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Disturbing the PeaceAugust 19, 2007 Twelfth Sunday after Pentecost On most days as I enter or leave this building through its front doors, I usually take stock of what is happening in the sanctuary. Occasionally I join in. Sometimes a parent and child are lighting a candle here at the front. Almost without exception, the lovely scene ends with the parent trying to constrain their child from lighting every candle. Often times, I see half a dozen to a dozen people finding solace and peace in this space. I’m sure some pray; others just need a place to stop and catch their breath; while still others need both. Regularly I enter the building to the joyful noise that either Steve or Bill is making at the organ. Every now and then I sit and listen from the back. I may feel moved to pray and to light a candle or two myself. Usually I’m thankful for the tranquility of this place and the peace that I and so many others find here. Keeping the doors of this church open is one of the most important ministries we offer the people of New York, and I am proud that our sanctuary is often just that, a sanctuary from the pace, challenges, and burdens of daily life. Ours is house of prayer and temple of peace. It appears Jesus doesn’t understand that. He’s disrupting what we have worked very hard to cultivate. “I came to bring fire to the earth, and how I wish it were already kindled...Do you think that I have come to bring peace to the earth? No, I tell you, but rather division! From now on five in 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, mother-in-law against her daughter-in-law and daughter-in-law against mother-in-law.” I remember a few years ago while greeting people at the door after worship, a parishioner said to me in response to my sermon: “I could’ve stayed in bed if I wanted to be depressed!” That’s not the kind of comment a preacher soon forgets, and so I try to be sensitive to the reasons that have inspired your attendance here this morning. Many of us come to church to find solace, to center ourselves, and to seek inner peace and calm. Someone once told me the reason they come to church is because it is the one hour each week that they can sit and do nothing (which is a peculiar way of describing what is going on in here, but I let it go). Our lives are challenging enough as it is, so why intentionally seek more? But perhaps that’s the problem. Maybe Jesus doesn’t want us to make peace with what we’re trying to make peace. Maybe Jesus isn’t convinced we should seek to calm our inner stirrings, our uncertainties about the world and our way in it. It just might be possible that Jesus doesn’t want church to be the place or the occasion where we come to be settled and stilled. “I’ve come to bring fire,” he said, “and oh how I wish it were already kindled!” Our recent work trip to Ghana is still very present to me. I find myself trying to make peace with so much of what I saw and experienced. It’s not coming easily, and I’m increasingly convinced that Jesus wants it that way. Of late, even this place hasn’t brought me the solace I’ve needed, nor has it provided the sanctuary I want from the questions that linger from our time away. On Friday, as I came in to the office, I decided to find a pew to sit in for a while. I needed to think. I needed to pray. I couldn’t do either very well. Instead I found myself back in the Mabang Methodist Church where we worshipped while in Ghana. The structure is just slightly larger than our chapel and not nearly as ornate or beautiful. We were packed in like sardines, given the seats of honor nearest the front, or more accurately – nearest the dance floor. What has disturbed me since has been the contrast between the daily existence of our hosts and what took place inside that little cement block church with the rusty tin roof. It was as if their worship was a form of resistance. It was as if they heard Jesus say: In the midst of pervasive poverty, sing with joy! You are not defeated! In the midst of hardship, shout confidently for I hear the cry of my people. In the midst of despair, dance! Dance! And then dance some more! For this is not the way I intend for it to be, this is not the last word, do not make peace with this world as it presently is! And friends, in that place, where by our standards there was little to sing, shout, our dance about, they sang, shouted, and danced the dance of resistance some more. “Do you think I came to bring peace? No! I came to bring fire – and oh how I wish it were already kindled!” I tell you friends, that Sunday in Mabang it was kindled. I have to confess that I’m not a big fan of this passage from Luke. It’s a different image of Jesus, a sharp contrast from the image of Jesus as friend, or as the Good Shepherd, or the divine comforter. No, this image is of Jesus the revolutionary. This is the Jesus who asks, “Why are you killing yourself in order to conform? Why have you become the slave of another in order to succeed in a world that I intend to transform? Why are you trying to make peace with what I will never be at peace?” This is the Jesus who says “Mine is a different way, and if you follow it you may run into trouble. If you live as I want you to live, you may lose some friends. You may start to see the world differently, and you may value things you never thought you’d value. And your family may despise you for it. They won’t understand why you want what you want and why you’ve stopped desiring what you once desired. They may confront you, and try to have an intervention, because your faithfulness may make them extremely uncomfortable. If you follow me it will cost you, but you will gain true life.” That makes me uncomfortable. When I was younger I loved this passage. I was all for anything that justified my rebellion against my parents and their values. But I’m older now, and I have children of my own. Surprisingly, my parents’ values don’t seem as crazy as they once did. “Honor your father and mother” now sounds exceptionally wise. Jesus, do you really want to turn my kids against me? Do you really want to tear my family apart? That makes me uncomfortable. And I’m afraid making me uncomfortable is the point. I’m reminded of Emma Goldman, the controversial anarchist of the early 20th century, who struggled fiercely for the rights of women here and abroad. She was imprisoned for her beliefs and for how she chose to act upon them, and was later stripped of her American citizenship. When released from prison she decided to take up work as a midwife, working among the poor in Hell’s Kitchen. Many of her friends assumed she had quit her advocacy, and retired from the struggle she had led. They believed she had been tamed, and chose to settle into traditional woman’s work as a midwife. They were wrong. Whenever she delivered a girl, before she gave the baby to her mother she would whisper into her tiny ear, “Rebel!” “Rebel!”[1] There is something of that spirit in Jesus’ words today. He seems to be looking for a few good rebels, for a few troublemakers and malcontents willing to do God’s bidding. Certainly Jesus doesn’t want to tear my family, or your family, or any family apart. That’s not what this passage is about. This passage is about his desire to see our world transformed. There’s no doubt that he wants each and every one of us to be a part of that transformation. What Jesus understood so well is that for the world to be made right, for God’s will to be done on earth as in heaven, and for a true and lasting peace to become reality, a lot has to change. That change comes at a price, one he himself paid on a cross. And, in an oddly compassionate way, he warned us that those who would follow him faithfully would likely meet intense resistance, even from those they consider most dear. A few years ago I received a phone call from a mother wanting to talk to me about what we were teaching her daughter. The daughter had been groomed to be an excellent student who would gain admission to an excellent university that would prepare her for admission to the medical, law, or business school of her choice. After all, what else would a respectable, successful young adult do? The mother’s desperation stemmed from her daughter’s choice to work with the Jesuits in India, where she would develop a micro-lending business for poor, entrepreneurial women. Her mother forbade her to go. The daughter went anyway. Things haven’t been the same, and the church was blamed. I say we did a good job. Then again, it wasn’t my daughter. Nor yours. The story may not seem so heroic were it a little closer to home. I realize that now in a way I could not have appreciated it before. Yet, I also realize that Jesus’ fiery words are really about the most important questions of life. They are about what we will do with the one life we’ve been given. William James once said that the greatest use of a life is to spend it for something that outlasts it; in other words, what will you leave behind? What will you have expended your energy on? What will you have to show for all the time, talent, and treasure that has been expended on you? It’s clear that Jesus wants us to answer those questions with a life lived boldly – lived not merely for ourselves and those we love, but for the sake of God and neighbor. That won’t always be an easy choice to make. Today Jesus has disrupted these peaceful confines in order to get our attention. I think he’s starting to get mine. Tonight, as I’m putting my daughters to bed, I want to find a different way of saying “I love you!” And so instead, difficult and frightening though it may be, I’ll try whispering in their ears: “Rebel! Rebel!” _____________________ [1] Adapted from William H. Willimon, “Fire!”, Pulpit Resource, Vol.35, No.3, pg. 34. Previous sermon: A Few Things About Faith • Next sermon: The Grace to Change All past sermons |
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