Ninth Sunday after Trinity – morning
Sunday 18th August 2019
Trinity 9 – Proper 15 – morning
Hebrews 11.29 -12.2
Luke 12.49-56
Revd Preb Maureen Hobbs
What on earth is Jesus thinking of? Has he totally lost the plot, – we well may ask this morning, listening to this very uncomfortable passage of the Good News.
“Did you think that I came to bring peace on the earth?” asks Jesus
Well, yes Lord, actually – now you come to mention it! Wasn’t that what the angels promised us when they sang you into the world? And what about the words of benediction you are so fond of using? “Go in peace” you often said. And Peace is supposed to be your bequest to us – at least according to the John of the Gospel (14.27) We were led to believe that peace was a fruit of your kindly Spirit (Galatians 5. 22)
So, yes Lord, we did think that you came to give us peace. And now you come to us brandishing a sword!
The contradictions run deep, most starkly in Jesus’ apparent claim that his intention is to undo all the work of his predecessor and cousin, John the Baptist.
For Gabriel promised John’s father that it would be John’s mission to heal family divisions…. Now Jesus is saying that his purpose is the exact opposite, to foment family divisions, to set close relatives against each other. It is all very confusing!
So how are we to try and resolve such contradictions? Where are we to find the authentic voice of God speaking to us in all of this? How can we harmonize the “peace on earth” song of the Christmas angels and the “fire on earth” warnings we hear in our Gospel?
Well we don’t have to look very far for examples from our history and from our present daily lives to find issues that do indeed split families and friends…
In the seventeenth century this country experienced a deeply divisive Civil War. Cavaliers and Roundheads… Which side do you identify with I wonder? You may think that all that was sufficiently in the past not to worry us any more. Yet when I asked one of my villages in Shropshire, why there seemed to be such a lack of communication with the parish next door I was soon told. “Well, after all, they were on the other side in the Civil War you know!” …. old arguments, old rifts running very deep.
And now – although I will not deign to mention the B-word. We have another issue that is dividing families and friends and Church congregations.
Conflict is not something that many of us embrace – mostly we try to avoid it. But sometimes it is only by allowing the different voices in a dispute to be heard that we can attempt to reconcile passionately held opposing views. And passion is the secret.
In a few weeks’ time I will be helping on a clergy training course aimed at Transforming Conflict. Because, – believe it or not (!) Conflict is often a reality in church life and can seriously affect the way a priest can minister or not in a community. One of the things I know will be said is that conflict need not only be a negative thing. Because where you have conflict – you have passion. Which means that people care and care deeply about something. And that is a good thing! So churches need to be places where people can come and be heard – even if not always agreed with. We need to be a safe space where different points of view can be expressed, and people respected for the God-given individuals that they are.
Retreating back into the safe little algorithm-driven world where everyone thinks the way I do, may feel comfortable and reassuring, but it is not real. It is not the way of the Cross. There is nothing wrong with trying to pursue peace; peace within and peace in the world at large, but peace – the Hebrew word Shalom – is not simply the absence of conflict… it is something active that has to be built piece by piece (see what I did there!);painful step by painful step. It means we need to listen to and really hear the views that are different to our own AND still be prepared to worship alongside them and love them – even if we find it difficult to like them (at least in the short-term!) How many of you have said to your truculent teenagers at home “I will always love you – but I can’t say that I like you very much at the moment!” We have all been there – either on the receiving end or saying it out loud!
We may want to seek that spiritual peace that makes us feel calm and warm and comfortable inside – and God can indeed offer us that, but this must not be allowed to become a distraction from the demands of the present and what is happening outside the walled gardens of our own souls.
The language of this week’s gospel is that of the prophet, the role in which Luke casts Jesus as he approaches the culmination of his ministry in Jerusalem. Prophets possess a still centre and they see beyond the immediate horizon. But equally they focus on the here and now. They do not agonize over the seeming contradictions between what we are promised and what we experience. There is far too much to be done in the Kingdom of God. Can we help Jesus find the plot once more?