Overcoming the Division in our Hearts: Proper 15

Can we just go back to last week's Gospel, please? "Have no fear, little flock, for your Father has already chosen to give you the kingdom." That Jesus is reassuring, calming, comforting. What happened to him? Who is this guy shouting, "I have come to set fire to the earth…Do you suppose that I have establish peace on the earth on the earth? No indeed, I have come to bring division." Didn't the angels announce his birth with the promise of "on earth peace to all in whom he delights"? Yes they did, and yes, Jesus offers the world the peace of God beyond all understanding. But those who share in His peace must also be buried with him in the "baptism," which is his death. And "division" is part of that death in which we are buried with Christ. What Jesus gives us is his peace, which is much more than the absence of conflict. What Jesus will give us is conflict turned into harmony, and a calmness with which we can walk through our divisions in trust.

"I have come to set fire to the earth," Jesus says, "and how I wish it were already kindled!" This actually sounds worse than it really is. Luke is foreshadowing what happens at the beginning of his sequal, Acts of the Apostles, when tongues of fire lit upon the disciples on the day of Pentecost. On that day Jesus's followers became his partners in spreading the "Good News;" or in Greek, euangelion, the root of evangelism. That's all that evangelism is -- spreading Good News.

And yet, and yet, that Good News faces opposition. It has enemies. And those enemies are far too close to home: father against son, mother against daughter. "Do you suppose I came to establish peace on the earth," Jesus asks? "No indeed, I have come to bring division." And where does that division lead? "I have a baptism to undergo, and what constraint I am under until it is accomplished!" To kneel in the Jordan river as John the Baptizer pours water over you is to be immersed. It is to be drowned. It is to die to an old life of guilt and fear. For us, there is no escaping that guilt and fear by our own power. Those emotions cling to our hearts and do not let go, and for us there is no peace apart from Jesus Christ. The Good News is that all our fear and shame was projected onto Jesus, and he took it into his heart and carried it to the Cross, and in that Baptism, buried it forever.

So, when Jesus says today that he did not come to establish peace, we need to remember that in this same Gospel, the angels announcing his birth also announced "peace to all in whom God delights." To the woman who anointed his feet with her tears, Jesus said, "Go in peace." To the woman who touched his cloak and was healed of her hemorrhaging, Jesus said, "Go in peace." So, when Jesus says today that he did not come to establish peace, we need to remember that Jesus knew what a hyperbole was. The word hyperbole actually comes from the Greek word for exaggeration. So Jesus knows how to exaggerate in order to make a point. Jesus offers us peace. But he also knows that this peace faces opposition. Fear and Anxiety are not gone. They still seek to drown the human heart.

And what would Fear and Anxiety have us do? They would have us retreat into ourselves: silently nurse our pain and feel justified in our silent and unspoken hurts. Or they would have us lash out in the heat of our anger at the most convinient target regardless of its relation to our pain. Either way, their goal of keeping us isolated in our hurt and without peace would be "accomplished." But the peace that Jesus Christ brings to our hearts and our relationships is not that peace which is merely the papering over of conflict. What Jesus offers is a peace in which we can trust that opposition and conflict are merely stages of a process, a journey. Along that journey, all we who have been baptized are indeed, "buried with Christ in his death, and by it we share in his Resurrection." That is what we pray over the water every time we baptize someone anew, and renew our own baptism.

Each step that we take along the baptismal journey soothes our fearful, anxious hearts. Each step that we take to be reconciled with each other raises us just a few more feet above the living death of fear and isolation. This doesn't mean that all disagreements will be ended. But the peace that comes with sharing Jesus's Baptism allows us to take those disagreements in stride, secure in the knowledge that through our struggle and confusion, God's purposes will be accomplished. Jesus Christ does indeed come to establish peace on the earth. It starts in each of our hearts, and the warmth of that fire will warm and enlighten corners of our world that we cannot yet imagine. O Jesus, set our hearts on fire!