The Place Where We Are Right

Proper 15C; Heb. 11:29-12:2; Lk. 12:49-56; St. Paul’s Smithfield 8/14/2016

Jim Melnyk: “The Place Where We Are Right”

Have you ever read the Gospel and wanted to yell out, “Come on Jesus, give me a break!”?  It seems over the past few weeks Jesus has been in our faces a lot lately…shake the dust of the town off your feet if they won’t receive you…forgive if you expect to be forgiven…don’t count on your possessions to save you – but be rich toward God instead…in fact, sell all your possessions and give alms…serve the least among you even as Jesus came among us to serve.  

And now this from today’s gospel passage: “’I came to bring fire to the earth, and how I wish it were already kindled! I have a baptism with which to be baptized, and what stress I am under until it is completed! 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.’"

Good grief, what happened to peace and love?  What happened to compassion and mercy?  What happened to the promise of the coming kingdom of God?  Apparently everything is made of kindling wood and Jesus is the match.  At least that’s what it sounds like at first listen.  But Jesus does not come among us to bring division.  Jesus does not come among us to divide households.  Jesus is using hyperbole to grab our attention.  What he means when he talks about his purpose for being with us is precisely opposite of what he is saying. 

Jesus does come to bring peace.  He does proclaim Good News for all, but most especially for those who have had no good news to embrace in their lives.  He comes to set the prisoner free, to give sight to the blind, and hope to the poor.  But Jesus is wise enough to know that not everyone will see the Good News of the kingdom of heaven as good news for them.  For those who need to have power and authority over others, or those who need their way to be the only right way, the Good News of God is a stumbling block which will inevitably bring division, anger, or perhaps even hate.  It isn’t like Jesus doesn’t know this.  When Luke’s Jesus tells us, “Blessed are you who are poor, hungry, thirsty, and beat up,” followed by “Woe to you who have everything and don’t think twice about others,” the powers that be are ready to take him out – as in stone him to death or throw him over the side of a cliff. 

And whether we’re talking religion, politics, or society in general, our nation and the world has become a people more divided than ever – with everyone, it seems theses days, absolutely sure that they have cornered the market on truth; and everyone’s understanding of God to be the only true understanding – and their god to be the only true God.  Social media has become a place of bickering and name-calling – mainly, I believe, because it’s easier and feels safer to argue or even denigrate fellow human beings – even family – through a keyboard and computer screen.  It’s much more risky to have a face-to-face dialogue with someone that might require seeing the image of God in one another and hearing what the other person is saying.  We struggle to see beyond our own particular truth – we struggle to see the image of God in those we deem to be “Other.”

Poet Yehuda Amichai caught a sense of all this in his poem, “The Place Where We Are Right.”

           

“From the place where we are right

Flowers will never grow

In the spring.

The place where we are right

Is hard and trampled

Like a yard.”

Jesus, trying to call people back to their covenant with God is like a gardener trying to plant a rose in the middle of a parade ground.  Not only is the soil of people’s hearts packed hard, but, once a hole is laboriously dug, and the rose gently placed and its roots covered over, it is immediately trampled in the dust.  Trying to reach some form of understanding when everyone thinks they hold the only true position, or trying to open up hearts that are closed to hearing different perspectives, is in fact more like trying to plant a rose in the middle of a busy parking lot.

Jesus is pretty clear on what he understands to be right – he is a faithful Jew.  He is Torah observant.  He attends synagogue and the festivals in Jerusalem.  He looks to the wisdom of the Law and the Prophets and understands that following the Law and the Prophets isn’t a burden, but rather a joyful response to the God of all Creation.  And he sums all that knowledge – all that wisdom – all that faithfulness – in one complex sentence: Love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength; and love your neighbor like yourself.  This is the place where Jesus understands us to be right.

But we have to remember how, when pressed by teachers of the Law, Jesus defines love for the neighbor.  He isn’t just talking about Peter and Sandy across the street.  If you recall, Jesus uses a Samaritan as his example of neighbor.  He scandalizes those listening to him teach.  A Samaritan.  Someone who does not acknowledge the rightful place of the temple in Jerusalem.  Someone who does not acknowledge the fuller sense of scripture that the Jews acknowledged.  Someone who is not just different in his belief system – but one who is an enemy – one who is a danger to Jesus and to his followers.  Apparently Jesus takes his “love your enemy” stuff pretty seriously.  We get stuck on it, and the more we try to proclaim the Good News of God in Christ the more we seem to struggle with it all – like trying to plant a rose in a….well, you got that, right?

In our day Dr. King added his spin on the teachings of Jesus when he said, “Darkness cannot drive out darkness: only light can do that.  Hate cannot drive out hate: only love can do that.”

Amichai echoed both in the conclusion of his poem:

           

But doubts and loves

Dig up the world

Like a mole, a plow.

And a whisper will be heard in the place

Where the ruined

House once stood.” (The Place Where We Are Right, Yehuda Amichai)

None of us has an absolute corner on the truth – none of us – not corporate executives, not politicians, not sociologists, not even preachers – none of us.  But one reality is true – we will never hear the truth another person speaks until we listen – until we listen to hear rather than listening while preparing to speak – rather than listening while preparing to argue back. 

When we let ourselves doubt the stranglehold we think we have on the truth, it’s like having a great tractor cross our parade ground discing up the soil – breaking the hardness of our souls in order that new ideas – new life – can take root.  As the prophet Isaiah says to those in exile, “I am about to do a new thing; now it springs forth, do you not perceive it?  I will make a way in the wilderness and rivers in the desert” (Isaiah 43:19). 

The Good News is that Jesus doesn’t actually seek out division for us, rather he seeks out community.  As Jesus reminded us last week, “It is my Father’s good pleasure to give to you the kingdom” – a community of compassion, grace, forgiveness, and love. 

The division we experience so clearly comes from human beings – and if we can choose division, it means we can also choose community.  If we can choose separation and exclusion, we can also choose unity and inclusion.  If we can choose anger and violence, we can choose level-headedness and peace.  If we can choose to cast out, we can also choose to draw in and welcome – we can choose to let the Good News of God in Christ break up the hardness in our world like a mole or a plow breaking up the soil.   “I am about to do a new thing” says our God to this world, “I am about to do a new thing; now it springs forth, do you not perceive it?”