Pentecost 13, Year C

Proper 15 -- Isaiah 5:1-7; Psalm 80:1–2, 8-18; Hebrews 11:29–12:2; Luke 12:49-56

A homily by Fr. Gene Tucker given at Trinity Church, Mt. Vernon, Illinois on Sunday, August 18, 2013.

“PEACE, BUT NO PEACE”

(Homily text:  Luke 12: 49 - 56)

Jesus says (in today’s gospel reading), “Do you think that I have come to give peace on earth?  No, I tell you, but rather division.”

The gospel text we have before us today is probably one we’d rather skip altogether.  Perhaps we might be tempted, like Thomas Jefferson, to take our razor blade in hand and cut out this part of Luke’s gospel account because it offends our sensibilities.

 But the truth is that, nearly 2,000 years after the Lord spoke these words, they still hit us in the face, striking our consciences and searing our ears.  These words of the Lord constitute what scholars call one of the Lord’s “difficult sayings”.

(We can be thankful, however, that our cycle of lectionary readings forces us to face the “tough stuff” of the gospel by putting difficult texts in front of us.)

The truths of God that the Bible contains are meant to draw us into an ongoing life with God.  As part of that life, two realities emerge:

• There will be peace, the sort of peace that the Bible describes as the “peace that passes understanding”.  (Philippians 4:7)

• But this new reality will also bring division – a lack of peace – to those who come into a new life with God through Christ.  The division that results from this new allegiance to God will even divide families, the Lord says.

How can this be?  How can there be peace and discord, all at the same time?

An explanation of these two realities, which can exist side-by-side, arises from the new and governing reality of an intimate, ongoing relationship with God.  Let’s look at them, one-by-one, from this perspective:

• When we come into a relationship with God through Jesus Christ, we find our truest and fullest self.  Consider the two realities that the Lord describes in today’s gospel text:  Fire and baptism. 

The Lord’s use of the word “fire” evokes biblical images of God’s judgment (a traditional association in the Bible).  Fire also purifies and refines.  But we would do well to remember that when the Holy Spirit descended on the disciples on the day of Pentecost, the Spirit’s power came like tongues of fire, alighting on each one gathered that day.  When we come into a relationship with the Father through the Son, we come, claiming God’s mercy through the purifying and refining fire of the Son’s sacrifice on the Cross.  We come, through the waters of baptism, to claim God’s offer of peace through Christ.  We come to claim the power of the Holy Spirit to energize and equip us to live out our life in Christ.

We come, having passed through the waters of baptism in a death like the Son’s, rising to a new life in a resurrection like His.  (See Romans 6: 3 – 9 for St. Paul’s explanation of this connection.)  We are now one with God.

A new and governing reality emerges from our former life.  Everything that went before now changes, forever.  We are at peace with God, for our sins have been put away by Christ’s redeeming work on the Cross.

• But this new reality will also change our relationships with everyone and everything in our lives:  Our relationships with others will take on a different hue, now that God’s place has become central to our life.  For those in our lives who are already believers, new bonds of identity and affection will emerge, as the common ground of a common faith emerge.  For those in our lives who are not believers, a lack of common ground in matters of faith will cause differences to emerge.  In many cases, this new reality won’t bring about a complete break of relating to others.  In some cases, however, that will be the new reality as non-believers disown the new Christian.

As Luke was writing his gospel account, sometime in the late first century, Christians were already living out this new reality as their new-found faith caused non-believers to disown them, often completely.  As time went along and the Roman persecutions of the Church became more and more severe, even family members would disclose the identities of their own family members as Christian believers.  Once the individual’s Christian identity became known, the risk of martyrdom became real. (Consider the case of Perpetua, who was martyred in 202 AD, as an example.)

Today, Christians in many part of the world where there is outright and severe opposition to the truths of the Christian faith risk disassociation of family members when a person becomes a believer.  In some cases, funeral rites are even held for the family member who abandons their earlier beliefs to take up their new life in Christ.  In the most severe circumstances, Christians are martyred for their faith.

Our Christian experience is somewhat different from the situations I’ve just described, I suspect, for we live in a country where freedom of religion is the governing reality of our common life together.  Furthermore, our expression of the Christian faith isn’t likely to cause us to become unpleasant or obnoxious persons to be around (no Christian ought to exhibit either of those qualities as a result of their faith!), so the reactions to our identities as Christians are likely to be mild by comparison with some places in the world where opposition to Christianity is pronounced.

And yet, just as we find in God that peace which the world cannot give, we will find that a new way of relating to others, even loved ones, will emerge.  As has been said a moment ago, we will find a new, common ground with family and friends who are already believers.  For others who are either only nominally Christian, or who are not believers at all, the basis we have had for sharing values and perspectives in common will change.  By our living, by the ways in which we love even those with whom we differ in our allegiances and in our perspectives, may we show forth in our lives the “new and more excellent way” (I Corinthians 12: 31) that knowing Christ brings.

AMEN.