49“I came to bring fire to the earth, and how I wish it were already kindled! 50I have a baptism with which to be baptized, and what stress I am under until it is completed! 51Do you think that I have come to bring peace to the earth? No, I tell you, but rather division! 52From now on five in one household will be divided, three against two and two against three;53they 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.”
54He also said to the crowds, “When you see a cloud rising in the west, you immediately say, ‘It is going to rain’; and so it happens. 55And when you see the south wind blowing, you say, ‘There will be scorching heat’; and it happens. 56You hypocrites! You know how to interpret the appearance of earth and sky, but why do you not know how to interpret the present time?
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This sermon was originally preached by me, Rev. Sarah Locke, at Redeemer Episcopal Church on August 18, 2019. You can listen to the sermon by visiting the link here.
Grace and peace to you, from God in Christ who bids us come and follow him and his example so that we might lead holy lives. Amen.
During my course of studies in seminary, I was required to spend one year in a congregational setting, on internship. Because no one ever accused me of being boring, I applied and was selected to do an international internship in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. I had many incredible opportunities while serving in a largely Indian and Chinese congregation there.
One of my favorite opportunities was teaching Bible study at their sister congregation, that was made up entirely of Nepalese migrant workers. None of them spoke English, so the entire Bible study was translated back and forth between me, the translator, and these men.
They had migrated recently to Malaysia and worked brutal hours in the factories there. They often lived in tiny apartments with many people to one room, but this group of men was happy and smiling when they came to Bible study every Wednesday night.
Throughout the Bible studies, it came out that these men were not just seeking a better life here in Malaysia, in fact many of them had been teachers and doctors in Nepal. They were forced to leave.
They were Christians and not even 1.5% of the Nepalese population is Christian. They told me stories of people coming into their villages, threatening them and their families. They were given a choice: denounce Christianity, leave the country, or die in the fires they would set in their villages. They had 24 hours to decide.
They told me that some of their friends and even family members decided to stay and denounce Christianity, leaving their belief behind so that they could live in their country and community. Some of their wives even couldn’t bear the thought of leaving the country, so they stayed with their children and denounced Christianity.
These few men sitting in the Bible study each week were there because they had nothing else. They were there because the gospel had changed their lives and transformed who they were and they were not willing to put that aside for the sake of their community or even their families.
Eventually I asked, “how did the people know you were Christians?”
They looked at my dumbfounded and said, “well of course because of the way we lived.”
Precisely what Jesus says in this troubling and difficult text is what happened to these men. Division, conflict, between family and communities. It cost them everything to be Christians, sometimes including their wives and children.
In Jesus’ time, it cost a lot to be his follower. Following Jesus often meant being in conflict with your family, your employer, the people who you have known your entire life in your community and faith.
Jesus wasn’t the warrior king that they had expected, that they had read about in the prophecies. Jesus was humble, kind, loving, and forgiving. He regularly made a table with sinners and those that people had deemed unclean.
If you were a follower in Jesus’ time, it meant that you not only had to change your beliefs about what the messiah is supposed to look like and other core Jewish beliefs, but you also had to change how you lived.
Following Jesus meant literally following him, often going around the country with him, giving up your own resources to provide for his other followers, dining with the people Jesus dined with, which was often uncomfortable for the disciples.
It meant that those who followed Jesus had to preach forgiveness and love, treating others as Jesus treated them, healing, and inviting people into their homes.
Eventually, the cost of being a disciple for most of Jesus’ followers was their own lives.
Following Jesus in Nepal looked a lot like following Jesus when he was here on earth. I wonder what following Jesus looks like for us, here in this community.
Do we live in such a way that our discipleship costs us anything? Does believing in Christ Jesus, living in the reality of his death, resurrection, and ascension change the way we see the world? Does it change the way the world sees us?
Does coming to this table every week to feed on the body and blood of Christ Jesus change us? Did our baptisms turn our lives upside down and inside out?
How can we use our time together on Sunday in worship, Sunday school, in our book groups, and in fellowship to encourage one another to not just believe in Jesus, but to truly act like Jesus.
How do we even do that? If we want to imitate someone, be more like them, then we must spent lots of time with them and with other people who are like them. In order to be more like Jesus, we must spend a lot of time getting to know Jesus. We must spend a lot of time learning about who he is and what he did while he walked this earth with the disciples.
We have to know the kind of person that he was and the kind of people he made company with. And as we begin to understand all of that, we can begin walking that path as well, following in Jesus’ footsteps and being like him. That is, after all, our call as Christians.
Perhaps our following Jesus will cause division within our families or even our community. Jesus says that he will cause division.
But perhaps instead of being fearful of the fire that Jesus speaks about, we can lean into it a bit with our own lives. We can encourage a fire within us, a fire that kindles the passions of God, encourages the love of Christ and the Holy Spirit.
But we can also lean into the fire that helps refine us, that helps us be a bit more like Christ, the fire that turns and molds our beliefs into actions. Then perhaps we can have the faith that our second reading describes, that faith of the great cloud of witnesses before us, so that we may lay aside every weight and the sin that clings so closely and follow daily in the blessed steps of Christ’s most holy life.
Amen.
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