“How Can There Be Good News When Jesus Speaks Tough Words?”
Original sermon given August 14, 2022, written and delivered by Pastor Doug Groll at First Saint Paul’s Lutheran Church
Watch the sermon live here
“ How Can There Be Good News When
Jesus Speaks Tough Words?"
Luke 12:49-56
Luke 12:49-56
49 “I have come to bring fire on the earth, and how I wish it were already kindled! 50 But I have a baptism to undergo, and how distressed I am until it is completed! 51 Do you think I came to bring peace on earth? No, I tell you, but division. 52 From now on there will be five in one family divided against each other, three against two and two against three. 53 They will be divided, father against son and son against father, mother against daughter and daughter against mother, mother-in-law against daughter-in-law and daughter-in-law against mother-in-law.”
Interpreting the Times
54 He said to the crowd: “When you see a cloud rising in the west, immediately you say, ‘It’s going to rain,’ and it does. 55 And when the south wind blows, you say, ‘It’s going to be hot,’ and it is. 56 Hypocrites! You know how to interpret the appearance of the earth and the sky. How is it that you don’t know how to interpret this present time? [1]
[1] The Holy Bible: New International Version (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 1984), Lk 12:49–56.
The first read of this text is a bit troubling…..tough to deal with as a preacher. Sounds like one has to wind up for some real hell and brimstone……The part that seems most troubling at first glance is that part about family…..
51 Do you think I came to bring peace on earth? No, I tell you, but division. 52 From now on there will be five in one family divided against each other, three against two and two against three. 53 They will be divided, father against son and son against father, mother against daughter and daughter against mother, mother-in-law against daughter-in-law and daughter-in-law against mother-in-law.”
Where is all that peace that Luke references at least in the Gospel? There are at least eight times in the Gospel alone where Luke tells us that there is to be peace…..Peace Be With You…..Peace on Earth…..There are these sayings of peace but how do we square them with this tough word? And at least the first part of our text would seem to say that there would be divisions even within families over something…..three against two and two against three…..What can the division be all about?
It seems to me that that is the first major question that we have to deal with if we are going to treat this text…..What is dividing us anyway? Is it possible that families and peoples and nations can be divided about things…..thinking they are the answer to Luke’s cause of divisions when they really are not the real dividing factor?
Let me give you an example of what probably is not the type of division that is envisioned in Luke. About two miles south of my hometown in Ohio there are three cemeteries. The cemetery on the Eastern side of the road is St. Mary’s…Roman Catholic…..Here we see the names of the Rodriquez, Dominguez, Flannery……here we see statues of the Virgin….the European Mary we might see here in Chicago, but also the Virgin of Guadalupe…..and a cross…and the crucifix….
On the Western side of the road…..20 yards away is the Lutheran cemetery…..actually divided by a stone pathway just wide enough for a hearse to go through….but wait…it gets better….the Missouri Synod side is on the south side of the path…..the ELCA Lutheran side is on the north side. And…..here one might become perversely biblical…..there are Grolls on both sides of the path. Is this the division that Luke is envisioning?
History seems to be full of small and large scale movements of men and women who in the name of the Christian faith…found ways to divide….found themes to fight about. During the 60’s and seventies…when we lived in Venezuela the entire South American continent was deeply divided between the Christian left…..They called it liberation theology and the more moderate Christians….even into parties….The Christian Social Democarts…… All in the name of faith…all in the name of Christ…. Division….
And I won’t even try to tell you what you already know…..we have found ways to divide…..within and between churches…and often assigned Christian titles to our human divisions….and once again we come back to today’s text….What is causing this division…Our American culture wars often really take on a religious divisive tone. What is the divisive factor that is driving Jesus’ words in our text? What is the real point of division?
Luke gives us the answer……but it really is in the entirety of the Gospel…..It gets summed up already in Luke chapter four…..Jesus goes to his home town…and there he speaks to his friends.
He went to Nazareth, where he had been brought up, and on the Sabbath day he went into the synagogue, as was his custom. And he stood up to read. The scroll of the prophet Isaiah was handed to him. Unrolling it, he found the place where it is written: “The Spirit of the Lord is on me, because he has anointed me to preach good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners and recovery of sight for the blind, to release the oppressed, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.” Then he rolled up the scroll, gave it back to the attendant and sat down. The eyes of everyone in the synagogue were fastened on him, and he began by saying to them, “Today this scripture is fulfilled in your hearing.”
The defining point of the division, then is not then based on our systems…..our philosophies….even what we perceive to be the absolute truth as we see it….perhaps even in what we see as ethical……but the defining principle in Luke and in the Gospels is that the Spirit of the Lord is upon the Christ….The kingdom of God is upon us…..The world is Christ’s. His is the message…his is the action.
And then, as our text proclaims a little later…..it was Christ’s intensity to do His Father’s will that drove him to the cross to be God-Centrict to human action and not human centric….! 50 But I have a baptism to undergo, and how distressed I am until it is completed! The turning point of all history, then, is not how we define our philosophies and even our most noble and positive thoughts but rather that the child of the manger became the man of sorrows…..who took upon himself the inconsistencies of our systems and thought processes and took them to the cross and triumphed in the resurrection.
AND THIS IS NOT A CASUAL STATEMENT OF A PHILOSOPHIC TRUTH.
The last verses of our text today define an urgency to return…54 He said to the crowd: “When you see a cloud rising in the west, immediately you say, ‘It’s going to rain,’ and it does. 55 And when the south wind blows, you say, ‘It’s going to be hot,’ and it is. 56 Hypocrites! You know how to interpret the appearance of the earth and the sky. How is it that you don’t know how to interpret this present time? [1]
Jesus, the Prince of Peace also wants us to know that the Creator, Sustainer and Saviour of All is not a tottering old man who winks at mankind’s little quirks…For the benefit of all…..for the poor and the oppressed….for the weak and the infirm…for the hungry and the ill…..Jesus came into the world to save and he will have justice and he would invite us to let him move us into his movement ….and that He will come to us out of His future.
Because the God of scripture…..the Jehovah of the Old Testament and the plight of those who follow Him as described in our Epistle to the Hebrews…..will live in the midst of a conflicted and sometimes dangerous world. Listen to these words from today’s epistle:
32 And what more shall I say? I do not have time to tell about Gideon, Barak, Samson, Jephthah, David, Samuel and the prophets, 33 who through faith conquered kingdoms, administered justice, and gained what was promised; who shut the mouths of lions, 34 quenched the fury of the flames, and escaped the edge of the sword; whose weakness was turned to strength; and who became powerful in battle and routed foreign armies. 35 Women received back their dead, raised to life again. Others were tortured and refused to be released, so that they might gain a better resurrection. 36 Some faced jeers and flogging, while still others were chained and put in prison. 37 They were stoned; they were sawed in two; they were put to death by the sword. They went about in sheepskins and goatskins, destitute, persecuted and mistreated— 38 the world was not worthy of them. They wandered in deserts and mountains, and in caves and holes in the ground.
39 These were all commended for their faith, yet none of them received what had been promised. 40 God had planned something better for us so that only together with us would they be made perfect. [2]
I do not have to tell you about the ominous clouds ahead. In an interview on PBS News on Friday evening…..the generally serious, cautiously optimistic David Brooks came off sounding downright scared about where our society might be heading in the next years….. Divisions…Violence ..but even these were, are and will be secondary to letting the God of all history remake us through our baptisms to be fortified by His Word and fed by His very being in the Sacrament to move us to be agents of the only real point of division that counts…….Jesus the Saviour of the World…who came in love….wants to save all and moves through His Church ……people …..you and me to be His body to the world until He comes again…which He will. Amen.
[1] The Holy Bible: New International Version (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 1984), Lk 12:49–56.
[2] The Holy Bible: New International Version (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 1984), Heb 11:32–40.