The Radical Way of Jesus
A sermon by The Reverend Shearon Sykes Williams on the Tenth Sunday after Pentecost, August 14th, 2022.
“…Do you think that I have come to bring peace to the earth? No, I tell you, but rather division!” Luke 12:49ff
A few weeks ago, I asked RevMo Crystal if she would be willing to switch preaching Sundays with me and she graciously agreed. A few days later, I looked at the Gospel for today and realized that I had made a most unfortunate trade. Wow. This is one of the most challenging Gospel passages of all. Jesus’ words about division, discord and family strife are hard to hear any time, but especially right now when we have division, discord and strife everywhere we look.
“Gospel” means good news, so where is the good news today?
I think it is important for us to hear Jesus’s words as descriptive rather than prescriptive. In other words, he describes the consequence of his mission rather than the intent. His mission was to bring God’s peace, justice and reconciliation to the world, but the world’s rejection of his mission often results in division. Jesus has “turned his face toward Jerusalem” at this point in Luke’s Gospel. He is on his way to the capitol city, the seat of power and wealth. He has been bringing good news to the poor and the oppressed, healing the sick, and calling people to walk in his way of love. And his way is about to culminate in a head-on collision with the forces of darkness and the power of empire. Suffering awaits him. He will be hung on a cross by the Roman authorities, aided and abetted by the religious elite. He is anticipating his own death and reminding his disciples that when they follow him, they can expect to suffer too.
Everything about Jesus challenged the status quo. He invited women to learn from him, he invited poor people to join him, he called outcasts to eat with him. He recognized their dignity as children of God. He brought healing in so many ways. And he also spoke truth to power, which resulted in his death. God’s way is often in direct opposition to the way of the world.
When Jesus says that he has come to “set father against son” and “mother against daughter”, he is not advocating family discord. Jesus came to bring God’s peace and yet the rejection of that peace brings discord. The household order in biblical times depended upon people carrying on the work of their parents. Sons inherited their father’s work and daughters carried on their mother’s work, so Jesus’ words today upset all that because everyone is invited to follow him on a path of transformation that doesn’t depend on family heritage.
Jesus’ way is a radical way. He doesn’t want families to be divided, but they naturally are when one chooses his way and another does not. He creates a new family of disciples to serve as agents of change in the world.
Many families in this country were bitterly divided over slavery during the Civil War. Some saw slavery as an abomination against God, while others accepted and defended it as part of the social order. The Quakers were leaders in the abolition movement and this came out of their deeply held Christian beliefs. They spoke out against slavery. They actively resisted it. And that put them at odds with those who supported slavery. The Quakers didn’t want to be at odds, but being at odds was a natural consequence of their understanding of the Gospel, of Jesus’ way of love.
Just as the power structure in Jesus’ time had a vested interest in keeping everyone in their place in the social hierarchy, so too did the power structure in the U.S. in the 1860s. It led to bitterness and deep and lasting division.
Three days ago, we commemorated the 5th anniversary of the Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville. It is horrible to remember the events of that day, but it is very important to remember. Protestors, many of whom were armed, gathered that day in protest against the removal of a statue of Confederate General Robert E. Lee, and counter-protestors, many of whom where people of faith, clergy and bishops of the Episcopal Church included, marched in peaceful opposition to the white supremacists.
When I think about that day, I am reminded of Jesus’ entry into Jerusalem that is recounted in Scripture and that we remember every year on Palm Sunday, when Jesus rides in on a humble donkey before he is handed over to the authorities to be crucified. In their book, The Last Week, scholars Marcus Borg and John Dominic Crossan, help us to see Jesus’ act as a mark of humility, yes, but also as a form of peaceful protest against the evil powers of this world. The Roman authorities came into the city every year as Passover was beginning and hundreds of Jewish pilgrims were flocking to the city to worship at the temple. The Romans rode in on huge war horses, with all of their military gear and weapons, as a show of force to remind everyone who was in charge and to make sure that there were no uprisings. It demonstrated their power and reminded the Jews that they were a subjugated people, not that they needed to be reminded. Jesus, by contrast, rode in on a lowly donkey while people shouted, “Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord” and threw palm branches along the way.
Jesus was demonstrating God’s peace, but it was a peace that resulted in his crucifixion. The Cross was the ultimate example of God’s reign coming into direct opposition with the rulers of this world. The authorities thought they had had the last word. But the last word comes from God, the maker of heaven and earth, who raised Jesus from the dead 3 days later to show us that his way will ultimately triumph. We remember Jesus’ death and resurrection every single Sunday to remind us of that as we respond as followers of Christ in life-giving ways to the death- dealing ways of the world. All of the ways that the social hierarchy tells us that some people are more important than others, that power and money and status are what is important, while we proclaim Christ crucified and risen and ourselves with him. That means that we are called to work for changes in the social order in our own day and time.
And our faith in Jesus sometimes puts us in direct opposition even as we follow Jesus’ path of peace. Our story is a continuation of Jesus’ story. The Gospel of Luke and the Acts of the Apostles were written by the same author and they were intended to be read as one. Scholars refer to it as Luke-Acts. Luke tells the story of Jesus and Acts tells the story of the apostles that founded the Christian church after his resurrection. And it is this story that has continued throughout the ages. Our lives as disciples flow out of Jesus’ life. And therein lies the good news for us today. Jesus is with us and for us in the deepest possible way as we go forward in our own day and time to be witnesses to God’s peace.
Amen.