Grace and peace to you from God, our Creator and Sustainer, our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, and the Holy Spirit that abides in each of us.
"You hypocrites, you know how to interpret the appearance of earth and sky, but why do you not know how to interpret the present time?" What harsh words Jesus used in our text today, calling people names and announcing that he came to bring fire and division to families. This doesn’t sound like the kind, loving, gentle Jesus I learned about in Sunday school. Who is this Jesus that seems to be so antagonistic? Last week, we heard him talk about giving up our possessions; this week, he seems to be in a bad mood and wants to tear families apart. And just as a heads up for next week, we’ll read about how he called the religious leadership hypocrites. Why was Jesus so critical and mean? To begin to understand what Jesus was saying and what these tough lessons mean for us today, we must go back and recall a couple of things that Luke has already told us in his Gospel about Jesus. First of all, we must remember Jesus’ baptism. In Chapter 3, Luke wrote, “Now when all the people were baptized, and when Jesus also had been baptized and was praying, the heaven was opened, and the Holy Spirit descended upon him in bodily form like a dove. And a voice came from heaven, "You are my Son, the Beloved; with you I am well pleased” (Luke 3:21-22). In the waters of his baptism, Jesus came to know his Father, the one who he called “abba,” or daddy, as we heard a couple of weeks ago when Brett Brende shared his message on prayer with us. Jesus knew he was rooted in God’s family, and from that point on he knew what he had to do; he had to work towards bringing about his Father’s will. And what was His Father’s will? Shortly after his baptism, Luke tells us that Jesus read from the scroll of Isaiah in the Temple. “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to bring good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to let the oppressed go free, to proclaim the year of the Lord's favor” (Luke 4:18-19). As he finished reading this text, He proclaimed that this scripture had been fulfilled. Jesus accepted God’s call to be the one who would begin to bring about the re-ordering of all relationships. He would seek to eliminate all debt so that the very fabric of society could be restructured according to God's desire that all would be free and that all would live in relationships of love and peace. That day, God’s mission became Jesus' mission.
A little later in Luke’s story, with Jesus’ mission well-defined, Luke tells us that Jesus “set his face to Jerusalem” (Luke 9:51) where he knew he would be crucified. His time was limited, and the closer to Jerusalem he got and the closer to his impending death he got, the harsher and more direct he got with his message. He so desperately wanted his followers to know and desire his Father’s will as he did. His patience began to wear thin, and today we learn that he called those who proclaimed to be followers of God hypocrites.
In Jesus’ day, the term hypocrite was used to describe what we now call actors. A hypocrite was someone who pretended to be someone or something else. Although in our society an actor is a dream job which often brings with it much prestige and wealth, in Jesus’ day, an actor or “hypocrite” was a derogatory term.
As Jesus walked this earth, he experienced and witnessed the injustices that humanity had created. The world was filled with hate, disparity between rich and poor, disparity between male and female, disparity between Jew and Greek, disparity between the physically and mentally disabled and those that were “normal.” These were all signs of brokenness, for this was not the world that God created. Following the fall of Adam and Eve, the world became filled with pain and suffering, but God, throughout history, has promised his people that He would bring about a renewed world and a renewed way of life that would reconcile the world to Himself, and the incredible thing is, God called his people, Israel, to witness to and participate in His restoration.
The problem is the Israelites, God’s own faithful people, were ignoring the signs of brokenness. They were ignoring the fractures and the disparities in their own families, and in the name of God they were allowing this broken world to continue. In the name of God, they set up barriers to keep the sick, the poor, the oppressed, the widows, and all who could not care and protect themselves outside of the “family.” In the name of God, they set up rules and barriers to keep people out of their faith, and they set up rules that had absolutely nothing to do with restoring God’s creation. Not much has changed in 2000 years!
As Jesus went from town to town proclaiming the good news that God was alive and in the world seeking restoration through his people, the people continued to ignore the brokenness and failed to seek change. Historically, when the prophets brought up the notion of change, prophets like Amos, Isaiah and Jeremiah, the people condemned them. Jesus made a powerful statement to the people that day when he said, You can forecast the weather, but you can’t see the signs in front of you that we are living in broken relationships and with false hope. Humanity was filled with false hope and false peace. Jesus knew that when he began to challenge the power structure of his day conflict would arise; conflict in the political structure, the religious structure, and even in the family structure. The people spoke as if they wanted peace and equality, but they were not willing to seek real change.
Are we still a bunch of hypocrites? Do we ignore the brokenness around us because we are too selfish to change? What will it take for the Church, those that proclaim Jesus as their Lord and Savior, to stop building walls around themselves to keep the “sinners” out? What will it take for each congregation to stop worrying about its own personal needs and seek ways to bring about healing in our own communities? What will it take for each of us to stop ignoring the signs of brokenness around us? What will it take to get each of us to freely give, not only of material wealth but of ourselves, as well, so we might bring about a small piece of God’s Kingdom to this broken world? When will we open our hearts?
These were harsh words then and they are harsh words now, for Jesus knew his followers could be amazingly self-serving. We can become caught up in the minutiae and structure of our own religious traditions and lose the deeper invitation that is at the heart of Christ’s Church -- that is, to allow ourselves to be broken open by God's grace in order to allow ourselves to be an active participant in Christ’s mission.
Today we heard Jesus say, "I came to bring fire to the earth. How I wish it were already kindled." Jesus brought a sense of urgency as he taught his followers. Jesus came to set our hearts on fire so we would all be ablaze for his Father’s mission. As his followers 2000 years later, do we bring that same sense of urgency to His mission in 2010? If we do, then we must be ready for conflict, but we must meet that conflict not with hate and anger, but with love and respect, as Jesus taught us and modeled for us. As Jesus journeyed to Jerusalem, he desired to set the world on fire for his Father’s will. He sought to kindle a fire, a fire for God’s mission. Is your heart on fire? Amen.
Lessons: Jeremiah 23:23-29 Hebrews 11:29-12:2 Luke 12:49-56