Year C

Luke 12:49-56

The Rev. Denise Vaughn

Lives That Bear the Fruit of Justice

Jesus certainly grabs our attention this morning with his harsh and passionate words. Not the kind of words most of us come to church on Sunday morning hoping to hear. To a large extent our families are what make us who we, where we learn the difference between right and wrong, where we develop the basic framework of the outlook on life that we carry with us always. Our families are where some of us first learned about Christ and his church. Good, bad or indifferent family ties are some of the most significant relationships in our lives. Yet, we struggle with family relationships and conflict in our homes. We read about it in the newspaper and watch it on TV. And now it’s in the bible also? If Jesus is the Prince of Peace shouldn’t he be saying, “Do you think I have come to bring peace on earth? Yes, I have come to comfort families. I have come to bridge and heal the wounds that separate fathers and sons, mothers and daughters, peoples and nations.

Perhaps that is what many of us would like this passage to say. Instead, we hear Jesus talking about division but the division he is talking about is not about small or large rifts in family life that can happen as a result of the natural wear and tear or unexpected trauma and tragedy of life. In those situations, God’s reconciling love, grace and forgiveness have been known to work miracles. No, in this passage, Jesus is talking about the division that happens as a direct result of a decision to follow him. He is marking hard boundaries and calling for people to make up their minds about where they will stand. His purpose is greater than just making sure family relationships are harmonious. He came to create a new family and this new family requires a loyalty to a larger family-God’s family-the body of Christ. A family we became a part of at our baptism. Just like William who will become a part of this family in a few minutes.

In this new family, peace is defined not as the absence of division but as the fulfillment of the promise of the Kingdom. In a book titled the Blue Mountains of China, the author Rudy Wiebe put it this way: “Jesus says in his society there is a new way for people to live: you show wisdom, by trusting people; you handle leadership, by serving; you handle offenders, by forgiving; you handle money, by sharing; you handle enemies, by loving; and you handle violence, by suffering. In fact, you have a new attitude toward everything and toward everybody. Because this is a Jesus society…that requires thinking different.” Sounds a lot like what our new Presiding Bishop Michael Curry has been calling us to this Jesus Movement.

This Jesus movement is not just a matter of personal attitude. It is a structural reality where the lowly are lifted up and the hungry are filled; where there is release of the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, and where the oppressed go free. Where blessed are the poor and the hungry and those who mourn. Where God’s people love not only their friends and family but also their enemies; where shirts are given as well as coats; where forgiveness and love are freely offered to all. This Jesus movement turns everything upside down or upside-right. Maybe that’s why this text is so hard to hear because it reminds us that the decision to follow Christ is not a walk in the park. It means living each moment of each day with Christ at the center. To be picked up and turned upside-right. When that happens it’s going to be painful at times. There will be division but by the strength of God’s Spirit, we are not only invited to follow, we are empowered to do it.

A well-known example of this is Rosa Parks who made a decision to follow Christ when she refused to move to the back of the bus. A battle ensued as the upside-right ways or just ways of God’s kingdom scraped up against the upside-down ways of a segregated society. We make decisions every day to follow or not to follow in how we spend our time, our money and in how we relate to the people around us. As a people of God created in God’s image, we live in a just way to fulfill our call to live in a relationship of love with God and neighbor; a decision that can bring division. So why follow Christ if the decision is so costly? Why did the early Christians suffer persecution and death to follow Christ? Why throughout the centuries have there been those willing to accept the cost of standing up for the upside-right ways of the kingdom in an upside-down world? Because Jesus reminds that the finite goods of the world, however tempting, cannot finally give life meaning or reward.

The writer of today’s text from Hebrews suggests that living justly will bring a reward, but the rewards are in God’s time, not ours. Only through faith and service can one find real joy. We are called to “run with perseverance the race set before us.” To remain firm in our hope of salvation trusting in the God who stayed true to our ancestors in faith and will stay true to us. We look to Jesus “the pioneer and perfecter of our faith,” whose life and ministry shows us what it looks like to live in right relationship with God, with one another and with oneself. Our example is the disciples who answered the call to follow Christ. They learned the joy and the cost of following. There’s a hymn in our Hymnal that summarizes it well:

“They cast their nets in Galilee just off the hills of brown;
Such happy, simple fisherfolk, before the Lord came down.
Contented, peaceful fishermen, before they ever knew
The peace of God that filled their hearts brimful, and broke them too.
Young John who trimmed the flapping sail, homeless, in Patmos died.
Peter, who hauled the teeming net, head down was crucified.
The peace of God, it is no peace, but strife closed in the sod.
Yet, brothers, pray for but one thing-the marvelous peace of God.”

Jesus is the Prince of Peace, and the good news even in this difficult gospel passage is that Jesus came to turn the world upside-right, and the call of Christ creates a community that has something very important binding it together by our baptism. We are the body of Christ and we are invited again and again to not only read the signs of the times, which reveal that God is steadfast to each generation but also to live in an upside-right or just way to fulfill our call to live in communion of love with God and neighbor; clinging to Jesus as our hope, always seeking to walk in his way. This is our mission, to run the race with perseverance, for he is with us.