17 August 2025 Tenth Sunday after Pentecost

Isaiah 5.1-7    Psalm 80.1-2, 8-19    Hebrews 11.29-12.2    Luke 12.49-59

Jesus doesn’t ‘mince his words’ in this passage, telling everyone he came to bring division, and calling people hypocrites because they can interpret the weather but not the ‘present time’; it is not the best way to ‘win friends and influence people’.  In the time of Jesus, the word hypocrite meant actor or pretender, and Jesus uses the word elsewhere in Luke to talk about religious people who ‘go through the motions’, make all the right moves and actions but misunderstand the heart of God and the spirit of the law.  So it would be fair to say the people to whom Jesus was speaking were probably not feeling particularly friendly at this juncture.

And when we look at this passage in its wider context, the emotions and feelings only escalate.  The chapter begins with Jesus warning against the ‘yeast of the Pharisees which is hypocrisy’, and warning people to fear God not other human beings because God has the power to throw us into hell.  And just prior to this passage, as we heard last week, Jesus has told the disciples the Son of Man will come at an unexpected hour.

So what are we to make of this passage and how does it relate to our current lives here in the 21st century.

Let me ask you, what does it cost you to go to church every week.  It may sound a strange question, but it is one that begs to be asked in light of today’s gospel.  Even in this ‘post-Christian’ era where going to church may not be something universally practiced by the majority, it is also something that does not cause much, if any, comment by the majority of the community.  But in the time of Jesus, those who followed Jesus were risking family cohesion, and violence.  To follow Jesus indicated a questioning of the religious, economic and political status quo.  If you were Jewish, it meant accepting as Messiah this itinerant rabbi who hung around disreputable, known sinners and preached a message of love and forgiveness.  It meant accepting as Messiah this man who looked nothing like the warrior king David they were expecting.  If you were Gentile, it meant accepting as the Messiah this itinerant rabbi who hung around disreputable, known sinners and preached a message of love and forgiveness.  It meant accepting as Messiah this man who looked nothing like what the culture saw as powerful or important.

Added to this, to follow Jesus meant not just accepting new beliefs, but accepting a totally new way of life.  To be a follower of the one who accepted and honoured the disreputable meant you had to do it too, and that meant rejecting the ‘default position’ of judging others, and you also needed to invite them into your lives.  To be a follower of the one who preached forgiveness and love was to do the same, to live your life  being ready to love and forgive others, particularly when it came to those who differ from you especially when it came to what they believe.

For those in the time of Jesus, being a follower of Jesus came at a much higher cost than it appears to have for followers today.  But think about it, what would happen in your family today, if you welcomed into your home and social circle, those who society marginalises.  How would your family, your work colleagues, your friends, react if you acted like Jesus did.  No one who met Jesus came away unchanged, he consistently brought people to the point of crisis, tension, movement or transformation.  He consistently led people to decisions their families and communities didn’t understand.  So maybe the question we should be asking is, when was the last time I/you allowed Jesus to bring me to a point of saving crisis.  When was the last time my faith life encouraged holy division, holy change, in someone’s heart.

When we look at the Old Testament, the purifying fire to which Jesus refers is associated with the fire that burns away impure religious practices, those things that tended to make religion a ‘false comfort’.  In Jesus day, it was thought that ‘right religious practices’ protected you from disaster, or illness, or poverty, and even the death that was all around you.  And maybe, today, we hold to the same belief.  But what if we accept that faith is not about guaranteeing eternal bliss, but an invitation to live differently now; to see those around us, not a ‘souls to be saved’, or threats to be deterred, but as God’s children to be loved, and cared for, and honoured.

What would it take for us to truly allow our faith to shape more palpably our lives.  Are we able to see Church as a place to come to be encouraged, and equipped, and sent out from to make a difference in the world, rather than just Church being an obligation or spiritual destination.  This is a place from which we are all sent, and it is also a place to which we return when our living like Jesus causes us heartache or division.  And it will.  But it will also create joy.  The one who sends us was himself baptized by fire, Jesus is talking here about his own baptism, and Jesus is both for us and with us as we come here, week after week, to be reminded of our identity as God’s beloved and to be sent out again to tell others, by word and deed, that God loves them too.