The sermon below is based on Luke 12:49-56 and Hebrews 11:29 - 12:2. The transcript below is more or less the same as the recording (as I never read directly from it) so it's probably easier to either listen or read rather than do both.
The Jesus who speaks in our Gospel reading today may feel unfamiliar and uncomfortable to many of us. ‘I came to bring fire to the earth’, ‘do you think I have come to bring peace? No…but rather division.’ Most of our time interacting with the Bible and especially Jesus we are faced with many things which we find agreeable, if a little confusing at times, usually Jesus is found speaking truths which fit in nicely with our modern disposition. However the words we are faced with today leave a slightly off taste in the mouth. Fire on the earth? Pitting families against each other?
Down the ages we have often, both as individuals and as a Church, swung between two understandings of God, a God to be feared, who is wrath and judgement, who we obey because if we don’t He might smite us. And a God who is cuddly and safe, a God who is love, our best friend God. You may this morning identify with one of those understandings, I have caricatured them a little, but we, and those we meet in our daily lives will fall broadly into one of these categories. God is either terrifying or cuddly. The Jesus we meet in our Gospel today seems to fit far more into the former description whereas we are used to putting Him into the latter. And I think it’s because of this distinction that people are often uncomfortable with the God we find in the Old Testament, He seems to be full of wrath and anger, wiping out nations and sending people into exile, we fully expect it when He says at the end of our Jeremiah reading ‘is not my word like fire, like a hammer that breaks a rock in pieces’ (Jeremiah 23:29). Whereas in the New Testament Jesus talks about God’s love for us and how we ought to love one another. But these divisions between Old and New Testament and between a scary God and a friendly one are misleading polarities. The reality is, as ever, somewhere in the middle. In ‘the Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe’ when Mr Beaver is asked whether Aslan (read God) is safe, CS Lewis writes ‘“Safe?" said Mr Beaver ..."Who said anything about safe? 'Course he isn't safe. But he's good. He's the King, I tell you.”’ All too often in our approach to God we approach Him as though He’s domesticated, as though He is one of us. But He’s not, He’s God, the all powerful creator of the universe who, if He decided He had had enough, could cease sustaining that universe and we would all cease to exist. He’s not safe, or cuddly, He wipes out nations, rains fire from the sky, washes away armies, the sound of His voice breaks the trees and shakes the earth according to Psalm 29. Now, I think our primary discomfort with Jesus’ words this morning won’t be with the words about bringing fire upon the earth, its uncomfortable, but its also fairly apocalyptic and theoretical sounding, none of us know what fire on the earth looks like. However His description of families being turned against each other comes a lot closer to home, quite literally. This doesn’t seem comfortable to us, this doesn’t sit well with our more middle class sensibilities. After all God instituted marriage to be the basis for family, so we hold family as hugely important. Now marriage is important and I feel its significant that in His description He doesn’t pit husband and wife against each other. But all too often we let family become an idol, whether we mean to or not we often see getting married and having children as God’s best for us, the end goal for every Christian. It’s not, walking in the footsteps of the Saints in following Jesus (see our reading from Hebrews) is God’s best for us, anything else is a bonus. Whether we are married or childless or single, God loves us and has a purpose for us, no state is better or worse than the other, just different, revealing different truths about God’s kingdom. And we ignore this fact at our peril, because when we see Jesus as safe, we use Him to baptise our understandings of how relationships should function, that eros, intimate, love, that marriage is a right owed to everyone, that to be denied children somehow leaves you incomplete, that to be single is somehow a failure, then we put that back into our reading of Scripture and it distorts what it really says. The only love we are to expect is the perfect love of God, who will move mountains for us, we don’t have a ‘right’ to anything else, the rest is all a bonus. The other consequence of thinking of God as safe or domesticated is we start to think 'God won't mind if...'. And our idolatory of the family means that we are often willing to think just this, to compromise on our faith for the sake of them. To soften our position on various aspects of morality because close family haven’t kept to them and we want to be seen to be loving, to stop coming to Church because our children have sports clubs. We so easily sacrifice our faith on the altar of family. Jesus is clear, God comes first, before anything else, even family. And it will be divisive. He doesn’t try and hide that, He is clear, if we are following God faithfully and single-mindedly, there is a risk that it will cause division in our families. We aren't to seek out division or be deliberately divisive but we also shouldn't be surprised when it does happen. We are to value the giver above the gift. But Jesus is creating a new family, not one linked by flesh and blood, but joined by water and the Spirit. Adopted sons and daughters of God. And God will fight for that family, He will fight will everything He has to keep His children safe, to bring us home to Himself. And that’s where the key to this passage lies, God isn’t safe, but He is good. The God who’s voice strips forests bare in Psalm 29 is also the one whom Psalm 23 declares is our shepherd. God isn’t safe, but He is good. God loves us so much that He isn’t going to let anything get in the way of Him pursuing us, of rescuing us. He will bring fire upon the earth, He will tear apart families to reach us. He loves you so much that He won’t let your brother or your sister or mother stand in the way, and He loves them too much to let you stand in the way. You see the God of the Old Testament may seem scary and powerful and ruthless, but its all in the pursuit and protection of His people. He wipes out nations so that their terrible actions no longer take place, and so that His people won’t try to follow their example. God is only scary when He’s fighting against you, when you decide to go toe to toe with Him. But God doesn’t pit Himself against us, He pits Himself against everything which would harm us, everything which would hurt us or draw us away from Him. God doesn’t fight against us, He fights for us. Jesus says He comes to rain fire upon the earth. It’s a powerful and scary image. Fire is dangerous and powerful, but it is also useful, it brings light and warmth when controlled. Raining fire upon the earth doesn’t seem that controlled though, so what else? Fire purifies and cleanses. It burns up the impurities and leaves behind what is precious. Jesus came to bring fire, to drive out from us and burn up all that hurts us, all that leads us astray, all our temptations and weaknesses, all that we put into the world which leads us and others away from God. Jesus longs to burn it up, so that all that is left is the good, the gold which God forged at the beginning of the universe which exists beneath all that He created which we have since sullied. Jesus longs to set the world ablaze so that we are freed from temptation and sin. God will burn up everything we have built in order to reach us and free us, He fights for us. Jesus declares that He has a baptism to be Baptised with, and He is under immense pressure until it is completed. He has come to drive out sin and death by the cross, and He knows it is coming, He is in anguish knowing what is waiting for Him, but He also longs to complete it, because only by doing so will the fire truly be kindled, only then will there be a way for God to make us right with Himself. Only then can God truly draw us to Himself. God fights for us, to the point of death, willing even to sacrifice His own Son in order that He can win us back to Himself and Jesus longs for the completion of this. He longs for us to be reconciled once more to Him. God isn’t safe, He will fight tooth and nail against Satan and even us, His people, but He is good, He does it to save us, to bring us to Himself because He loves us. He doesn’t promise us an easy life, more often than not Jesus warns us of the difficulties we will face, (our passage from Hebrews also notes this) but He does promise that He will go with us, that God will fight for us and that one day He will bring us home. The God who wiped out nations, who sent legions of angels to protect His people, who parted seas and gave up His only Son, fights for us, fights for you. ‘So let us lay aside every weight and the sin that clings so closely, and let us run with perseverance the race that is set before us, looking to Jesus the pioneer and perfecter of our faith’ because if God is for us, who can stand against us.
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AuthorAn Anglican Curate in my 20's I was raised in an Anglican Church, went to a Youth Club run by an Evangelical Church, attended a Baptist Church while at Uni and was a member of a New Monastic Community after graduating. As such my faith has been influenced by these experiences and traditions into what I hope is a more rounded viewpoint. Archives
September 2022
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