“I Came to Bring Fire”

For Sunday, August 15th, 2010

(Graphic is liturgical art of the gospel lectionary reading from http://www.4catholiceducators.com)

Lectionary Scripture - Luke 12:49-57 (NRSV)

"I came to bring fire to the earth, and how I wish it were already kindled! I have a baptism with which to be baptized, and what stress I am under until it is completed! Do you think that I have come to bring peace to the earth? No, I tell you, but rather division! From now on five in one household will be divided, three against two and two against three; 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." He 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. And when you see the south wind blowing, you say, 'There will be scorching heat'; and it happens. You hypocrites! You know how to interpret the appearance of earth and sky, but why do you not know how to interpret the present time? “And why do you not judge for yourselves what is right?”

“I Came to Bring Fire”

Another version of the above lectionary scripture from the Contemporary English Version (CEV) expresses Jesus’ words a bit differently. In that version one part of the scripture reads this way, “Do you think that I came to bring peace to earth? No indeed! I came to make people choose sides.” And in the last portion of the CEV version, Jesus says, “You can predict the weather by looking at the earth and sky, but you don't really know what's going on right now. Why don't you understand the right thing to do?”

Reflecting on the CEV version of this scripture, it struck me that at times in the past I have felt like Jesus. I then recalled occasions of preaching in a congregation that I have visited a few times over the years. What I have discovered through the years about this congregation is that a fair number of individuals have constructed for themselves a wonderfully sanitized Jesus. The purpose of their Jesus is to make them feel warm and fuzzy about who they are and what they’ve accomplished in their lives both individually and collectively. They see their Jesus as someone who rewards all their hard work. Their Jesus never makes them feel guilty about their wealth. Their Jesus never makes them feel self-conscious about the poor, the starving, the sick and afflicted, or those who suffer from social or economic injustices rampant throughout our country and the world. In fact, their Jesus is so comfortable to them they have no problem saying,

“Well Jesus said the poor would always be among us. So here’s what I have to say: I have worked hard to get where I am and have the things I have. No one’s taking it away from me. In fact, I want a lot back that the government takes away from me through taxes. And I think a good place to start is with the poor. They need to pull themselves up by their bootstraps and get off the government dole. I made it without such help, so can they.”

So in this congregation, there’s a fair amount of judgmental attitudes toward the poor which it expresses itself in right-wing political prejudice and ideology toward those mired in poverty. There’s also a fair degree of theology and congregational life that’s focused on “spiritual needs” to the exclusion of addressing social injustices and economic injustices. For these individuals, the cause of the Peaceable Kingdom is not a transforming reality for which we struggle and fight to make real here and now but rather some kind of magical Disney-like thing that happens after we shed this mortal existence. Brian McLaren in his book titled Everything Must Change identifies this form of congregational life as follows:

It has specialized in dealing with “spiritual needs” to the exclusion of physical and social needs. It has specialized in people’s destination in the afterlife but has failed to address significant social injustices in this life. It has focused on “me” and “my soul” and “my spiritual life” and “my eternal destiny,” but it has failed to address the dominant societal and global realities of [this] lifetime: systematic injustice, systemic poverty, systemic ecological crisis, systemic dysfunctions of many kinds.

Now I want to state that there are a number of persons in the congregation I speak of who are quite concerned about social injustices and economic injustices and all forms of dysfunction that burden and paralyze efforts toward the common good. I know who those persons are and how frustrated they feel by the congregants who demand and expect the congregational focus to be on the “spiritual.” For these frustrated persons, they experience the congregation as stuck in neutral, spinning its wheels in the mud, getting nowhere fast, aging and declining because their way of being compels little interest in others to join the congregation. The unwritten law is that the congregational boat must not be rocked. Discipleship defaults therefore to being little more than a member of a community social club. In turn, one’s faith journey achieves little, if any, transformative influence upon society and culture toward Christ’s Peaceable Kingdom being reality here on earth. So while everyone in this congregation projects an outwardly friendly face, there’s a tension, negativity, discouragement, and judgmental hypocrisy that’s alive and well beneath the surface. Like a dysfunctional family, everyone colludes to not rock the boat and keep the lid shut on Pandora’s Box. Debilitating mediocrity results while complacency orders the nature of congregational life.

Knowing these things about the congregation, I often bring with me into their pulpit the Jesus who is not sanitized. Instead, it’s a Jesus who’s quite “prickly” as once stated by the former Duke University professor and United Methodist Bishop William Willimon. It’s the Jesus who without reservation says, “Do you think that I came to bring peace? No, I came to make people choose sides.” And this Jesus tends to get pricklier, “Who do you think you trying to fool? Why do you not know how to interpret the present time? Why do you not judge for yourselves what is right? Why do you not understand the right thing to do?”

As I rarely ask such questions directly when preaching in this congregation, it’s the stories I share and the moral of those stories that seem to reach down into the congregation’s Pandora’s Box; doing so in a way that urges movement beyond the status quo toward a mission that’s potent and powerful in their community for the Peaceable Kingdom. I do think that something of my friend, Prickly Jesus, must break through the congregation’s façade. I say this because two things generally happen. One thing is that there always seems to be one of the “spiritual” oriented persons who’s part of the worship team when I visit. And almost always those individuals have some kind of opportunity to follow me in the order of service after I preach. It may be that the person has a reading or a prayer to do or may be the worship leader that day. What I and others attending the worship can invariably count on is that the individual will take opportunity in some way or another to distract the congregation from the message I’ve shared or be completely dismissive of it. The behavior happens so dependably and systematically that it truly amounts to one of those systemic dysfunctions of which McLaren writes. In fact, this regular kind of incident has been embarrassing enough for some congregants that I’ll get emails after a visit that apologize for what happened and comment on how annoying the behavior was.

But the above “dysfunction” is typically offset by the second thing which happens. And what that is are the positive and touching things said to me by other congregants. Things said to me such as, “I so appreciate it when you visit us. You always bring us a message that forces us to think outside of ourselves and beyond what we do here. Thanks so much for coming. Your message today was the best one yet.”

Again, I have to thank Bishop Willimon for reminding me of the importance of bringing “Prickly Jesus” into the pulpit. In case you don’t recognize Bishop Willimon’s name, he is the second most widely read author among Protestant pastors. Henri Nouwen is first. You might recognize Nouwen’s name from the book he wrote titled The Wounded Healer.

So if you as a minister or follower of Prickly Jesus ever think you need to take on a sanitized warm-fuzzy Jesus whose only concern is a heavenly hereafter, then consider the following from an article the good bishop wrote for the March-April 2003 edition of Sojourners magazine:

There is a peculiar pastoral burden of having to preach Jesus Christ and him crucified in the midst of a nation of prosperity, particularly if the affluent are among us when we preach. Most of us preachers (to the discredit of the American church) preach to relatively affluent congregations. Jesus makes a prickly pulpit partner when, in the pews, sit those for whom he appears to have had deep antipathy.

We were guests at an affluent Episcopal parish in the mountains of western North Carolina where rich people go to retire. We made our way through a parking lot of Cadillacs and Lincolns. The liturgy went well enough until we got to the sermon. The lectionary's assigned text was from 1 Kings, the reign of King Solomon. The priest told us that Solomon was the world's wisest man, king at a time when Israel at last stood at the summit of national development. No longer was Israel jerked around by larger nations. Israel had a big army and lots of chariots. The economy was booming. A great temple was being built as a sign of national prosperity.

Then he paused and said, "And yet Israel learned that the reign of Solomon was a time when the nation was as far from the heart of God as it could get...." Then the preacher hammered us for our stock portfolios, our pointless leisure, and problems with our spoiled children. Where else but church would you get a read like that on a "well-functioning economy"?

It’s all too easy these days to let our souls wander from the heart and purposes of God’s Peaceable Kingdom. Trust this however that Christ (or whatever great teacher or prophet you follow) will come to you in some way or another and you will be asked who you’re trying to fool. You will be asked why you persist in self-defeating, self-serving, self-absorbed behavior. And you can bet that your teacher, prophet, or savior will point to dominating unjust dysfunctional things, dominating unjust dysfunctional people, and dominating unjust dysfunctional realities. And quite uncomfortably, you will be put on the spot and asked why you fail to understand these things and why you fail to do what it right.

The time has come my friends, the fires for transformation and justice are being lit -- and lit now!