Lectionary Year C
August 19, 2001
Luke 12:49-56
Contemporary Address
Step VI - Contemporary Address
A. Goals
(JFC) This pericope might supply a sermon that can put real peace and inevitable discord in proper perspective with reality checks balanced by faithful hopes and fervor.
B. Describing the Audience
(JFC) Not preaching this Sunday, sorry.
C. Contemporary Address
(JFC) A sermon, entitled for this work in progress, "What Price, Peace?"
INTRODUCTION
So, we say we want peace. What will we pay for it? Oh, Jesus' life, ministry, death and resurrection have already bought it for us? Oh? Is that the whole story? Today's text leads us to inquire further about the price of peace. Where do we find it?
I. WATCHING THE WEATHER CHANNEL
A. Do you ever watch the Weather Channel? (Preacher, admit it one way or the other, do you ever surf over to the weather channel to avoid watching insulting commercials [forgive the redundancy] or not and tell why or why not.)
B. Why watch the Weather Channel, to get the weather forecast? And, do you find that those professional analysts with all their high tech equipment miss-predict more than we might expect? Well, so do we miss our marks if we try to figure out where to find peace by reading the clouds, the winds, the humidity, the barometric pressure, whatever that is, etc. These signs are too temporary. They are helpless to try to tell us what's important about Jesus' appearance and message about God and the Kingdom, recorded in Luke 7: 22f and 11:20. Jesus might be referring implicitly in the Gospel of Thomas' record, "You assess the look of the sky and the earth, but you have not recognized what (or him who) is before you; you do not know how to assess this season." Do we?
II. READING THE SIGNS OF THE PRESENT TIMES
A. So, then we now turn to Jesus, the real sign for peace. Jesus is our peace. That's why God came in the human form or Jesus, to bring us peace. He showed us what God's will for our lives is. Micah 6:8 - "What does God require of us but to do justice and to love kindness and to walk humbly with your God." Romans 12:2 - "Be not conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your minds, so that you might discern what is God's will - what is good and acceptable and perfect." And, see the concluding paragraphs of I Thessalonians 5. No wonder Jesus was impatient; He can't wait for His second and figurative baptism = His Passion. He realizes it has to be accomplished before His followers can be fully altered into being and doing what God's will calls us to be and to do. Danker avows, "Only after His death can the purifying action of the Spirit take place (see Acts 15:9)."
B. Noting the signs of God's activities in our world and at their time was Jesus, God Incarnate. Present signs are God's actions in our times and in future generations' times as well. They prove to us where peace is. It is in our relationship with God in Christ.
III. WHAT PRICE, PEACE?
A. So, we have to make a choice here? Well, that process can frequently tell us what we think we want, you know like, "Watch what you pray for, you might get it." So, what is our choice? Danker cites Luke 2:34f and John 3:17-21.
B. Christ is our peace, Ephesians 2:14. "Whoever is near me is near the fire; whoever is distant from me is distant from the kingdom", Gospel of Thomas 82. "What was promised in Luke 2:34 (q.v.) is being realized," Schweizer, also quoting Micah 7:8 and Romans 1:17f, among other passages.
CONCLUSION
God gives us peace in Jesus Christ. Jesus had to suffer and pay much to purchase our peace. We have now only to choose to take advantage of the peace he provides by taking part in it, by standing up for it, by speaking out for it and by living it
(JA) "Fire, Wind, Rain, and Heat"
Brady Presbyterian Church, August 16, 1998
Introduction: Farmers and ranchers, EMS and the fire department, pilots
professional and amateur, and all us regular folks...we have several things
in common and one of them is that we are weather watchers. For most of my
life I used to be casual in my interest about the weather report on the
nightly news, that was until back in the early 80s when I met - and was destined to become like - my
farmer friend Doyal Guice. It was for him the most
important part of the newscast; if you happened to be at his place when the
TV was on conversation could abound during just about any part of any show
but when the weather forecast came on chatter gave way to silence. He used
to joke with me - I think he was joking though sometimes I wonder - when he
first found out that he had a Presbyterian minister for a neighbor: "Well
John, remember your job out here is to pray for rain!" He taught me so much
about the land, and about crops, and about not getting too excited one way
of the other if your equipment breaks down - "It is going to happen, so fix
it and get on with the job at hand" - but I guess his most lasting legacy in
my way of being is that I am hooked in following the weather.
The title of this sermon is "Fire, Wind, Rain, and Heat" mainly because that
is the order of things as they fall from the pen of the gospel writer. The
reverse order is probably the one we are most accustomed to, especially
right now in our August drought conditions. Searing heat, lack of rain,
blowing wind - we conclude correctly - produce the danger of fire...we know
it well. Practically those very words were spoken by a senior fire
department official in LA while Carole and I were visiting my mother. The
Santa Ana winds, they call them, and the resultant fires burn out of control
and many brave firefighters risk their lives to save people and their
property. And if the conditions are extreme there is often no way to head
off the impending disaster. The unique twist to our text is that where we
begin is where our Luke 12 ends! It presupposes what is familiar to us and
makes of it the occasion to speak to us about something that is not so
familiar...though in fact, it says we ought to be better able to see with
understanding what we are looking at.
[Apocalyptic - Mk 11 fig trees; Mk 13 "when you see these
things coming to pass..." etc.]
I. The "Face" of the Earth and the Heavens: What an interesting way to speak
about the weather! It makes our gaze a personal matter. Sometimes the
weather maps used to put a face on the winds or even rain drops. It makes it
less of an abstraction, a subject for the "science of meteorology" (as
though there really were such a thing). It makes of weather an encounter
with destiny...I think Doyal understood this...and finally we all understand
this.
II. Fire - Jesus and the critical hour: It is often that way with matters
of the spirit: if they become linked with something familiar to us we
suddenly see what we should have seen all along. By starting with "fire"
Jesus introduces what is fundamentally true about his ministry, about his
message, about his living and dying. He intends that his hearers will
discern that the call of God in their lives is not just a nice supplement.
It concerns the basics of decision making. And where decisions are made is
the place where there are differences of opinion, resistance, and letting go.
[Steve was an ex-marine who fought in the Iraq war we called "Desert Storm",
and whether from chemical agents or not we don't know, but he turned up with
cancerous tumors throughout his body. Steve's mom, Carole, sang at my
ordination service 23 years ago. We visited her and husband Bob in the
company of my mother a few days after the funeral for Steve. Carole shared
with us how Steve, who had been a physical fitness fanatic of sorts most of
his young life, told her about his growing awareness as the illness
progressed that there is much more to life than focusing on physical fitness
and strength. He spoke of how God had helped him face the struggle with his
debilitation and to let go in faith: he journeyed in faith to peace with God].
The "fire" of Jesus' speech and its reference to baptism points us in the
direction of his own hour of destiny and the consequences it has for all of
us who follow him in discipleship. For the most part it embroils us in more
questions, struggles, and - yes - conflicts than it provides easy sledding
along life's paths. We find ourselves as mature Christians asking "why" just
as often as we exult with statements of praise and understanding, especially
when it comes to tragedies and paradoxes. We know this well of late right
here in our church family in Brady.
III. Division: It is instructive for us that the context for the struggle -
as Jesus' words locates it - is right at home. When differences of opinion,
resistance, and letting go surface it is right there among people like us
who belong to one another in our most vital connections in life...those that
exist between fathers and mothers and children and the bonds created by
marriage. It is important to see that the text does not speak about quarrels
and fights, but about "division" and "differences" and "distinctions." That
is to say, where there are real questions and problems in our lives we do
not always come out at the same place. We cannot gloss over the pain and the
anguish connected with life's bigger questions and we cannot force one
another to agree on all points and at all times. In fact, some of the most
important breakthroughs of our lives occur along lonely paths where
accompaniment of others is impossible.
[Steve and his mother Carole and his father Bob had to walk their own path
together and the rest of us could only love them and assure them of our
prayers...and leave them to God's care, i.e. let go and realize that we
could not "fix" things for them.]
Jesus knows this and assures us all that he alone has walked this path
already for us and walks with us when others - try though we would - cannot.
The crisis of "division" creates for us all the vision to see what is true
but otherwise held from our sight: we are dependent upon God through faith,
the God who takes us under his care in our brokenness and finds the rare and
difficult means of healing us when healing seems impossible.
Conclusion > Back to the Weather: I suppose that the message of our text
today is that what we practice so naturally in watching the weather and
living by the "insights" of the meteorologist should serve as a prod to
expand our vision to the "face" of the One who walks with us where we are
divided and separated, where we stumble because our breath fails us, where
our feet do not want to take us forward, and where we see so little hope
that the sun should rise again. "Fire, wind, rain, and heat" point us to
God's enduring determination to deliver us from ourselves and to raise
within us a chance for embracing life again.
Amen.
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