Luke 12:49-56
What does it mean to have peace in the world? Today’s Gospel comes at the end of a very
long discourse in which Jesus talks about the coming of the Kingdom of God, a
Kingdom of peace and unity, but here Jesus tells the crowd that peace and unity
is not something they should be expecting.
He shocks the crowd, and us I might add when he says that he came to
bring fire to the earth, fire and division.
Last week we heard Jesus tell the crowd, “Do not be afraid,
little flock, for it is your Father’s good pleasure to give you the kingdom.”
But he does not want us thinking that the coming of the Kingdom is going to be
easy.
In a world that is filled with so much trial and
tribulation, God’s peace will not be peaceful, particularly not for those who
seek God’s will, because true peace is not attained at the expense of justice,
or of mercy. The peace that the world asks of us requires that we ignore the
injustices we see, it requires that we maintain the status quo by maintaining
certain social norm and divisions. The
more we do that, the more ‘peaceful’ our lives will be.
This is the peace that Jesus intends to disrupt. He warns the crowd that to pursue the Kingdom
of Heaven is to be at odds with the world.
Because the Kingdom of Heaven is a kingdom of love and unity, it has
been given to us freely out of God’s love for us. And to live out that kingdom now, is to
recognize that love, and live it out in the world. But the task is not easy. Jesus, God made incarnate in the world, the
Kingdom of Heaven made manifest – even to him the world reacts with fear and
violence.
We know how the story goes, we know that he will face
torture and death. But we also know that
the story doesn't end there. We are
shown God’s persistence in loving us, Christ’s suffering and death on the cross
shows us that there is no end to the lengths God will go to in order to make
his love for us known, and the resurrection reminds us that nothing, not even
death can defeat that love. Through
Christ the Kingdom of Heaven has been made manifest, and we have been called to
make that Kingdom known to the world, and to each other, by reflecting God’s
love for us. But we should not be
surprised if the world greets that love with fear and rejection. Inclusion of the outcasts, loving ones enemy,
forgiveness and compassion for all of humanity will inevitably put us at odds
with someone, and yet we are encouraged to persist in love, as God persists.
It is a beautiful task that God has put before us, beautiful
but difficult. We are required to look this
sinful broken world in the eye, see it as it really is, and somehow still see
that God is present, and loving in it. But When I look I see so much sadness,
so much anger and hate. I have trouble
seeing beyond the broken bits.
So how do we recognize what has been given to us by
God? Jesus comments that we are unable
to recognize the here and now, we can see what is coming, but we cannot see
where we are right now. It reminds me of
a little story, kind of a parable really, told by David Foster Wallace, There
are these two young fish swimming along and they happen to meet an older fish
swimming the other way, who nods at them and says "Morning, boys. How's
the water?" And the two young fish swim on for a bit, and then eventually
one of them looks over at the other and goes "What the heck is
water?"
We are not able to see what is close to us, precisely
because it is close to us. We are
immersed in it, but we look to the horizon waiting for what is coming next and
miss what we have right here, right now.
We miss so much of the present moment because we live as if
we are waiting for something to come along and we seem unable to see that it is
here already. All of creation belongs to
God, we belong to God, intellectually this is easy to know, but can we live our
lives as if it were true? There are ways
in which we can be reminded and encouraged in these endeavors. When we are intentional about taking part in
worship, taking part in the sacraments, when we spend time in prayer and
contemplation and when we engage in fellowship with each other we are
strengthened and encouraged to live in the kingdom. We are not in this alone.
God knows it is a struggle for us. But fortunately for us, God is patient, eternally so, and calls us,
every day, every moment of our lives, to rely on his love alone, to search for
the Kingdom in our midst and find that peace, true peace that comes from
knowing, really knowing who we are as God’s beloved children. And ultimately taking that love into the
world with us as we go.
