Donna Putney

This past Sunday the lectionary assigned was a fitting passage for the current times, but a risky scripture to preach (Luke 12:49-56). One of my first thoughts was to preach the history of the passage (safe mode), but I decided history is written backwards; sermons are written forward, so I needed to accept the challenging scripture and preach how Jesus is very much in the present time.

The gospel stories are not stories that are meant to only be heard, these stories have been written to teach us to interpret their meaning as well as hearing Jesus’ words that command us to live a life of servanthood. This specific scripture does not give us an answer to a house divided, but provokes a great deal of thought. 

The verses represent three things: Fire of God, living in a broken world, and our inability to see what is all around us. So what do we do with all of this information? Well, we try to understand how these elements of Jesus’ life are part of each one of us. Fire can be both damaging and life giving. Jesus’ fire is one that will burn down our human wants and self-righteousness and provide us a life with Christ both in God’s earthly and heavenly kingdoms. The cleansing fire of the Holy Spirit reveals God’s love, mercy, compassion, and forgiveness given to us by God.                                        

Next, Luke tells about a house divided. Luke is telling us that the gospel does not always bring peace. At the time this was written, families were being torn apart when the gospel spread because it changed everything. Jesus gave people hope that they did not know before. This division was caused because some people went from following a dictator ruler to having faith in the words of Jesus and his disciples. Remember, what the ruler provided was tangible. You could see and touch what was or wasn’t being provided. And, being in relationship with Jesus is based on faith.             

One possibility is to see that God is at work in all realities, and that division is not the problem. Perhaps it is in our own naive expectations that we have more truth than others. Instead, could God be at work on both sides of an issue? Jesus’ talk about division may point to a broken reality for Christianity no matter how hard we work toward and pray for unity.                                                                                                             Lastly, Jesus addresses our inability to realize what’s really happening. Often we will hear Christians referred to as being hypocritical. The hypocrite label might make sense if the hypocrites believe that Jesus brings grace, yet continue to work under the law to achieve their own righteousness. Or, we might be hypocrites when we believe that we have a monopoly of truth, about ourselves and our world. The hypocrite thinks they have everything figured out, but keeps using human actions to remain in control.            

The accountability Jesus is teaching, is a tool, a gift, to help us cling more closely to God and less closely to death. It’s a relationship defined by honesty, courage, love, and hope, in the promise that life really can come out of death. We, Christians, refer to this as the promise of eternal life.                                                                                      

Melody Eastman writes, “Jesus calls us to both the green pasture and the way of the cross. To be included may mean to be rejected. To love like Jesus may mean to be hated like Jesus. To live may mean to die. To find grace may mean to accept accountability. But at the end of it all, we find ourselves held by the God of always-new beginnings.” Amen!

(Donna Putney is the pastor at Hope Lutheran Church in Powell.)