Jeremiah 23:23-29 | Psalm 82 | Hebrews 11:29-12:2 | Luke 12:49-56
Luke 12:49-56
49 ‘I came to bring fire to the earth, and how I wish it were already kindled! 50 I have a baptism with which to be baptized, and what stress I am under until it is completed! 51 Do you think that I have come to bring peace to the earth? No, I tell you, but rather division! 52 From now on, five in one household will be divided, three against two and two against three; 53 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.’ 54 He also said to the crowds, ‘When you see a cloud rising in the west, you immediately say, “It is going to rain”; and so it happens. 55 And when you see the south wind blowing, you say, “There will be scorching heat”; and it happens. 56 You hypocrites! You know how to interpret the appearance of earth and sky, but why do you not know how to interpret the present time?
Introduction
You might be familiar with the story of Chicken Little—sometimes called Henny Penny, a children’s fable. There are dozens of variations on the story and versions that go back more than 2,000 years. But the first published version in English, from 1840, features Chicken Little, who is hit in the head by a leaf and becomes convinced that the world is coming to an end.[1] She goes around sharing her apocalyptic weather reports, telling everyone: “The sky is falling!”[2] And the various birds—a turkey, a goose, a duck, and so on—join her in the quest to tell the world, one-by-one. Ultimately, it is a story about paranoia and mass hysteria. It is about a kind of alarmism. And in light of the Gospel reading, it poses a question. What are going to do when the alarm is rung? How will you respond? If Chicken Little came up to you right now—and told you that the sky is falling—how would you reply?
First, of course, you would reply with—‘oh my goodness, a talking a chicken!’ But then, you probably wouldn’t have much to say. I wouldn’t have much to say. And this is because we have managed to make this world fairly comfortable—comfortable despite having a lot of reasons to be uncomfortable. There was that UN report in May about the major threats to biodiversity because of climate change, which echoed a report from March, which echoed a report from October of 2018.[3] The week before last, mass shootings in Texas and Ohio made the news. There’s more than three years’ worth of comedy in both the American and British governments. War. Racism. The dissolution of privacy. I could keep going. But in truth, I’m not an alarmist. I find the kind of fearmongering to be unhelpful as it often leads to bad decisions—politically for sure, and probably personally. The difficulty is this: Our Gospel reading this morning is meant to alarm us, to shock us. Jesus tells us that the sky is falling—and the world is burning. This is all by design. And it should startle us. And at the very least, it should challenge our attitudes. As such, my hope this morning is to walk through two challenges put before us in the text, and then to consider, in the end, how we might respond to this troubling news.
Confusion About the Purpose
The first thing we need to consider are our presuppositions about what exactly Jesus came to do. I call this confusion about the purpose, because those first five verses may seem confusing. The God of the Old Testament is all about punishing sin and wrath and laws. But Jesus, in the New Testament is all about love and peace. That’s a fairly popular understanding. And it’s consistent with the Gospels. God will “give light to those who sit in darkness and in the shadow of death, to guide our feet into the way of peace” we were told in Luke, chapter 1.[4] Jesus’s birth is announced with “Glory to God in the highest heaven, and on earth peace…”[5] When Jesus commissions his followers, how does he articulate the assignment? “Whatever house you enter, first say, “Peace to this house!”[6] And that’s just in Luke’s Gospel. God is Love, after all. And Jesus is the one who brings that love. And so, this passage seems like a contradiction.
But it isn’t. In order to see that, we have to look back to the beginning of Jesus’s ministry. There are three major clues here that point us to a particular moment: the pronouncement about bringing fire, the reference to baptism, the and references to dividing people. In chapter 3 of Luke’s Gospel, we are introduced to John the Baptist—who makes a statement about the ministry of the Messiah, the one who will come after him. That Messiah—the Christ—will bring salvation, baptizing not with water, but the Holy Spirit and fire, and wielding a winnowing fork. That winnowing fork divides—grain from chaff—the grain is preserved for him while the chaff is burned with unquenchable fire. This is the mission of Jesus Christ, inaugurated at his baptism by John. But interestingly, in our passage, he refers to baptism as though it is in the future. You see, baptism is figurative language used by Jesus periodically to refer not to the beginning of his mission, but the completion of his mission at the cross. It is at that moment of sacrifice that salvation is achieved for his people, as well as the moment at which judgment is set in motion for those who do not repent or believe. It is both. In the end, Jesus came to bring both love and bring violence, to bring both peace and division, salvation and judgment. And the reality of this will have serious effects. The salvation and judgment that he brings will bring division. Families will be torn in two—some given the faith that leads to salvation and ultimate peace, some given the fire of judgment—all given the turmoil of this life in the present.
It is not an easy message for us to hear. Perhaps you know the strife of having your family divided. It certainly breaks my heart that I have immediately family members, those who I love so dearly, who do not share in the Christian faith. And I can’t pretend to understand why it must be so. But Jesus here, in this passage, indicates that it was intended to be this way. What can I do but continue to love my family (even my mother-in-law) and do my best to share this faith and hope and pray for them? And we must be comforted that it is for a time. It will come to an end. But for now, it is difficult. We’re in the section of Luke’s Gospel now that talks quite a bit about the cost of following Jesus—a theme I’m sure you’ve noticed these last few weeks. Well, here it is. The cost is real and strikes at the core of who we are. Christ came not just to bring peace, but the kind of ultimate peace that will cause division in this life.
Complacency in the Present
Fortunately, the second challenge before us this morning—captured in the last three verses—is much simpler. Talking to the crowds, Jesus simply points out their complacency in the present. He points out that they are so astute at predicting the weather, and yet they don’t recognize the precariousness of their situation. It’s not unlike Chicken Little. The sky is falling around them. Families are being divided already. The judgment is nearing. This moment is like no other because Jesus Christ, the Messiah and the Son of God, has appeared on the pages of history. They have sorted out the weather report, but they remain painfully unaware that they are in the presence of the one who brings ultimate salvation and judgment. There is no room for complacency, laziness, sitting idly by, inaction. Even with the great cost, very possibly of family—the times in which they lived, and in which we live, demand a response.
And what should the response be? It should be one of faith—belief in the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ that brings both salvation and judgment. The first response should be a personal one. Are you shocked? Have Jesus’s words shaken you? Are you taking seriously that he brings not just peace and good feelings and rainbows and kittens, but also judgment? Have you counted the cost of truly believing in him and following him to that cross? The first response should be personal. Just, do something. And only then, when you have done something about it, should you consider sounding the alarm. And if you do, sound the alarm about the right thing. You don’t need to be an alarmist—shouting fear about every single thing that goes wrong—in order to share the gospel and the news about God’s judgment with people. Remember, in the original version, Chicken Little got so distracted by telling everyone about how the sky is falling that she and her brigade of paranoid bird friends end up getting eaten by a fox. One need not look hard to find Christian alarmists who are distracted by sounding the bells about all the immoralities in our society, that they actually miss out on the true gospel and eternal judgment.
Conclusion
As I turn to close, my hope is that we have each here set aside the confusion about Christ’s purpose—recognizing that he came to both save and judge. May we now set aside complacency as well, choosing to follow, in faith, despite the cost. May we join Charles Wesley in singing:
See how great a flame aspires, kindled by a spark of grace. Jesus’ love the nations fires, sets the kingdoms on a blaze: To bring fire on earth He came; kindled in some hearts it is; O that all might catch the flame, all partake the glorious bliss![7]
Let me pray. Heavenly Father, help us follow your Son, our Saviour Jesus Christ, in faith, having counted the cost. In the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost. Amen.
[1] See John Greene Chandler, The Remarkable Story of Chicken Little (Roxbury, MA: J.G. Chandler, 1840).
[2] The ‘sky falling’ is an ancient picture of eschatological culmination captured in an early Roman legal maxim: Fiat justitia ruat caelum (“Let justice be done though the heavens fall.”). There are significant references as early as Terence’s Heauton Timorumenos (170-160 BCE) and Seneca’s De Ira (On Anger), 1.18 (~41 CE). The concept of a falling sky is possibly older and relates to an understanding of how the heavens are supported in the sky by Atlas’s shoulders (a view that was already being rejected by Aristotle, see Aristotle, Physics, B.4).
[3] The Global Assessment Report on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change) was released in May 2019. The sixth Global Environment Outlook Summary for Policy Makers (UN Environment Programmes) was released in March 2019. The special report referred to as Global Warming of 1.5°C (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change) was released in October 2018.
[4] Luke 1:79.
[5] Luke 2:14.
[6] Luke 10:5.
[7] Charles Wesley, See How Great a Flame Aspires, 1749.