Delivered Ladera Community Church, August 2019
Building Community
Luke 12:49-56 New International Version (NIV)
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.”
54 He said to the crowd: “When you see a cloud rising in the west, immediately you say, ‘It’s going to rain,’ and it does. 55 And when the south wind blows, you say, ‘It’s going to be hot,’ and it is. 56 Hypocrites! You know how to interpret the appearance of the earth and the sky. How is it that you don’t know how to interpret this present time?
Is anyone as confounded by the scripture as I am? To be honest, it makes me a bit ill. I’m so unsettled by Jesus. Is he really saying he’s here to cast fire? To divide not only people but families? And what does he mean that we’re hypocrites?
I would rather have not considered it. But in the end I picked this lesson from this week’s scripture choices because it somehow resonates with the great horror I have been feeling in my soul based on what’s going on in our country these days.
Oil Painting, Courtesy of Jane Tracy