Not Peace, but Fire

“‘Dear Lord God, I wish to preach in your honor. I wish to speak about you, glorify you, praise your name. Although I can’t do this well of myself, I pray that you may make it good.’”

Introduction

The Christian life and walk are hard. We are brought into a new life by faith in Christ and through the power of the Holy Spirit to be representatives of God in the world to God’s glory and for the well-being of the neighbor. And while we are to strive for peace and concord, often we’re brought into direct conflict with the statutes and ideologies of the kingdom of humanity. We (more than we like) find ourselves in that not-so-blessed spot: between a rock and a hard place. How is this possible when we know that shalom (with God and with our neighbors) and agape (from/to God and for our neighbors) features significantly in Jesus’s mission? Doesn’t Jesus promise to leave us with peace that surpasses all understanding? Isn’t Jesus’s mission about mercy and forgiveness, grace and kindness? How could this Christian life and walk be so hard? The characteristics of mercy, grace, forgiveness, and kindness sound so nice; who wouldn’t want to be met with such active nouns? So, why am I telling you that it’s hard?

I say it because I know that by and through faith in Christ and by the resident power of the Holy Spirit in your heart anchoring you into God and God’s mission in the world each of us has been, is being, and will be asked to take steps into unknown territory that will cause divisions and divides not so that we can feel righteous in ourselves and in our actions, but that others might feel righteous through our—and God’s—solidarity and camaraderie with them.

Luke 12:49-56

Luke invites us into a teaching moment between Jesus and his disciples. What Jesus is teaching his disciples isn’t an easy pill to swallow. Jesus says, I came to throw fire on the earth, and I wish it was otherwise already kindled? Now I have a baptism [with which] to be baptized, and how I am distressed until it might be completed. Do you think that I came here to give peace on the earth? Not at all, I tell you, but rather disunion (vv49-51). In an instant, the disciples are shook.[1] How is it that the long-awaited prince of peace is here to throw fire on the earth? This doesn’t seem to resonate with who Jesus has been and what he’s been saying all this time. (In fact, this doesn’t even to seem to resonate with who Luke thinks Jesus is!) But Jesus’s concern (and thus Luke’s) isn’t about making sure his disciples and the crowd are comfortable; rather, he’s eager to make sure his disciples are aware that following him (while he’s here and, more importantly, after he leaves) will come with trials most of which affecting their present lives.[2] In fact, this is the “even more” that Jesus mentions about the slaves who are informed about what the master wants at the end of v. 48.[3]

What’s interesting is the comment on baptism wedged in between v49 and v51. Taking our cue from context, Jesus’s baptism with which he is to be baptized is going to be a baptism of suffering. In this way, and keeping in mind the fact that Jesus promises that he was meant to bring disunion and division, the disciples, just like their master, Jesus, will also experience a baptism of suffering.[4] (In fact, it’s not only a promised by product of their new life and walk in the world, but evidence of God’s presence in Christ with them and in them by faith. [5]) If by any chance the disciples were thinking that somehow they were not included in the comments about the slaves and master mentioned just before this, they have been rudely awakened; to follow Jesus—now and in the future—is going to be hard even for them and (very likely) even harder because of who they are and what/whom they represent in word and deed.

What types of divisions and disunion are to come? Personal ones. Jesus explains, For from now on there will be five in one household having been divided up, 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, mother-in-law against her daughter-in-law and daughter-in-law against mother-in-law (vv.52-53). Given that these particular relationships were crucial for the livelihoods of the disciples,[6] that Jesus says there will be division and disunion among and within them means that the disciples need to prepare themselves for how hard this Christian life and walk will be. The demand that Jesus is placing on their shoulders going forward[7] is one in which their very lives and walks are going to be different from those of others (including those closest to them), even to the point of causing distress and fracturing within the relationships.[8] Their new lives and walks may even be considered “deviant,”[9] according to those closest to them who disagree with their life and walk. There’s no way for the disciples to follow Jesus and his way of suffering and the way of the kingdom of humanity; relationships will end, opposition will be experienced.[10]

Then Jesus turns to the others around him and the disciples (thus blurring the lines between who is a “disciple” and not[11]), Now Jesus says to the crowd…(v54a); and here we are included in and are directly addressed. Luke tells us that Jesus said, Whenever you might see a cloud rising in the west, immediately you say, ‘a violent rain comes,’ and it happens in this way. And whenever the south-wind blows, you say, ‘There will be a burning heat,’ and it happens.[12] Hypocrites! You have considered to discern the face of the earth and the heavens, but how have you not considered to discern the current time? (vv54b-56). The crowd is not hypocritical because they say one thing and do another;[13] rather, they are hypocritical because they have the eyes to see what weather is coming but refuse to use those same eyes to perceive[14] what’s currently happening around them at the intersection of the reign of God in Christ and kingdom of humanity. In other words, the crowd (including the disciples and us) are preferring to stay the course of the status-quo—convincing ourselves that it will remain until the end of time because it’s always been this way and, thus, it’s the only right way[15]—rather than embrace and be embraced by the coming new order of God.[16]

Conclusion

There are two things I want to say by way of conclusion:

First, the Christian life and walk are hard. Jesus makes it clear that we’ll experience tumult in our intimate lives as some of our closest relationships fracture in response to the friction created as we live and walk in opposition to the status quo of the kingdom of humanity. We will rub up against anyone who is dead set on privileging greed over giving, violence over acceptance, retribution over mercy, capital over life, land over people, genocide and war over life and peace, indifference over love, captivity for many over liberation for all. The reign of God and the kingdom of humanity have very little in common save the one who has a foot in both, the one who follows Christ in word and deed and by faith working itself out in love.

Second, some of us may take pride in our staunch positions of opposition against what we see to be the downfall of humanity. But we must be careful here to discern whether it’s our pride causing divisions or God’s mission of the divine revolution of love, life, and liberation. You see, we can take Jesus’s words in this passage to affirm where we have cut off family members because of their identity and presentation in the world; where we have walked away from people because of their socio-political ideologies; where we have drawn lines in the sand because of our preferred religious doctrines and dogmas that make us most comfortable; where we refuse to face the demand placed on us to grow and change. In other words, not all disunions and divisions are because of our expressed righteousness that comes with our faith and praxis in following Jesus. Rather, our divisions and disunions may be because of our own sense of self-righteousness and fear.

How do we know the difference? Well, when Jesus acts through us towards others, love is felt, life is given, and liberation happens for our neighbor (and not only for us). It’s these fruits that happen for the well-being of the neighbor that bring God glory and may cause others to cut us out, to walk away from us, to draw their lines in the sand against us, and refuse to grow with us. Beloved, the Christian life and walk is hard. But take courage, the one you follow, Jesus the Christ, this man who is God, walks not only ahead of you, but with you through that pain. Following Christ won’t be easy, but for us Christians, it’s the only way to true love, life, and liberation for us and for our neighbor to the glory of God.

[1] Green, Luke, 510. “Jesus’ question, ‘Do you think I have come to bring peace?’ underscores Jesus’ awareness that the presence of division and judgment will, for many, stand in stark contrast to what might have been expected of the divine intervention.”

[2] Justo L. Gonzalez, Luke, Belief: A Theological Commentary on the Bible, eds. Amy Plantinga Pauw and William C. Placher (Louisville: WJK, 2010), 168. “…theme of eschatological expectation, and how it must impact the life of believers in the present. Eschatological hope is not just a matter for the future. If we really expect the future we claim to await, this should have an impact on the way we live in the present.”

[3] Gonzalez, Luke, 168. “The previous section ends with the announcement that ‘even more will be demanded’ from those slaves who know what the maters wants. Now we are told that things will not be easy.”

[4] Gonzalez, Luke, 168. “Jesus himself will suffer a ‘baptism’ of suffering. And his disciples will suffer also, for opposition will be such that there will be bitter division even within households.”

[5] Green, Luke, 510. Commissioning to judgment “Judgment, from this perspective, is not a uprising consequence of his ministry and is not a contradiction of his mission; rather it is integral to it. He had come as God’s representative to bring divisions, so the dissolution of family bonds (which, in the Lukan narrative, has as its consequence the formation of a new kinship group around Jesus) should be taken as confirmation that he is God’s agent and that he is bringing to fruition the purpose of God.”

[6] Green, Luke, 509. “Within culture wherein kinship ties played so crucial a socio-religious role, a message such as this one might well be suspect…Jesus posits just such divisions not only as a legitimate consequence of his mission but as confirmation that he is carrying out a divine charge.”

[7] Green, Luke, 510. “Jesus’ phrase ‘from now on’ further locates the significance of the division Jesus describes within the interpretive framework of his mission; it is from this statement of his divine charge that division within families will take its meaning.”

[8] Gonzalez, Luke, 168. “Those servants who know what their master wishes will act differently than the rest. This will cause stress and division. It is as if in a parade some begin marching to a different tune. The rest—those who march to the common tune—will accuse them of upsetting the parade, and will seek to suppress or oust them.”

[9] Green, Luke, 509. “At his present discourse, begun in 12:1, has already made clear, a decision to adopt his canons of faithfulness to God would require a deeply rooted and pervasive transformation of how one understand God and how one understand the transformation of the world purposed by this God. This would involve Jesus’ disciples in disposition and forms of behavior that could only be regarded as deviant within their kin groups.”

[10] Green, Luke, 511. “As Luke has continually shown, and as Jesus has endeavored to teach his followers, the realization of God’s purpose will engender opposition from those who serve a contrary aim.”

[11] Green, Luke, 508. “Thus, v 54 does not so much introduce a new audience as (1) provide an explicit reminder of the presence of the large cast of listeners and (2) pinpoint the crowds as persons for whom the material of vv. 54-59 is particularly apt. As we shall see, however, even with regard to this material the distinction between crowds and disciples cannot be drawn precisely.”

[12] Green, Luke, 511. “The climatological phenomena he describes are indigenous to Palestine, where the west wind would bring moisture inland form the Mediterranean… and the south wind would bring the heat from the Negev desert…”

[13] Green, Luke, 511. “Jesus plainly regards the crowds not as deceivers or phonies but as people who ‘do not know.’ His question, then, is not why they say one things and do another, but why they have joined the Pharisees in living lives that are not determined by God. Misdirected in their fundamental understanding of God’s purpose, they are incapable of discerning the authentic meaning of the sins staring them in the face.” (here it’s family division)

[14] Joel B. Green, The Gospel of Luke, The New International Commentary on the New Testament (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1997), 508. “Just as he did with the crowds in that earlier encounter, so here he argues that the necessary signs are already present, if only people would open their eyes to them.”

[15] Gonzalez, Luke, 168-169. “Hypocritically, although we know what the master wants, we find all sorts of reasons to continue living as if the present order were permanent. We all stand accused and are on our way to trial. We can continue insisting on our innocence, and face the judge and the ensuing penalty, or settle matters with our accuse before the time of trial.”

[16] Gonzalez, Luke, 168. “We know that the future belongs to the reign of God. But, given the potential cost, it is not surprising that we are strongly tempted not to see the signs of the new time that is emerging. To forecast the weather, one look at the clouds and the wind. The same should be possible by looking at the signs of ‘the present time.’ Here is a new order coming! But people refuse to see it, and seek to continue life as if nothing were happening.”

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