Jeremiah 23: 23–29 / Psalm 82 / Hebrews 11:29 – 12:2 / Luke 12: 49–56
This is the homily written for the benefit of Flohr’s Evangelical Lutheran Church (ELCA) in McKnightstown, Pennsylvania for August 17, 2025 by Fr. Gene Tucker, Interim Pastor. (On this day, in place of a regular, delivered homily, it was a time for the monthly “Stump the Pastor” – when members of the congregation ask their random questions on spiritual or theological matters, and the pastor responds.)
“WE ARE ALWAYS WALKING IN GOD’S SIGHT”
(Homily
text: Luke 12: 49–56)
Ever say to yourself, “I can’t stand it
anymore! That thing needs to be fixed, and now!?”
Into each of our lives, there are times
when the urgency to do something, to fix something, to counteract something, or
to correct something, becomes intolerable.
That might be a way to understand
Jesus’ comment, heard in our Gospel reading for this morning, when He says, “I
have come to cast fire on the earth, and how I wish it were already kindled.”
Following up, He seems to be referring to His own coming suffering, death and
resurrection, saying, “I have a baptism with which to be baptized, and what
constraint I am under until it is completed.” (Recall that baptism is
representative of death and resurrection.)
So much for any understanding of Jesus
as “Meek and Mild”!
Today’s Gospel conveys to us one of
Jesus’ “difficult sayings”, those things that remind us that He – like all of
us – can reach the point of exasperation, the point when disgust with the way
things are, versus the way things ought to be, becomes overwhelming.
In the time of His earthly ministry,
there was much in society and in the religious practice of the day, and of the
poor leadership provided to the people by the religious elites, that required
radical change.
Consider, for example, the leadership
of God’s people. The chief priests, the Scribes, and the Pharisees, were much
more interested in their own privileges and perks, than they were in the
overall welfare of the people in their care. They emphasized rigorous
observance of the Law of Moses, even to the point when the importance of the
Law outweighed people’s own welfare.
Then, there was the common belief that
if a person was wealthy or enjoyed good health, their seeming success or good
health was because that person had done all the “right stuff”, earning God’s
favor in the process.
Conversely, if a person was poor or
suffered some sort of illness, the common belief was that God was punishing
that person for some heinous sin.
The society of that time was divided
into the have’s and the have-nots, into the clean and the unclean. A “good”
person stayed away from the outcasts. The “good” person shunned the “unclean”
ones. The common belief seemed to be that the “unclean” ones were so “unclean”
that God had no soap strong enough to clean them up...those “unclean” ones were
so “unclean” that they were forever be beyond any hope of a relationship with
God. Such attitudes extended to caring for unhealthy or sickly people, even to
the point of tending to their wounds.
Our Lord’s response to all of these
attitudes and practices was often one of confrontation.
He hung around with the “bad” people,
telling His critics that the healthy people aren’t the ones who need a doctor,
but the sick ones. He healed on the Sabbath, incurring the wrath of the
Pharisees and their allies, saying that the Sabbath was made for the people,
not the other way around. He touched the leper, becoming “unclean” Himself in
the process.
You see the pattern.
To see the world and the people in the
world from Jesus’ perspective, a perspective that differs from the
commonly-held outlooks of the unbelieving world, inevitably means division. Our
Lord refers to this, saying that He had not come to bring peace to the earth,
but rather, division. He says that the division will run right through
families, even. In time, as Luke was writing his Gospel account, such divisions
had begun to take place, as some in a family had come to faith in the Lord,
while others rejected.
Sometimes, that division is deep,
abiding and radical. It means a firm rejection of the ways in which the world
thinks and behaves.
At other times, it means showing by the
way we live and by the things we say that our values are different, that we are
members of a godly army of believers who look to our Lord Jesus Christ for our
values and our marching orders.
Whether our response is a radical one,
or a less-noticeable (but clear) one, the bottom line is clear: We must make a
choice about the values we will honor and live by. We will need to make a
choice about our response, deciding whether or not the challenge posed to the
values of the Gospel are severe enough to warrant a radical response. Many of
our Saints down through time are honored because of their radical response to
the challenges they faced in their time and place.
Assist by your grace, dear Lord, to
know the signs of the times, to know what you would have us do, and to empower
us to respond.
AMEN.
