Luke 12:49-56
12:49 "I came to bring fire to the earth, and how I wish it were already kindled!
12:50 I have a baptism with which to be baptized, and what stress I am under until it is completed!
12:51 Do you think that I have come to bring peace to the earth? No, I tell you, but rather division!
12:52 From now on five in one household will be divided, three against two and two against three;
12:53 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."
12:54 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.
12:55 And when you see the south wind blowing, you say, 'There will be scorching heat'; and it happens.
12:56 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?

“Thanks be to God.” Really? Division, persecution, hardship, and death… this week, it seems the news is bad. In a world that hungers for some good news, again and again, the news we hear is so often bad. Again and again, we are drawn into the bad news that seems to plague humanity – news of another person killed, news of hatred, news of people who do not recognize the humanity of others, news that reveals how little evidence we seem to find that this world has been redeemed. It seems a week that invites us to despair, beckoning us to buy in to the news that is bad, and even Jesus has decided to throw his lot in with those who are divided, father against son and son against father, mother against daughter, daughter against mother, mother-in-law against daughter-in-law, and daughter-in-law against mother in law. Though it was a long time ago, we do not need to look too far down the street to find evidence that this division happens even in churches.

And often, if we’re being honest, we become divided over things that are rather arbitrary. Though at the time they might seem important, and so we stand our ground, watching relationship crumble as we revel in our righteousness, we become estranged from those whom we have been given to love. Nobody makes the first move, convinced that we are not in the wrong, convinced that it is more important to be right. Brick by brick, we build walls around our hearts, to protect them, to keep them safe, to prevent them from being vulnerable. Strangely, as we build these walls to protect our hearts, it has the opposite effect. Our plans backfire.

We are like the castle owner, who wanted to prevent others from scavenging rocks from its great walls, and so ordered that a wall be built to protect the castle. He hired the help, and before long, a 6-foot wall had been built out of the finest stone. Upon hearing that the walls had been completed, the castle owner returned to inspect the finished project. Sure enough, he found a wall as he had instructed, but there was no castle. Livid, he approached the person he had hired, who responded, “You said you wanted a castle built out of the finest stone, but what finer stone could I have found than that of the castle?” Now nobody will scavenge stones from your castle.

As we build the walls around our hearts, as we sow division, as we live striving to be right, we fail to live with courage, we fail to love with our whole hearts, and we live fearfully, fearful of loving, fearful of trusting, fearful that we will be hurt. And being hurt stinks. It is no wonder we want to protect ourselves. Brick by brick, we destroy the treasure we attempt to protect. As we become more isolated, as we decide to not let others in, as we decide it is safer for us to just take care of ourselves, to look out for ourselves, to do it ourselves, we forget that we were meant to live in relationship. Our hearts become frail. Having long forgotten what we were divided over, or even perhaps remembering why we have been divided, taking the grudge with us to the grave, we are convinced that living in the right, that winning an argument, is more important than loving one another.

Jesus came to bring fire to the earth, and we sit around the fire with Peter, warming our hands. We, who would never desert Jesus, seem to find convenient ways to avoid the things we have been asked to do, loving one another, caring for one another, justifying our lines in the sand and our failures to love our neighbor as ourselves. We find ways to say “I do not know the man” when Jesus proves too inconvenient for us, when loving our neighbor means loving people who do not seem to deserve it. Faith is rarely convenient, and love is rarely easy. Both require us to show up, to live fully, to muster all the courage we can to face another day, to bind up the brokenhearted, to care for the sick, to patch up the ragamuffin band that God has decided to call God’s children. We are a ragged lot, with hearts that are easily broken, with pride that is easily bruised, with faith that remains until the wind shifts, losing our nerve as the waves grow tall and we begin to sink.

As we warm our hands by the fire, as we watch Peter swear he does not know the man, as we watch Peter become divided from his lord, from himself, from his confession of who Christ is, I think we learn more about the fire that Jesus came to kindle and the baptism of which Jesus speaks. It is never quite what we expect.

Jesus speaks of division, division he bore in his own body. Jesus carried the weight of our hatred, of our refusal to love, of our desire to always be right and to never say “I’m sorry” first, and, with outstretched arms, the message to those who would divide against themselves and each other, “Be made whole, even as I am broken.” I think that Jesus’ words about division are descriptive, not a prescription of how the world ought to be. Jesus came to this world, as it is, to save humans, as we are. The fire may be the fire of judgment, but the fire of judgment is not Christ’s judgment, but our own judgment of Christ. It is our judgment of a savior who would ask us to love difficult people. It is our judgment of a savior who would appear weak according to human standards. It is the judgment of a savior who did not save himself because he was so bent on saving you. And so you have been made brave in a scary world. You have been made bold so that you might hold each other. You have been made free that you might free each other. You have been made courageous so that you might love each other. And, dear brothers and sisters, you have been made light and fire so that you might set the world ablaze.