Division? Really?

This past week I was fortunate to have vacation time while our youngest son and two of his friends were here visiting. We did a lot of hiking in the area and saw a fair amount of wildlife (Elk, Deer, Rocky Mountain Sheep, a Bald Eagle, amongst others). Yesterday, on their last day in town, we walked partway around Lake Estes with our cameras before the guys rented bicycles. As we stood on the bridge going over the stream where these Canadian Geese were swimming, we stopped to watch them.

As I watched the above nine geese make landfall and hop/fly up onto the bank, I noticed that one particular goose had trouble was having trouble making the leap. You can’t see it in the picture, but the goose who was the last to make the leap had a real struggle. As I had watched it in the water, it appeared that there was something wrong with its wing. As it spread its wings and made the leap, something looked different.

Once it was on the shore and it spread its wings, I noticed that the left wing wasn’t acting properly. I am not sure if the wing was broken or some of the feathers were hurt, but that was the reason for the struggle. What was surprising to me was the fact that the other geese didn’t seem to pay any mind to their injured family member. That just didn’t seem to be the nature that I believe is typical of my winged sisters and brothers.

Canadian Geese are normally communal creatures. When they fly in formation, they honk to encourage each other and will share the leadership of flying point (the point goose has the hardest job since it essentially breaks the path through the air and the ones behind benefit from that work). If one goose falls out due to an injury during migration, another goose will break formation and stay with the injured goose until it is okay or until it dies. These geese are not “rugged individualists” but rather are “communal” by nature. That is why I was surprised that the other eight geese didn’t seem to care at all about the ninth goose who was having a rough go of it getting onto shore.

That is what brings me to tomorrow’s readings for the Thirteenth Sunday after Pentecost. As I prepared the bulletins for the month of August, I have to admit that I struggled with tomorrow’s readings. The reading from Luke 12:49-56 and even the reading from Jeremiah 23:23-29 are not comfortable readings for me. If you have been reading my blog for a while now, you know that the focus of the messages that I preach is on God’s love, mercy, and grace. So when I run up against a gospel reading that begins with  “I came to bring fire to the earth, and how I wish it were already kindled!” (Luke 12:49) it isn’t easy. Unlike some preachers and christians (yes, lower case is intentional) who get all giddy and excited when God’s wrath and judgment fall on those who don’t agree with them (isn’t that always the case?), my heart aches.

So once again, I find myself pondering the texts (Jeremiah isn’t much better, but at least there seems to be some word of hope from this prophet) and wondering… what are you calling me to say, Lord? I am comforted by the thought that the bloggers/preachers/theologians I follow also struggle with the texts. Out of curiosity, I went back and listened to my sermon from August 18, 2013 which was the last time the Revised Common Lectionary had these passages. That time, I chose the Gospel reading and the reading from Hebrews for the texts and I preached mainly on the Hebrews reading. So I asked myself this week as I studied and contemplated the texts, why I chose Jeremiah and Luke  and what I was going to focus on. Three years ago, I focused on hope… so where is the hope this year without the reading from Hebrews?

Denise often says she is an advocate for the underdog (like the poor goose with the injured wing) and she has rubbed off on me. As we have discussed these passages she has shared with me her own discomfort and struggle with just what Jesus might be saying.

At first read, these passages seem awfully harsh and hopeless rather than hopeful. Yet we still need to dig into the context of the time and the situation in order to build a foundation for interpretation so to speak. So, what was the context? Well, for one thing, Jesus was heading towards Jerusalem and he knew full well what was going to happen when he entered that nest of vipers! Previously, he had already ticked off the Pharisees and the Sadducees. The puppets of the High Priest and his cronies were already building their case against Jesus and waiting for an opportune time to catch him off guard. Jesus knew he was a hunted man and going to Jerusalem only made the hunt fiercer!

Jesus also knew that his time was short with his disciples and he must have felt the pressure to teach them all that he could teach before he faced down the religious elite and the Romans. I guess it was time to get blunt with the gang! With this in mind, Jesus went down the path of challenge with them. He was about to give them a heavy dose of the truth in case they held onto any illusions that the way of the disciple was going to be easy.

With verse 50, Jesus lays it all on the line! ” I have a baptism with which to be baptized, and what stress I am under until it is completed!” No pussy-footing around here. Jesus knew the baptism with which he was to be baptized. He knew what he had been called forth to do. And he knew the consequences of following the path God had laid out before him. He wasn’t called to gather the Pharisees, Sadducees, and Priests together in a circle and sing “Kumbaya”! He was called, in the same vein as the prophets before him had been called, to challenge the religious elite with their narrow and misguided interpretation of God’s Law and the Commands to love God and love neighbor. In the words of Jeremiah 23:28 –  “Let the prophet who has a dream tell the dream, but let the one who has my word speak my word faithfully. What has straw in common with wheat? says the LORD.” It was about to get real! Or in the words of USMC Colonel Nathan Jessup (from the movie, “A Few Good Men”)… “You want the truth? You can’t handle the truth!”

Jesus was about to tell the truth and he knew that it would create division, even amongst families! His truth would have families divided as the Christ-followers spoke and were then kicked out of homes and synagogues and the Temple! Jesus himself spoke as the Prophets of long ago had spoken and his earthly road ended at the Roman instrument of excruciating torture called the cross! Not the cleansed and sanitized cross that hangs around the necks of so many as a nice piece of jewelry, but the blood covered instrument of torture and death!

Jeremiah said in chapter 23, verse 29, “Is not my word like fire, says the LORD, and like a hammer that breaks a rock in pieces?” Fire purifies… it burns away impurities and leaves the finest gold. A hammer smashes a rock and reveals a fine jewel or a vein of precious ore. The call to follow Jesus… to stand up for the dispossessed… to fight for the immigrants… to stand in solidarity with the poor, the widows, the orphans… to stand in the gap for the marginalized… that call will separate a Christ-follower from a so-called American christian who is focused on individual salvation and a gospel of prosperity and winner takes all theology!

Dear reader, we are seeing that today in the political process and the presidential campaign in the United States of America! When Donald Trump consistently gets a pass by christian leaders who are more concerned about their own power and pocketbooks than they are about what Jesus just might possibly  be calling them to stand for (sarcasm alert), we have a problem! Yet these same leaders will spread lies and slander about a candidate who freely admits her human failings (and faith)?

I have seen families (and long friendships) shattered by smug and self-righteous judgment. I have seen so much evil unleashed in the name of God and it breaks my heart. If it breaks my heart, how much more must it break the heart of the One who created humankind in God’s own image!

So what are we called to do? Do we keep silent in the face of hatred? Do we keep silent in the face of bigotry? Do we keep silent in the face of persecution of our LGBTQ sisters and brothers? Do we keep silent in the face of persecution of Muslims, Jews, Wiccans? If we do, we do at great peril!

In the words of Martin Niemoller, who spoke out against the tyranny that was Nazi Germany:

First they came for the Socialists, and I did not speak out—
Because I was not a Socialist.

Then they came for the Trade Unionists, and I did not speak out—
Because I was not a Trade Unionist.

Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out—
Because I was not a Jew.

Then they came for me—and there was no one left to speak for me.

Dear reader, yes, we speak out at great peril to our own physical well-being. But it is a greater peril to our spiritual well-being if we don’t speak out! As Jeremiah said in chapter twenty-three, verse twenty-eight: “Let the prophet who has a dream tell the dream, but let the one who has my word speak my word faithfully.” May God give us the strength to speak God’s word of grace, mercy, and peace faithfully… no matter what!