“The Gospel is Upsetting…”

Here is the text of the sermon I preached on Sunday August 14, 2022 in response to the Gospel reading from Luke 12:49–56.

What does it mean to follow Jesus? Especially when we have Jesus saying things like “I came to bring fire to the earth, and how I wish it were already kindled!” And “Do you think that I have come to bring peace to the earth? No, I tell you, but rather division!”

You can’t just overlook or ignore and explain away what’s going on here. Jesus isn’t kidding. He means what he says.

What kind of Jesus do we envision? Do we envision a Jesus as someone who keeps a false peace by avoiding conflict, ignoring injustice, looking away from suffering? A Jesus that comforts the comfortable, so they aren’t inconvenienced. A Jesus who accommodates the privileged, so they don’t have to change to respond to what’s going on around them? Is that the Jesus we tell ourselves we should follow? Is that Jesus even worth following? Where’s the Good News in that?

If we’ve been paying attention to the Gospel of Luke this year, we see from the very beginning to today’s Gospel that Jesus and his message isn’t about maintaining some kind of false peace, which is no peace at all really. Rather, Jesus confronts injustice where it is occurs, he puts the spotlight on abuse and exploitation, he proclaims very clearly God’s preference for the poor and the outcast of society. He hangs out publicly with those that the respectable folks find repugnant and lesser than themselves. He causes trouble by…