focusing on ideas and principles that make sense to us socially and politically; and after a while, it just seems like Jesus is one of “us”, and opposed to all of “them” …
- dwelling on Jesus’ good deeds and resurrection, instead of his suffering and death; because thinking about stuff like Jesus’ impending suffering in today’s Gospel reading reminds us of suffering and death in our own lives that we’d just as soon ignore for as long as possible…(and probably, this is way the first disciples did this as well!)
Editing Jesus is really tempting. And it’s amazing that Luke, who could have easily edited this out of his Gospel, did not. Or may it isn’t. After all, the world and the experience of Luke’s first readers – even when Luke tries to clean it up and make it sound happy – was often filled with stress, conflict and division. Just acknowledging that you believed this Jesus stuff often caused:
- knock-down drag-out fights within families; especially for Jewish Christians, deciding that Jesus was the Messiah was heresy, and it often got them shunned by their families and kicked out of their community synagogues (this stuff about inter-family conflict Jesus talks about was NOT theoretical by the time Luke wrote it down…)
- problems with the Roman authorities – this was especially true for gentile Christians, who were often thought to be part of foreign sect that followed a guy who had been crucified. In those days, you mostly got crucified for rebellion and insurrection, and this was part of what made Christians suspect by Roman authorities for centuries. And the fact that Christians called Jesus “Lord” – which was also the title for Caesar – didn’t help this impression…!
- the wider community to consider them really odd and weird – some of this was Christians actually believing this weird stuff about the Resurrection, but it was also the “weird” ways they lived BECAUSE of their belief in the resurrection – perhaps paradoxically, because they believed this life wasn’t the end, they didn’t just live for now, and they cared about people who were sick or outcast because they believed that those folks, too, were people Jesus loved and would include in the Resurrection as well…
And so the truth is that living as Jesus’ followers meant living in a world in which they’d come into conflict and stress because of their faith. And this was not because they got in other people’s faces about converting or because they were trying to cause trouble. It was just the way it was going to be because they believed that the society and the world around them was not all there was, and that they were called right now to live in new way because of Jesus’ death and Resurrection.
And honestly, we’d like it if stress and conflict from being followers of Jesus was just something from the ancient past. We like to think Jesus is just about peace and love, not only from God but from others, too. And many of us remember when most people around us – even if they weren’t Christians themselves – acted as if being a Christian or even just actively being involved in a church – was a noble and good thing.
But that’s not usually the way it is anymore. And maybe it wasn’t ever the way it was, even when we liked to think otherwise. And in a world that’s already filled with conflict and division, we don’t want Jesus to be another source of stress or conflict in our relationships, with the society around us, or in our politics. Yet it’s still the case for us that following Jesus:
- isn’t always the most popular thing in a society in which, for many people, religion in general and Christianity in particular, is considered part of the problem and not part of the solution for the problems in the world around us. One of the good things about the Interfaith 5K is that it gives us an opportunity to show how people of faith can work together and care about each other even when we have different religious beliefs…; yet even then, a lot of folks who see us will simply say, “yeah, that’s great that you help the community, but if you’d just get rid of all that “god stuff” it’d be so much better…(I have friends who basically define “Christian” as “being a nice person”, but when it comes to actually believing in the presence of living God things get weird…)
- causes conflict when practicing faith gets in the way of “important stuff”; I sympathize with parents who more and more get told by their kids’ sports coaches that nothing – not Sunday School, not Confirmation – probably not even their grandmother’s funeral – should get in the way of practice; and it’s not just kids; religion is often considered fine in our society as long as it’s “private”, but when it gets in the way of “real life” people can start to get upset with us…(Jews who strictly observe sabbath know this even better than Christians…)
- suggests to others that our faith in Jesus must identify us with a political movement or party that we do not identify with (and this happens on both right and left); but it also happens (and I’ve seen this a bunch of times, again on both left and right) when somebody who might identify with a particular political movement challenges the orthodoxy of even one idea because they don’t believe that’s what Jesus wants them to do, and all of a sudden a political heresy trial breaks out…! (It raises the question: “What does it mean if Jesus is Lord, instead of politics?” – and there are lots of folks in our society for whom politics is their religion…)
So, yeah, I’d really like to edit out these words of Jesus, because I’d like Jesus to be just about peace and love and happiness. And even if my faith in Jesus brings about some stress and conflict in my life, I’d like not to be reminded of it! After all, I experience enough conflict and division in the world already, and so do you.
But maybe that’s the point.
The real, unedited Jesus is really who I need for my real, unedited life. Edited Jesus, who only speaks of peace would be great if my life was only filled with peace. Edited Jesus, who never causes division, would be great if my life wasn’t filled already with stress and division. Edited Jesus, who never asks me to examine my values or priorities, would be great if my world never changed or brought me into contact with different people and experiences.
But that’s not my world. And it’s not yours either. And so even though I’m inclined to resist the unedited Jesus of today’s Gospel, it’s the real, unedited Jesus who I really need.
And that’s because in the end, it’s only the Jesus who challenges us on the reality of our failings who can credibly promise us forgiveness. It’s only the Jesus who suffers through conflict, and walks with us through our divisions, who can assure us of ultimate peace. And it’s only the Jesus who suffers and dies and rises again who can give us the real and certain hope that the conflict, division and stress will not have the final word in our lives.
Amen.