Lectionary Year C
August 19, 2001
Luke 12:49-56

Step II: Disposition

Step II - Disposition

A. Genre

(JFC) Are these paragraphs a tirade by a reactionary Hellfire and Damnation preacher? Fred Craddock terms them, "urgent sayings". They are at least that. Every sentence seems like it needs an exclamation point or two or three at its end. Can't you just see the brows furrowed and the jaws clinched and the fists pounding as these statements are cried out? The speaker makes so many references to himself and brings in the audience only tangentially and only as they might relate to what he has is saying. He exaggerates their faults and calls them by a most unfavorable appellation. He paints a most unflattering picture of the family relationships.

B. Personal Interaction

(JFC) Is Jesus as angry as these statements seem? What other emotion generates such assertions? Is he overstating in order to contrast the good news of "this present time"? Is he giving a reality check unquestionably? Does the fire Jesus brings destroy or refine? How do we discern the difference? Does verse 50 explain, amplify and/or illustrate what he said in verse 49? If not, what is it doing there in this text? Is the use of the image of his baptism clearly symbolic to the earliest hearers/readers? Can they readily expand the issue of households' divisions into similar situations in communities and nations? And, why does the lection end so open-endingly?

C. Organization

(JFC) The passage at hand begins with a definite indicative announcement of unquestionable intentions reinforced by an admission of its urgency. Next, it seems at first reading, that Jesus is changing the subject by mentioning his baptism. Soon, however, it becomes clear that he is referring to an experience other than his having been baptized in the Jordan River by John the Baptizer. Then he returns to the former topic of what he predicts to be problematic. He illustrates, in verses 52f, by foretelling of household members in discord with one another. Subsequently, he speaks, beginning at verse 54, to the crowd yet in a very ominous way. Finally, in the last verse, he calls them by a derogatory term and asks a "why question", which is very untoward.

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