August 14, 2022
Rev. Mary Erickson
Hope Lutheran Church
Jeremiah 23:23-29; Luke 12:49-56
Storms Brewing
Friends, may grace and peace be yours in abundance in the knowledge of God and Christ Jesus our Lord.
I’m a fan of the Tony Hillerman murder mystery series. The stories take place on the Navajo Reservation in New Mexico. The main characters, Lieutenant Joe Leaphorn and Sargent Jim Chee, work for the Navajo tribal police.
Rain is an important factor in a desert climate and it’s a common topic in the novels. The Navajo have drawn distinctions between different kinds of rain. The all-day, gentle rain soaker is known as a “female rain.” It slowly softens the soil so it can receive the nourishing supply of rain. We were the blessed recipients of such a rain on Friday.
By contrast, the sudden cloudburst is called a “male rain.” It comes with a surge of wind and energy and releases a gully washer of rain in a short amount of time.
We had one of those male rains pass through our area of northwestern Wisconsin early last Sunday night/early Monday morning. The day had been one of those sultry, hot and humid days. The air was filled with moisture and heat from the southern gulf. But that night, a cold front passed through from the northwest. Those two opposing weather fronts clashed and released a torrent of wind and rain. Our music director, Jim, was spending the night in his summer trailer in the Lake Hallie area. He reported that the wind gusts were strong enough to shake his trailer.
Summer storms. They’re created by a clash of opposing weather forces. Something’s gotta give, there’s going to be some dramatic action.
We think of Christianity as a religion of peace. We follow our Savior whom we call the Prince of Peace. But in our reading today, Jesus states that following his way will also lead to conflict and storms. This way of grace and peace and divine justice will inevitably lead to division and conflict. The peaceful ties that bind will be ruptured by forces in opposition. This impending storm will split apart families, even.
Something about faith acts as a lightning rod. These words from our text were written to people in the first generation of Christianity. They knew this reality first hand! Those individuals who came to faith in Christ soon found themselves in opposition to family members who did not. This was an equal opportunity divider: Christians coming from Jewish families, Christians coming from Gentile, pagan cultures, they all felt this family conflict when they followed the way of Christ. This lightning rod faith brought a bolt of lightning and clash of thunder into the household.
This happens even today. In my own family, we have every variety of Lutheran. My father was Sad Dane, my mother came from Missouri Synod and Wisconsin Synod roots. And now in my family I have relatives who’ve left the ELCA over differences of opinion on how the Bible should be interpreted.
Faith is still a dividing force, sometimes violently so. In our current situation in North America, Christianity covers a vast spectrum of devoted followers holding extremely opposing views. We’re so different, it hardly seems possible that we all identify as Christian.
What does our faith call us to? These differences seem to distill into two areas: holiness and justice. These are the very same two items that formed the compass for the Old Testament prophets. Holiness and justice also align with the two tables of the commandments. Holiness points us to our relationship with God, while justice revolves around our love of neighbor.
Holiness and justice, these are the two lightning rods of the roof of our church. What storms shall they call down upon us?
Jeremiah was no stranger to conflict. In our reading today, Jeremiah insinuates to some of the storms that swirled about him. Jeremiah was called to prophecy to an errant Jerusalem. He likens them to an unfaithful spouse. They took their faith in God lightly. Their lips were filled with glib religious platitudes while in turn their actions bore no fruits of righteousness. They had an empty faith and felt no regard for God or their neighbor.
The pages of Jeremiah’s prophecies are filled with warnings of the impending storm. This irrepressible force will utterly overwhelm Jerusalem like a violent tornado. Can they heed the warnings? Can they read the signs?
Jeremiah’s listeners don’t like what they hear from him. They find false prophets much more to their liking. Jeremiah warns them: these false prophets and their alternate truths won’t protect them from the storm to come. “Is not my word like fire, says the Lord, and like a hammer that breaks a rock in pieces?”
Peter, Paul and Mary, the folk group from the 1960’s, sang about a hammer. “If I had a hammer, I’d hammer in the morning; I’d hammer in the evening all over this land.” In the final verse of the song they reveal what that hammer is: it’s the hammer of justice.
That hammer intends to break apart injustice. It creates a leveling field so that the poor and lowly may flourish. In the Old Testament downtrodden are called “The anawim.” It comes from the Hebrew root meaning stooped, bowed over, overwhelmed. They’re bent over by the burden of their trials. Justice wants to give them the space to stand up straight.
The work of justice carries a two-fold purpose. It comforts the afflicted and it also afflicts the comfortable. God’s call to justice impels us to reach out in service to those suffering from hunger and want. But it also challenges the structures and the institutions which build the success of the few upon the sufferings of the many.
Dom Helder Camara was the Roman Catholic archbishop in Brazil. He famously wrote, “When I give food to the poor, they call me a saint. When I ask why the poor have no food, they call me a communist.”
That observation perfectly summarizes these two prongs of justice. It brings comfort to the afflicted, like a gentle, all day rain. But when it challenges the privileged it comes with the power of a thunderstorm. It’s the hammer of justice. And that hammer will bring conflict. he road to justice never promised to be smooth and easy. But we are called to make straight the way of the Lord.
In the words we hear today from Jesus, he indicates that following the direction of our faith may – no, will – lead to storms and conflict.
He spoke of an impending storm awaiting him. It was waiting for him in Jerusalem. When he arrived, there would be a clash of powers. Jesus and the Kingdom of God would collide with the powerbrokers of the Sanhedrin council. He’d shake the balance of their tenuous peace with Rome. Jesus was bringing a wind of change, and it would shake the religious council to their foundations.
Jesus was the lightning rod. His presence called down all the fury of the powers that be. Their response was immediate. They had Jesus arrested, condemned and put to death. The clash came to its apex at the cross. In his death, Christ ushered in the wind of change that would change everything forever. This holy storm came with all its cleansing power. It unleashed all the righteousness of heaven and it has swept us clean.
This holy rain comes to each us through the ages. It comes as the gentle, “female” rain, slowly and patiently filling us with the strength of divine grace. And it also comes with the clash of the “male” rain. It clashes with opposing fronts and fills the land with God’s justice and righteous that will not be ignored.
And it most certainly rains down on us in baptism, in all its promise and power. The old is washed away and we are made new in the waters of this covenant. May these winds of change blow in and among us every day.
