The Rev. Kenneth H. Saunders III
Trinity Episcopal Church
Towson, MD
RCL Year C - 13 Pentecost (Proper 15) - August 18, 2013
I have talked
before about us living in a world of paradox.
In the stress and tension of everything, we live in paradox. Life as we know it is a paradox: Good and Evil, War and Peace, “Normal
We could even
carry it further: Rich and Poor, the
“Haves” and the “Have Nots,” Heretic and Orthodox, Straw and Wheat, Heaven and
Earth, Truth and Lies… Our contemporary
culture defines paradox as a riddle without an answer; a problem without a
solution; or a tension that cannot be relieved.
We all live in
this tension of a paradox – and it is extremely difficult. Within the paradox, we must make decisions to
govern our lives; who to follow, how to act, and even what to believe. We long for everything to be spelled out for
us and we wish that someone would just hand us an instruction book that we
could follow.
Even with all
the knowledge, skills, and abilities that we have acquired through social
developments, new discoveries, and even technological advances, we often make
mistakes living within the paradox…
But, we DO need
to give ourselves credit sometimes… because
sometimes we make the right choices and get it right. But we know that sometimes we just fail! No matter how hard we try, sometimes we just
lay a big ole’ egg…
When we get into
a real mess, we wish that we could prophesy and tell the future, thinking that
if we somehow know the outcome, that it will be that much better for us. But we can’t – so we have to live within the
mess that we have made for ourselves.
The word paradox
even makes us uncomfortable until we realize that even the Holy Scriptures,
(the New Testament in particular), is full of paradox.
Jesus has been
teaching us a lot these past few weeks, in the season following Pentecost, the
time when Jesus is on his journey of ministry, on his way to Jerusalem
This morning, it
seems like, all of a sudden, Jesus changes gears on us and throws us into sort
of his own paradox. We go from Jesus calling
for intense following, loyal devotion, and urgent mission - to Jesus speaking of
fire, division, and prophecy. These word
are scary and hard to hear, especially after last week’s message of “don’t be
afraid little flock.”
Jesus doesn’t
use his normal tone that we have been getting used to over the past few weeks. It isn’t the faithful following, mission, and
hospitality that we have been hearing about.
Where are the comfortable words that Jesus has been giving us in the
previous 42 verses of Luke’s Gospel?
Therefore we
have the paradox that Luke presents us with this morning. And we need to look for the answers in the
tension of the paradox between what we have been learning (about what it means
to follow Jesus as Lord and savior) and what we are presented with this
morning.
Jesus says that
he came to bring fire to the earth and he wishes that it were already
kindled. To us today, this seems harsh, like
Jesus is wanting to impose some kind of harsh judgment. A judgment like we
would expect in the end of times when the whole world is to be judged.
However, if we
read this passage with the same urgency of mission that Jesus has been presenting
to us all along, we can put some of the language that he uses in its proper
context. We can start to understand that
Jesus is actually teaching us in the way he has been teaching us all along.
In Jesus’ time,
the word they used for their outdoor oven was the same word that they used for
earth. So, when he says he came to bring
“fire” to the “earth.” It is an idiom
for getting things started or as we would probably say today, “let’s get
cooking!” So, Jesus wanted to “get
things started” and Jesus knows that getting things fired up with any kind of
urgency is going to cause some real social problems for his followers…
This was a REAL
problem… Family and social status was
all they had, it was their source of livelihood, and most often the difference
between their life and their death. Back
then, you were alienated from your family or clan by associating with what was
considered to be an inappropriate social relationship (the folks on the “other
side” of the tracks, the wrong crowd that your mamma warned you about)… in this case, it was Jesus!
You are putting
everything at risk: your wealth,
inheritance, your social status… everything
that meant anything! You would move very
quickly from being a “have” to being a “have not.” The consequence of that kind of involvement would
be enough to cause so much tension and stress that it would pit family against
family, son against father and mother against daughter and divide the household
completely.
We cannot make
a commitment to Jesus Christ as Lord and savior without it affecting the way we
relate to each other, the way we relate to our friends or even to our family
members. As we have learned over the past weeks, our commitment to Christ
shapes our values, our priorities, our goals, and our behaviors. It causes us to change the old patterns of
our lives and makes us face difficult choices in our commitment to the gospel.
And our
decision to follow Jesus sometimes is faced with opposition from others. So, we opt to live into the tension of the paradox
in the choices we must make. When we set
out to follow Christ, and do what we perceive to be the good, moral, and right,
we are doing something counter-cultural…
The theologian, H. Richard Niebuhr, calls this dilemma Christ and Culture
in paradox.
Jesus himself
knew the devastating consequences that the choice to follow Him could
have. So, he warned his followers to be
prepared to encounter the same hardships.
As followers of Jesus Christ, we must look at our own lives, through the
lens of the paradox.
What do we pay
close attention to… and to what do we
turn a blind eye? What claims our
closest attention? Fluctuations in the
stock market? Evidence of our social
standing? Our grade point average? Opportunities to look good before our superiors
at work? What things do we watch with
the same close attention that the Palestinian farmer paid to changes in the
weather? Jesus’ sayings this morning challenge
us to examine the paradox and the tension that exists between what gets our attention
and what is neglected in our own lives.
We should consider
whether the inconsistencies in our lives reveal a pattern of prioritizing “insignificant”
things while jeopardizing those things that could have the greatest value and
importance.
We could ask
the questions of ourselves… Have we
given as much attention to the health of our church as we have to our retirement
plans? or Have we given as much attention to the maintenance of our spiritual
disciplines as to the maintenance schedule for our car? Where in the scale of our attention to detail
does our devotion to the teachings of our Lord rank?
Jesus says that
we may be able to interpret the weather by looking at the dark clouds in the
sky! (channel 14 could probably learn something here…), but why do we remain
blind to what really is going on in our lives??
As we approach
the holy table this morning, and partake of the bread and wine which is the
bond of communion that we share with each other… It is our unity, it is what unites us… and our belief that Jesus Christ is our Lord
and Savior…
We receive it and
are nourished with the spiritual food that is his alone to give… In our community of faith, we have made the
conscience decision to continue the work of our Lord Jesus Christ. The question for us this morning is what are
we doing to “get things cooking?”
Are we doing
what he commanded as we live through the struggles of discerning our path
together? We live in the paradox, so let
us remain focused on why we are here and what we are doing… That way, and only that way, we can make the
effort to move forward in the mission of our Lord together.
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