Luke 12:49-56

Pentecost 10, 2022 Sermon| Luke 12:49-56 | Pastor Evan S. McClanahan |

I have recently undergone an attempt to read the Bible in a year. It will not happen, I am sorry to say. But I am still trying. I am using a Bible that has been designed for that purpose. Each calendar day, a collection of readings is laid out to move you through the entire Bible in 365 days.

It has reminded me just how difficult and intimidating a book like the Bible really can be, especially for someone who has a hard time focusing for very long. And I have been reminded as to just how much of the Bible is actually, well, the Old Testament. While only 59% of the books in the Bible are in the Old Testament, 78% of the Bible’s chapters, 74% of the verses, and 77% of the words are in the Old Testament. So, if you set out to read the entire Bible, over 3/4 of it will be the Old Testament.

For a variety of reasons, church piety and worship highlights the New Testament story. I mean, Jesus isthe fulfillment of Old Testament prophecy; he is God in human flesh; he is the end of the story. As a result, at least some of the Old Testament no longer applies and, let’s face it, the stories are often so remote from our daily experience that we find it hard to relate. There are so many names and places we simply have to become familiar with to even get started that we find the Old Testament intimidating.

Some Christians throughout history have sought to exclude it once and for all. An early Christian heretic, Marcion, actually tried to cut it out from the canon. Like I said, he was a heretic. Megachurch pastor Andy Stanley recently said Christians should “unhitch” themselves from the Old Testament. Marcionism renewed!

Some years ago, some former members here told me they had detected a change in me. I had become more intense, less optimistic, less “Gospel centered.” “What had happened?” they asked.  I told them that, if such a change was indeed the case, that perhaps as part of my podcast recording of the entire 2-year daily lectionary, I was reading way more Old Testament in bunches than ever before. And, indeed, there is a seriousness and an intensity in the Old Testament that makes simple or pious Christianity impossible. The trite platitudes that often define Christianity in America are shown to be shallow.

The point is that the easy listening versions of Christianity simply do not survive ongoing exposure – much less study – of the Old Testament. For unless you divide the gods of the Old and New Testament – which is what the aforementioned heretic Marcion did – you come to see that the one God of the universe has worked with uniformity across centuries for His purposes, His glory, and in His time. It isn’t only about us and our salvation; it is about God working through the whole of history, and sometimes with more violent results than we would like to admit.

Indeed, reading the whole Bible will force you to get a little more comfortable with conflict. You are reminded again and again of the costs of faithfulness to God, and even the coming of Christ did not change that reality. In truth, this is true of every serious worldview claim if the adherents really believe it to be true and universal. Every religion, secularism, atheism, Satanism, wokeism, environmentalism…they all believe they have the key that picks the lock on the nature of life and the universe and morality. They all believe their way is best. If they didn’t, they wouldn’t believe it! And they believe in enforcement. Why else would global leaders concoct carbon emissions plans? Why else would public schools have the sex education lessons they have? Why else would Satanists try to get Baphomet (that’s the creepy demon with the goat head) statues in the public square?

You think that Christianity is the only divisive religion in the world? No, they all are. Or at least they all should be if they are sincerely believed. That doesn’t mean we cannot all peacefully co-exist as the bumper sticker says. But it does mean that the outworking of every worldview will come into conflict with another at some point. And through some process – judicial, democratic, warfare, etc. – one of those will win, and one will lose.

We should thank God every day that for most of us the costs will at most be financial, or possibly some social stigmatization or embarrassment. Hopefully that will be true for my grandchildren, too. Cardinal Francis George, a Catholic Cardinal from the Chicago area who died a few years ago, and with whom I have very serious disagreements, said this in 2010: “I expect to die in bed, my successor will die in prison and his successor will die a martyr in the public square. His successor will pick up the shards of a ruined society and slowly help rebuild civilization as the church has done so often in human history.”

Of course, I hope he is wrong because I like my comfortable lifestyle, but what do we see in our scriptures today? In Hebrews, we have a remarkable passage regarding those who kept the faith, all of whom are found in the Old Testament by the way: “They were stoned to death, they were sawn in two, they were killed by the sword; they went about in skins of sheep and goats, destitute, persecuted, tormented— of whom the world was not worthy.” Yes, the world is not worthy of those who died for the faith. The world believes it gets to decide who is worthy and who is not. No, it is the other way around: God says that the world is unworthy of those who follow Him.

Jesus says, “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.” Contentions between in-laws will be so fierce because parents will accuse spouses of drawing their son or daughter away from saving faith. And there is nothing so terrifying for a parent as an influence undoing all of the work you did to train up your child in the way they should go.

So yes, while Jesus brings a sweet Gospel indeed, not everyone will approve, for they will rightly see it for what it is, perhaps with more clarity even than the convert: it is a total claim on the life of the Christian. And while it is a bliss beyond measure that God’s Kingdom is ours, that we have been saved from our sins, that Jesus’ resurrection has merited eternal life for us, others will see it as a false teaching that brings nothing but misery. No matter how gracious we are, Jesus will always be a supreme authority who is dangerous.

This teaching from Jesus ends with his rebuke that those who know when a heat wave is coming cannot read the signs of the day. To Christians, I believe this is an ever-present warning: see what is going on in the world around you. And don’t be so naive. Reducing all of Christianity to platitudes that amount to “Everything is going to be okay” is not good enough. We need to see the ways the enemies of Christ array against Him first, and against His people second.

But do not despair! For though this reality of our faith may bring difficulty, it is not without its rewards. And it is not without a trailblazer who has run the race before us. As the author of Hebrews says, “Therefore, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us also lay aside every weight, and sin which clings so closely, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God.”

There will be a day, brothers and sisters, when we will be with Jesus, so joyful that the name of Christ that caused so much division also brought about the family of God. Amen.