THE JESUS WE HARDLY KNOW

Transcription

1 Luke 12:49-56 August 18, 2013 THE JESUS WE HARDLY KNOW Do you think you know Jesus? If I was totally unfamiliar with Jesus; if I knew nothing at all about him, and I came to you and said, Tell me who Jesus was, how would you respond? What words would you use to teach me about him? What images would you hold up to help me understand and come to know Jesus? Would they be words like gentle, loving and kind? Would you use images like shepherd or good teacher? Let s say my knowledge about Jesus was nil, zero, and I wandered into this church one Sunday morning to find out something about him because I was curious. My friends told me that I should get to know him; it would make my life better. So I come into this church, totally ignorant about the One they call Christ, and a few minutes before the worship service begins I pick up a red-covered hymnal, Hymns of Truth and Light, and started flipping through the pages. What would I find in there to help me come to know Jesus? I come to a hymn called What a Friend We Have in Jesus, and read lines such as: Can we find a friend so faithful, who will all our sorrows share? Jesus knows our every weakness, take it to the Lord in prayer. Do your friends despise, forsake you? Take it to the Lord in prayer. In his arms he ll take and shield you, you will find a solace there. Then I stumble across the words to this sweet and comforting hymn: Jesus loves me, this I know, for the Bible tells me so. Little ones to him belong; they are weak but he is strong. Yes, Jesus loves me! Yes, Jesus loves me! Yes, Jesus loves me! The Bible tells me so. The worship service is about to begin, but I have enough time to take in the lyrics to one last hymn: Softly and tenderly Jesus is calling, calling for you and for me; Patient and loving, he s waiting and watching, watching for you and for me. Okay, now I have a notion of who Jesus is. He s a gentle soul. He s comforting and caring. And Jesus is loving definitely loving. He s God s embodiment of love.

2 2 Then, later on in the worship service, someone steps up to the lectern and reads from the Gospel of Luke. And the patient, gentle, comforting, caring, loving Jesus I thought I knew says this: 49 I have come to bring FIRE on the earth, and how I wish it were already kindled! 50 But I have a baptism to undergo, and what constraint I am under until it is completed! 51 Do you think I came to bring peace on earth? No, I tell you, but division. 52 From now on there will be five in one family divided against each other, 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 daughter-in-law and daughter-in-law against mother-in-law. \ Huh? Now I m confused! That s not the same Jesus the hymns described. Okay, I give up. Would the real Jesus please stand up? Sometimes, just when we think we have Jesus all figured out, we discover another side to him. We have a certain image of Jesus in our heads a Jesus we re very comfortable praising, praying to and following. And then he goes and unexpectedly turns over our apple cart. And we stand there going, What the heck just happened? That s not the Jesus we know and love: the soothing, compassionate, teddy bear-like Jesus we like to cuddle up with at night. Do you think I come to bring peace on earth? Jesus asks. Well, now that you re asking, Lord, yes, I do. Remember when you were born? Do you recall what the angel said to the shepherds when he announced your birth in Bethlehem? Let s go to the video tape: the angel said to them, Do not be afraid. I bring you good news that will cause great joy for all the people. 11 Today in the town of David a Savior has been born to you; he is the Messiah, the Lord. 12 This will be a sign to you: You will find a baby wrapped in cloths and lying in a manger. 13 Suddenly a great company of the heavenly host appeared with the angel, praising God and saying, 14 Glory to God in the highest heaven, and on earth PEACE to those on whom his favor rests. See, Lord. I told you. You came to bring peace on earth. THAT S the Jesus I m comfortable and happy with. THAT S the Jesus I want to follow. I have come to bring FIRE on the earth, and how I wish it were already kindled! Those aren t very soothing, comforting words. It doesn t sound like the Jesus we re familiar with, and it startles us to encounter such a fierce, ferocious and fiery Jesus a Jesus we hardly know. There are many conflicting images of Jesus in the gospels. For example, in the 17 th chapter of John s Gospel, Jesus prayed for unity for his followers: 20 My prayer is not for [my disciples] alone. I pray also for

3 3 those who will believe in me through their message, 21 that ALL OF THEM MAY BE ONE, Father, just as you are in me and I am in you. What happened to that Jesus? The Jesus who prayed for unity and harmony? Where did he go? Another Jesus has taken his place, and that one is talking about division and conflict, not unity. This OTHER Jesus, the one we hardly know, prophecies that homes will be wrecked, families split apart, and children will turn against their parents because of him. You know, we live in a time of much marital and family stress and division. A stubbornly weak economy, constantly changing social and ethical norms, techno-logical advances and the danger and uncertainty of everyday life have taken their toll on us and our loved ones, sometimes distancing and pitting us against one another. But that s not the kind of stress and division this other Jesus is talking about. It seems that Jesus was addressing his challenging words to his followers, to his own disciples. He was telling them, and us, that they will have marital distress and family division, not because of the turbulent and challenging times they live in, but simply because they re following him! How come this Jesus, who s supposed to be the Prince of Peace, has such a disruptive, unsettling effect on his followers? Quite simply, because of the high demands Jesus makes upon his followers. Christ s demands are substantial, they re arduous, and they re uncompromising. Many would say that Jesus expectations are totally unreasonable. For example, in the 19 th chapter of Matthew s Gospel, Jesus said: everyone who has left houses or brothers or sisters or father or mother or wife or children or fields for my sake will receive a hundred times as much and will inherit eternal life. Could it be that Jesus actually commends and rewards people who leave their homes and families to be one of his disciples? That would certainly cause a bit of division and conflict. Good bye, honey. I m off to serve the Lord. Don t wait up for me. At this point the question could be raised, Do we HAVE TO leave our homes and families in order to follow Jesus? Is that a mandatory, nonnegotiable condition? If I want to remain a Christian in good standing, should I start packing as soon as I get home? No, it s not mandatory that everyone do that thank goodness! Jesus often used hyperbole to make a point. Families are wonderful, they re necessary, they re God-given, and if at all possible, families should stay together and remain close-knit and loving. But Jesus still demands our first and primary allegiance; and when we put Jesus first and follow him

4 4 faithfully, it can cause conflict and disruption even in the most loving homes, between caring family members living under the same roof. I remember when Penny and I were making plans for our wedding back in I was a practicing Roman Catholic at the time, but I was unhappy in that denomination. Penny was a Congregationalist, and the question we wrestled with was, who would officiate at our wedding? Would it be a Catholic priest or a Congregational minister? We attempted to work out a compromise. Maybe it could be a joint wedding. I talked with the priest at my parish, and he was aghast that I was considering getting married outside the Catholic faith. He absolutely refused to participate in a wedding that was held in a Protestant church. Then he tried to pressure and browbeat me. Did I realize, he said, that it wouldn t be a true marriage in the eyes of God if I got married outside the Roman Catholic faith? What had happened to me? Where did I take a wrong turn and stray off of the path of true faith? I told the priest that I would match my faith against his any time. I left soon after that, with the priest and I both pretty upset. That discussion was the final straw that caused me to leave the Catholic Church. Soon after that, Penny and I made the decision to get married at the First Congregational Church on Meetinghouse Hill in South Portland, by a minister named Joe Shank. But how to explain that decision to my parents especially to my father, who was, and still is to this day, a strong and very faithful Catholic? When I announced the decision to marry outside the Catholic faith, my father blew a gasket. My mother said, Why don t you go talk to another priest? Surely you can find one who s willing to be a part of your wedding. I refused. My decision was final. At that point in my faith journey, I just couldn t find and wasn t able to faithfully follow Christ as a Catholic; and I certainly didn t believe that I needed a Catholic priest to bless my marriage to Penny to make it legitimate in God s eyes. Sorry, Mom and Dad; but like it or not, I ve made up my mind. My father threatened to not attend the wedding. He ended up going, but in protest, instead of renting a suit that matched the groom s, best man s and ushers, as I requested him to do, he wore his own dress clothes and sport coat. So now he stands out like a sore thumb in all our wedding pictures. Those pictures are a permanent reminder to me that Christian discipleship and being faithful to one s convictions as a follower of Jesus can be costly and cause division and strife, even between very loving and caring family members. The famous writer and Christian apologist C.S. Lewis wrote somewhere that the Christian faith is a thing of great comfort. But it doesn t

5 5 begin in comfort. It begins in distress, and you can t get to the comfort without first going through the distress. The Jesus we know and love so much and strive to follow will eventually pronounce peace on his followers; but not before he himself walks the narrow way of the cross which, by the way, caused his family to conclude that he must be losing his mind and died in the midst of great struggle, turmoil and conflict. If Jesus himself experienced such conflict in his life, how could his followers not expect the same in their lives? There s something about being a disciple and follower of Jesus that ultimately leads to peace an everlasting peace that surpasses all human understanding but it comes only after disruption and distress, conflict and division, which are inevitable because of the magnitude of the decisions and choices that faithfully following Jesus leads us to make. When we put following Jesus at the top of our list of important things to do, as Jesus demands, someone be it a family member, a friend, a coworker or whoever someone is surely going to eventually feel put off or unhappy or jealous or neglected or uncomfortable. And that will cause conflict and division, just as Jesus prophesied: I have come to bring fire on the earth... Do you think I came to bring peace on earth? No, I tell you, but division. Most of us don t really know the Jesus who spoke those words at least not very well. The Jesus we re most familiar with is comforting, soothing and reassuring. But maybe we ve overemphasized one aspect of Jesus message at the exclusion of others. We ve come to know and love the Jesus who promises security and blessings; but perhaps it s time to discover the other Jesus: a Jesus who isn t afraid to tell it like it is and tell his followers what they need to hear, even if it makes them uncomfortable or insecure, and let the chips fall where they may. That more hard-edged Jesus demands a very high standard of faithfulness from us. But that same hardedged Jesus, the Jesus we hardly know, has a very high standard of faithfulness to us; and promises to be with us always, in the midst of grief, distress, uncertainty, suffering and despair, until the end of the age. And that s a Jesus worth getting to know better, don t you think? Amen.