Readings : Jeremiah 23:23-29 Hebrews 12:1-7(8-10)11-14 Luke 12:49-56 Psalm 82
"Do you think that I have come to bring peace?
No, I tell you, but rather division!"
These are Jesus’ words… but they don’t sound like they should be.
They don’t sound right. How can this be the Gospel?
How can this be good news?
"From now on, five in one household will be divided, three against two and two against three;"Do you think that I have come to bring peace?
they will be divided:
father against son and son against father
mother against daughter and daughter against mother
mother-in-law against her daughter-in-law
and daughter-in-law against mother-in-law."
No, I tell you, but rather division!"
Division doesn’t sound like good news – it doesn’t sound like something Jesus should be involved in.
But it does sound like our experience.
It sounds like my family's experience anyway.
We have conflicts and estrangements and divisions. That's not all we have, but we do have some of that.
Not peace, but division - Does it sound like your family?
It sounds like St. Marks these past couple of years.
It sounds like the Episcopal Church, too.
It sounds like the whole Anglican Communion.
It sounds like every denomination in the holy catholic church in every place and time throughout all our histories.
Not peace, but division -
How is this good news?
It’s good news because there’s more to experiences of conflict than just division.
Division is not where a happy, healthy, peaceful story tragically ends; more often, it's where a real story of honesty, brokenness and healing begins.
What might it mean for Jesus to say, ‘I come to bring division?’I don’t know exactly. I think it’s a strange and confusing thing for him to say.
But I did think of a story in my experience where it seemed to work like this – someone bringing division in order to lead to wholeness.I remember participating in a team-building exercise with a mission group just before heading to North Africa for a month - right after I finished college and before I moved here. Our group included four different nationalities, so a facilitator led us in a get-to-know-you discussion. She began by asking what we knew of each other’s cultures, and she wrote down what we said:'Canadians are quiet and avoid conflict,'
'It's hot in west Africa,' 'Caribbean Islanders like music,'
'Americans mainly want money and power.'
At first, it seemed like kind of a shallow exercise, but tension started up as stereotypes and misconceptions emerged. Strangely, our facilitator didn't try to reverse this - instead, she asked more questions and stood listening as we started arguing with each other, becoming defensive and angry.
‘If you think Canadians are quiet, maybe it's because Americans talk so much they never listen!’
‘What are you getting mad at us for? People in other countries are always dumping on Americans, and we have to apologize for everything anyone wants to blame someone for – it’s like we have to apologize for existing, and even that doesn't satisfy you!’
The tension got thicker, and the words got faster and louder,
and then it got very quiet.
I was staring at my feet. The room felt like it might either melt or explode.
Then, over to my left, I heard Adam Farenholz speak up. "What are you doing to us?! We were getting along fine until you came in and started turning us against each other!"
We had assumed the discussion would be simple and peaceful, not divisive. It was a horrible suprise to be suddenly stuck in all that anger and not know the way back. There didn't seem to be a way back - so somehow, we kept going ahead – we kept talking - and after many tears and apologies and an awkward but beautiful ceremony of washing each other’s feet, we were a whole group again – but much more so.
We had moved – very painfully - from assuming we knew each other to actually knowing each other. We went off on that trip with our eyes more open to our own and each other’s weaknesses, and we held each other up better.
An important point here –
The lady who started the discussion and drew it out didn’t create the divisions that emerged between us.
They were already there. They had just been invisible before, like tiny, hairline fractures in a piece of stone or steel - where the right amount of force can break it apart or cause collapse.
Maybe when Jesus said he came to bring division, he was not creating division, but simply laying bare divisions that already existed, which had been hidden or unknown, so they could be addressed.
In the reading from Jeremiah, the Lord asks 'Who can hide in secret places so that I cannot see them? ... Is not my word like fire... and like a hammer that breaks a rock in pieces?'
Possibly that’s something of what happened when ‘the hurricane and the storm’ cracked our foundation here at St. Mark’s, or when some of General Convention’s decisions pushed rival factions to separate. Maybe it’s part of what we’re looking at in September, when the Archbishop comes to New Orleans to figure out how to relate to the Episcopal Church.
Now, please don’t misunderstand – I’m not saying it’s a good idea to intentionally break things apart with the idea that this will push the healing process along faster.
As Paul wrote in his letter to the Romans, "Should we sin more that grace may abound? May it never be!"
But I am saying that where we’re cracked and broken now, if the fractures were already there, it wasn’t primarily the added pressure that broke us.
We were already broken; we just couldn’t see it.
In the Gospel reading today, Jesus' description of division references a passage in Micah.
The prophet outlines God’s charge and indictment against the people for acting unjustly, and he describes what life was like at that time.
"Put no trust in a friend, have no confidence in a loved one; guard the doors of your mouth from her who lies in your embrace; for the son treats the father with contempt, the daughter rises up against her mother, the daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law; your enemies are members of your own household."
"Do not rejoice over me, O my enemy; when I fall, I shall rise;
When I sit in darkness, the Lord will be a light to me.
I must bear the indignation of the Lord, because I have sinned against him,
until he takes my side and executes judgment for me."
Micah then prays to God, and here’s where we find the Gospel – here is the good news about division and judgment – it’s that mercy and forgiveness can come afterwards.
"Who is a God like you, pardoning iniquityInto the depths of the sea."
and passing over the transgression of the remnant of your possession?
He does not retain his anger forever, because he delights in showing clemency.
He will again have compassion upon us; he will tread our iniquities under foot.You will cast all our sins
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Given to St. Mark's, Beaumont
Aug. 19, 2007 But he goes on – and we begin to hear some hope."Do you think that I have come to bring peace? No, I tell you, but rather division!"
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