Disturbing the Peace

Luke 12:49–56 is not the gentle Jesus we want on a pillow. Instead of comfort, he brings fire and truth that disrupt false peace. In this sermon, we face the signs of our times and hear Christ’s call to disturb the peace of complacency so that God’s refining love can take hold.

Transcript

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You're listening to The Word on Baker Street, a podcast from Emmanuel Lutheran Church in Bakersfield, California. Each week we share the good news of God's love through the sermons from our Sunday worship. Wherever you are in your journey, you are welcome here.

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The Holy Gospel according to Luke 12, 49 through 56. I came to bring fire to the earth, and how I wish that it were already kindled. I have a baptism with which to be baptized, and what stress I am under until it is completed. Do you think that I have come to bring peace to the earth? No, I tell you, but rather division. From now on, five and one household will be divided, three against two and two against three. They will be divided father against son, and son against father, mother against daughter, and daughter against mother, and mother-in-law against her daughter-in-law, and daughter-in-law against mother-in-law. And he also said to the crowds, When you see a cloud rising in the west, you immediately say, It's going to rain, and so it happens. And when you see the south wind blowing, you say, There will be scorching heat, and it happens. You hypocrites. You know how to interpret the earth and the sky, but why do you not know how to interpret the present time? The gospel of the Lord. Let us pray. Loving God, may the words of my mouth and the meditations of all of our hearts draw us closer to your fire, your truth, and your peace. Amen. Well, here we go again. Another time when I read a scripture, and my very first thought is, I wish Jesus hadn't said that. And this time it is specifically the verse. Do you think I've come to bring peace to the earth? No, I tell you, but rather division. I mean, I'll be honest, it's not exactly the verse I'd like to embroider on a pillow for my living room. Uh, you know, give me something more like, come to me, all you who are weary, or uh my peace I leave with you, or blessed are the peacemakers. But this one, Jesus, the Jesus who came to start a fire and divide households. And I'm not quite sure what to do with it. Personally, I want Jesus to say, I come to bring peace. And actually, the gospel of Luke, it begins with this proclamation at Jesus' birth that says, Glory to God in the highest heavens and peace on earth. So I hear, in the very same gospel, is Jesus talking about fire and division. It's certainly not what I want to hear. When it seems that these days all there is is division and conflict. Well, peace, I mean that's kind of on short order. I mean, wars and other global conflicts aside, just try driving up the 58 to dehachabe at 4 o'clock in the afternoon on any weekday, and you will re-experience a lack of peace that is palatable. You're not gonna find peace, let me tell you. At least not the kind of peace that I'm looking for. Maybe that's part of the challenge here. I mean, when I think of peace, it's usually about comfort. Where there is no war, there's no fighting, no raised voices, everybody's smiling for the family photo, even though Uncle Gerald just said something really racist. It's the kind of peace where everyone avoids politics. So at Thanksgiving, you know, so the Thanksgiving meal can stay pleasant. It's the kind of peace where we don't ask questions about who is being left out as long as everyone we see looks okay. The kind of peace that keeps the ELCA from officially saying out loud that LGBTQ people fully belong in all of our churches because someone might get mad and leave. That's not God's peace. That's false peace. That's peace that is fragile, it's it's dishonest. And it only works for people whose comfort gets protected. The prophet Jeremiah called this out centuries before Jesus and saying of Israel's leaders, they dress the wound of my people as though it were not serious. Peace, peace, they say, when there is no peace. In other words, they declared peace while injustice was still festering. And they it's like they put this band-aid on a gaping wound and they called it healed. When Jesus says he didn't come to bring peace, I think he means he didn't come to bless that kind of pretending. Debbie Thomas puts it this way: his peace is not the fake piece of dishonesty and harmful accommodation. It's deep truth-telling, disinfecting peace. And here's the thing about truth telling, it disrupts. A mentor of mine, Reverend Dr. Nancy Wilson, once said to me, the truth will set you free, but that doesn't mean you're gonna like it. When we look at the ministry of Jesus, we see how he disrupted peace time and time again. He healed on the Sabbath, disrupting the peace of the religious leaders. He ate with tax collectors, disrupting the peace of those who wanted to keep a clear line between good and bad people. He let women sit at his feet as disciples, disrupting the peace of this patriarchal system. He touched lepers, challenged the temple system, and forgave sinners without requiring a long list of religious hoops, disrupting the peace over and over and over again. Not because he loved conflict, but because he loved people enough to tell the truth about what was broken. Jesus says, I came to bring fire to the earth, and how I wish it was already kindled. Earlier in Luke, Luke 3.16, John the Baptist said, I will baptize you with water, but one who is more powerful than I is coming, and he will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire. This is not a fire of punishment and retaliation, you know that you're gonna burn in hell, kind of fire. Jesus shut that idea down when the disciples wanted to call down fire on the Samaritans. This is holy fire. The refining presence of God, the spirit that purifies and transforms and gives life. It's the fire that burned in the bush without consuming it when Moses stood on holy ground. It's a pillar of fire that led Israel through the wilderness at night. It's the tongues of fire at Pentecost resting on each disciple, equipping them to speak God's love in every language. Holy fire is the presence of God that burns away what is false so that something true can grow. But why do you not know how to interpret the present time? Here in Bakersfield, it doesn't take much to interpret the weather. It's either hot or hotter. Even in Minnesota, where I was raised, we could look and we could see clouds rolling in, and we would know it's probably gonna rain, or if we felt the sudden change in temperature, we knew there was gonna be a storm. Jesus is like, you know, if you can do that, then come on. Look around. And what do we see when we look around? There are wars raging, mass starvation, aid being cut off, people being denied health care. Right here, we see people without homes fighting for a spot on our patio, and others so strung out on drugs that they can barely walk. A few weeks ago, I was driving home on the 58th, and one of the orchards was surrounded by every kind of law enforcement vehicle. Marked, unmarked cars, and there had to be at least 50 of them, and there's a helicopter circling up above, and there's terrified immigrants running around, and farm workers, and I seriously I almost got in an accident because I could not believe what I was seeing. I've also heard from our members who visit detainees at the ICE detention center. They're no longer allowed to bring notes out. Children can't even bring out their drawings. Oh, and yesterday, on the Tehatubi Facebook page, someone asked about a new camera installed outside the public restroom at the park. And the very first comment was it's there to keep men from dressing up like girls so they can attack women. And did you hear? Gay marriage is heading back to the Supreme Court. The science of our times includes rhetoric so sharp. It's tearing families and friendships apart. It includes racism embedded into our systems and defended as tradition. Violence and laws targeting LGBTQ people and neighbors, uh poverty is deepening while billionaires accumulate unimaginable wealth. The planet is groaning under the weight of human greed. And I could go on and on and on, but I'm actually kind of starting to make myself sick here. You know, what I can say is that if we're reading the signs faithfully, then God's peace will not mean staying quiet. Division's not the goal. Division is the byproduct of loving truth more than our own comfort. If we speak up for a child who's being bullied, the parents of the bully might not thank us. When we advocate for a trans neighbor at a city meeting, some are going to think maybe we've gone too far. When we stand as a church and say, LGBTQ people fully belong here, other churches may decide that we're dangerous. Division happens when some people would rather cling to the false peace than risk the work of real peace. And we know this isn't rhetorical. Here in Bakersfield, we know what it feels like to be one of the very few congregations willing to say out loud that LGBTQ people belong. We know what it feels like to stand up for immigrant neighbors when the ice raids are happening and people are living in fear. And we believe that those detained deserve compassion. And we offer compassion. We believe they deserve due process. The late Congressman John Lewis would have said, we're making good trouble. That's what God's peace looks like. Not comfort for the powerful, but care for the vulnerable, even when it earns us disapproval. Following Jesus in this way takes courage. For the disciples, it meant walking away from the safety of their old lives and standing against the religious and economic and political structures of their day. For us, it means saying yes to the refining fire of God's Spirit, even when it burns away what is comfortable. Dorothy Day once said to be a witness means to live in such a way that your life would not make sense if God did not exist. That's the invitation here. The cost is real. Division is real, but so is the joy. Because on the other side of the fire is freedom, on the other side of the truth is healing. On the other side of disruption is the peace that cannot be shaken. And so, beloved, perhaps God is calling us to disturb the peace, to interrupt comfort so that truth can be spoken. To find the fire that Jesus is inviting us to so that healing and justice and mercy can spread. The temptation will always be to settle for comfort. But the peace of Christ isn't about keeping things calm. It's about making things right. It's refusing the false peace that looks away. It's about tending the fire that Jesus came to light. So let's rise as people of the fire, as people of the truth, people of the peace that will not keep quiet. Let us be people who not only pray for God's kingdom to be here on earth as it is in heaven, let us be people who act as if that is possible. That's the gospel we're called to live. Amen.

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