Luke 12:49-53
August 15, 2010
Sermon preached by Rev. Donald Ng at the First Chinese Baptist Church in San Francisco.
On a recent walking tour of North Beach with the Sojourners, the tour guide referred to the helicopters flying overhead as a possible threat to national security. She reminded us that the Golden Gate Bridge is the second favorite target of possible terrorists. Since 9/11, the United States has spent untold billions on national security and there are countless agencies in place often doing similar work to achieve security. No one wants to witness the fiery tragedies on the earth and breach of security that happened 9 years ago.
Our church has a “Church Security Committee” in place to better ensure that no unwanted disruption or possible danger might occur while we are at church on Sundays. Rest assured, we have not spent billions of dollars on this committee!
There was a sign outside the front of a church that reads, “Find Security in Insecure Times.” This church seemed to be offering, in some way, security in an insecure age. I guess the preacher of that church is not preaching on today’s Gospel. We don’t feel security when there’s division and conflict in the house!
The Cause of Division
For some time now, in the Gospel of Luke, Jesus has been hammering away at his followers with demands. You heard about the rich man who tore down his barns to built bigger ones to store his crops not knowing that he will die that very night. Jesus told us not to be foolish. Last Sunday, we heard about the unfaithful slave who knew what was expected him but didn’t do it will receive much punishment. Jesus told us to be prepared and do what’s expected of us.
Today, Jesus comes preaching about “baptism by fire.” This is not believers’ baptism that we offer people who come to accept Jesus Christ as their Lord and Savior. This baptism is with fire, an image of judgment. Fire destroys as well as refines and purges. We know that ultimately, the baptism of Jesus is on the cross when he completes his mission in the world.
The mission that Jesus is on is one of great danger and crisis. And yet, the amazing thing here is that Jesus is calling his followers to be on the very same mission. Jesus is provoking disruption and crisis that he promises will lead to disruptive division, even in families.
Jesus said, “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.”
And we can probably add: “father-in-law against son-in-law and son-in-law against father-in-law.” If we think that by coming to church, we might obtain security, peace and reconciliation in our families, this is not what Jesus is promising.
Peaceful Living
Pastors like me like to read results of those religion and health studies that sometimes are done in medical research centers. Some doctors had collated the relationship between frequent church attendance and health. One of the findings was that people who attend church regularly, as opposed to people who attend infrequently, enjoy lower blood pressure.
Now I’m unsure what you were expecting to happen by coming to church this morning but at least you can go home feeling that you have lowered your blood pressure. But how about hypertension! With today’s Gospel lesson, we can’t say that it’s going to promote better cardiovascular health. There’s nothing more stressful than division in the family!
Jesus said, “I came to bring fire to the earth and how I wish it were already kindled!” This is not very comforting. This causes in us a security crisis! And from there the sermon goes downhill. Jesus asks a rhetorical question, “Do you think that I have come to bring peace to the earth?” Now remember when Jesus was born, that his birth would lead to peace on earth? Jesus answers his own question with a loud, “No!”
He says that he has come to provoke division rather than unity. He says that he prophesies that after him, homes will be wrecked, families split apart, and children will turn against their parents.
My parents didn’t know what eventually would happen when they took us to church when I was a little baby. I can remember as a child singing “Great Is Thy Faithfulness” with Mrs. Margaret Jordan in children’s church. I can remember our church’s Christmas party when there was this gigantic tree in the social hall and receiving a box of hard holiday candy. I can remember sitting in the sanctuary for worship and admiring the highest ceiling that I have ever seen.
By the time I was in high school, I started to spend almost all of my free time doing church things—BYF, retreats, volunteering at a Christian center, teaching children Sunday school classes. Jesus was dividing our household—my mother and father against their son and the son against his mother and father. I was hardly home. I was more loyal to the church than to my parents.
In retrospect, it’s not awfully surprising that I received God’s call to ministry and went to seminary. After graduating in 1975, I came to be with you in San Francisco. Since 1975, I have not lived in Boston again. Jesus provoked division rather than unity. He separated me from my mother for many years. Maybe that’s the explanation to my almost fanatical following of the Red Sox and other Boston teams. While I am separated from Boston because of Jesus, I can at least dream about being home again watching the Red Sox in Fenway Park.
Jesus is telling his disciples that they will have family division, not because they have done something wrong or were disrespectful of their parents, but rather because they are following him!
One of the recurring themes of my ministry at this church is how Jesus provokes division rather than unity in families. When a family loved one dies and the family is composed of some who are Christian and others who are Buddhist, there is usually some discord. Should the funeral be Christian or Buddhist? When a family can’t agree, they often have both services. But as Christian pastors, we always insist that we follow the Buddhist service because we want to have the last word.
There have been many occasions when I was counseling young couples before their weddings and the issue would come up on how to accommodate those in the family who are not Christian and may be offended by the service being too explicitly Christian. We don’t.
In our semi-annual Inquirers and Baptism classes, we frequently have young people who are afraid of getting baptized because they have heard from their parents that they won’t approve of it. On the day of baptism and we look out in the sanctuary and see that the young person’s parents are not there, it’s usually the case that Jesus is causing division in the household. Jesus says that he prophesies that after him, homes will be wrecked, families will be split apart, and children will turn against their parents.
A campus college pastor performed a baptism of a graduate student. This young man had gone through a dramatic conversion experience and had requested to be baptized in order to become a Christian. He was a graduate student from China.
The pastor counseled him before his baptism and made sure that he had a good understanding of the Christian faith and the questions that he would ask him in the baptism ritual.
On a joyful Sunday, the pastor baptized him during the morning service. The pastor was proud of himself, not only because he had assisted God in making a new Christian, but he had also brought his camera. After the service he made a big deal of having the student stand again at the baptistery to take a picture and to have himself in the picture with the student. But the pastor sensed that the student was somewhat reticent in having his picture taken. The pastor thought that he was typically shy.
But on the way to the parking lot one of his friends said to the pastor, “I don’t know that you will need to give him those pictures to send back home to his family. They have assured him that if he does this, he could never come back home. They will definitely disown him. Furthermore, his scholarship to the university is being supported by the Chinese government, and he is fairly sure that once this word gets out, he will lose all of his funding to study here.”
We often see baptism as a joyous occasion. But in this context, accepting Jesus is Lord and Savior, Lord of lords, King of kings is a provocation to division rather than family unity.
Last week at Youth Camp, we had 15 persons who made first-time commitments to Christ. How many of these youth will find it challenging to accept baptism this Christmas? Will their parents stop them since some of them might see Christianity challenging their parental authority? When we follow Christ, homes will be wrecked, families will be split apart, and children will turn against their parents. We have a security crisis on our hands!
Family Ministries
We live in a time of much marital and family stress. Divorce rates have never been higher than today. The family courts are swamped with problem children, and problem parents. Just watch Judge Judy at 7:30. This is a sad and chaotic social situation of our time.
One of our ministry goals by calling a new pastor of family ministries is to under gird, strengthen, unify, and encourage family life. We want all families in our church and in our community to discover resources from us that will not divide parents from their children or son-in-laws against their father-in-laws.
And yet, Jesus is not talking about how we are creating family problems due to our own wrongdoing. He is telling his disciples and us that we will have marital stress and that we will have family stress, not because we have done something wrong as spouses or as parents or as sons and daughters, but rather because we are following Jesus.
C.S. Lewis says somewhere that the Christian faith is a thing of great comfort. But it does not begin in comfort. It begins in distress, and there is no way to get to the comfort without first going through the distress. Jesus will eventually pronounce “peace” on his followers. But not before he walks a narrow way to the cross and suffers and dies amid great conflict. The way of Jesus leads to peace but only through disruption and distress. You see, Jesus provokes a security crisis.
Our lesson today—the words of Jesus seem odd to us because we have overstressed one aspect of Jesus and his message at the exclusion of other aspects. We have stressed peace, but we have not stressed the distress. We presented Jesus as the way to security and blessing, but we have failed to put equal emphasis on Jesus as a source of insecurity and demanding, commanding obedience.
Jesus provokes insecurity in us. Perhaps Jesus does this in order that we might seek and find our security only in him and his reign on our lives.
While I know that Jesus split me apart from my mother and Boston some 35 years ago, I have found true security in Jesus wherever he has led me and I have followed—even now as Jesus is still leading me in San Francisco.
Let us pray.
Lord Jesus, we are trying to follow you. When discipleship is a great joy and we like to hear what you have to say to us like peace, forgiveness, eternal life, and blessings, we are ready to follow. But there are times when you are difficult to follow, difficult to take, when being your disciple is truly a security crisis. At these times, help us to see that it’s not our job to do something with you, but rather to have you do something with us. Transform us toward yourself and remake us into the faithful followers you would have us to be. Amen.