August 18, 2019
Hope Lutheran Church
Rev. Mary Erickson
Luke 12:49-56; Jeremiah 23:23-29
The Song on the Flip Side
Friends, may grace and peace be yours in abundance in the knowledge of God and Christ Jesus our Lord.
“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!”
This sure doesn’t sound like the Jesus we’ve come to know and love! This isn’t like the soothing messages we’re accustomed to hearing from him. There’s no “blessed are the poor in spirit” today! It’s a far cry from “come to me, all you who are weak and heavy-laden, and I will give you rest.”
But the one who is the advocate for the poor must also speak out against the systems bringing about that poverty. The champion of the weak and heavy-laden needs to stand up for their rights when the deck has been stacked against them.
Jesus’ strong message today is the song on the flip side of the good news record. His message addresses compassion and concern for the vulnerable and so that must also include prophetic criticism of injustice.
His parables play both sides of the album, too. On the one hand, Jesus tells beautiful parables of consolation. He tells us about the Good Shepherd who searches for the lost sheep and carries him home on his shoulders. He recounts a parable about a loving father who waits and waits for his wayward son to return home.
But Jesus also shares parables of judgement. He says it’s easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than it is for a rich person to enter the kingdom of God. He tells the parable of a shepherd who separates the sheep from the goats. To the goats he says, “I was hungry and you did not feed me; I was naked and you didn’t clothe me, in prison and you didn’t visit me.” Jesus’ parables play both sides of the gospel record.
Jesus cherishes God’s good justice. And to love justice is to condemn instances when it’s ignored and denied. As the writer of Ecclesiastes said, there is “a time to keep silence and a time to speak.” There is a time to speak as advocates for the victims of injustice.
The Bible has a long and consistent tradition recognizing God’s call to justice. It begins with the law of Moses. The commandments direct us to love our neighbor as our self. And the prophets then call Israel to accountability.
Because they spoke out on behalf of justice, the prophets frequently received criticism. The prophet Amos was literally told to keep his mouth shut and “go back to where you came from” (Amos 7:12).
Amos and the other prophets were accused of despising Israel. But they didn’t speak prophetically out of hated for Israel. They spoke out because they loved God’s justice. They spoke out because they loved their nation, their people. And they spoke out because they knew that their country’s unjust ways would lead to their own undoing.
Jeremiah stands in the company of the Hebrew prophets. We heard a passage from that book today. Jeremiah lived during a time of great turmoil and transition in Israel’s history. He began his ministry in the waning days of the kingdom of Judah. He saw the corruption of the leadership. Israel’s leadership disregarded the welfare of their people. Instead they served the best interests of themselves and their associates. The country had devolved into a state where it was every man for himself. The social fabrics had broken down. Jeremiah states that their all-out disregard for God’s law will bring calamity upon the nation.
He warns that unless they change their ways, the nation will fall:
“If you truly amend your ways and your doings, if you truly act justly one with another, if you do not oppress the alien, the orphan, and the widow, or shed innocent blood in this place, and if you do not go after other gods to your own hurt, then I will dwell with you in this place.” (Jer. 7:5-7)
But people didn’t want to change. They didn’t want to hear Jeremiah’s words of prophecy. His message was unpopular, EXTREMELY unpopular. Jeremiah was criticized and persecuted. His opponents even cooked up schemes to kill him. Jeremiah was despised and victimized for speaking God’s truth to the power brokers of his day.
But Jeremiah persisted in announcing his message. In the excerpt we hear today, he conveys a message from God. “Am I a God near by and not a God far off? Do you think you can sneak off to a place that I can’t see? Don’t think I don’t know what you’re up to! I see everything! I can see your so-called “prophets.” They claim to receive visions from me. They claim to speak my word. But they only speak lies in my name, not the truth!”
“Let me tell you about my word,” he says, “My word is like fire. It’s like a sledge hammer that breaks rock into pieces!” God’s word can be destructive. It aims to break injustice.
It sounds very much in line with Jesus’ words. Jesus declares that he’s come to bring fire to the earth. That fire destroys. But fire is also a cleansing force. Crucibles heat up molten metal to the point that the impurities are burned off. Fire clears fields. It rids them of invasive species. It clears the way so that something altogether new can emerge. It marks an ending of something old and the beginning of something new.
When God’s kingdom comes, it means that opposing kingdoms must fall. When God’s will is done, contrary wills must be undone. These opposing forces cannot stand together. The fulfillment of God’s justice means that systems supporting injustice must fall. It calls for cleansing fire.
God still calls the church to speak and act prophetically on behalf of justice. We now are called to be God’s mouthpieces in the world and to advocate for justice. Earlier this month, the ELCA held their Churchwide Assembly in Milwaukee. The ELCA holds such an assembly every three years.
One of the points for consideration this year addressed a justice issue that is quite timely for our country, immigration. How do we respond to the alien in our midst? It’s an issue with deep biblical roots. Israel was repeatedly told to treat the alien with justice: “So show your love for the alien, for you were aliens in the land of Egypt.” (Deuteronomy 10:19)
The Churchwide Assembly approved a memorial to make the ELCA a sanctuary church. We are the first denomination in North America to declare ourselves a sanctuary church body.
So what does it mean for us to be a sanctuary church? It means simply that we commit ourselves to the biblical imperative to remember the stranger in our midst. It means that we show hospitality to migrant children and families living among us. That might also lead us to have thoughtful discussions about how our faith informs us on the topic of immigration. It might lead some congregations to take on an advocacy role in their communities. It’s left to each congregation to discern how they might translate the sanctuary status in their unique setting.
Jesus came to bring a fire to the earth. And he longed for it to be kindled. The match would finally be lit at his crucifixion. He would light a cleansing fire. It would consume him. And in his death, something entirely new would be born.
It was the fire of divine love. It’s a love that’s all-consuming. The light from that divine fire cannot be overcome. On that Good Friday, the darkness descended on the earth.
But the darkness of this world’s pain,
this world’s hopelessness,
this world’ selfishness,
this world’s evil
could not overcome the light from this divine fire.
As Jesus hung from the cross on that Good Friday, his fire consumed it all. It encompassed the entire world. Its flames extended ever outward until it reached around every single inch of our world. And as it burned, it consumed us all. It reached back into time and forward into the future. It consumed everything absolutely with the flame of God’s never-ending love. And in consuming everything, Christ has made all things new.
We have been made part of his new creation. In our baptisms, we were buried into his death. We have entered his tomb – or, rather, his tomb has entered us. And in rising from the waters of baptism, we have risen with Christ into the fullness of his divine fire.
Let’s pray: Revival fire, fall upon me. Fall upon me every day. Let the fresh, new life you bring fill my every cell, my every thought, my every breath. Cleanse me. Align my will with your will. Where you find selfish sinfulness clinging within, cleanse me by the fire of your love. Forge me into the instrument of your will. Let this little light of mine illuminate the world with your justice. Amen.
