“It’s been a busy week (AGAIN) there was the “Karen Meyer Memorial Rummage Sale” Friday and Saturday! The ladies (as always) were awesome! There were meetings and e-mails, phone calls-phone tag and people to meet with, places to go, and all kinds of tasks to be performed. Everyone likes to be busy! The world today is known for its “busy-ness.”
We’ve cooked meals, run the kids here, picked them up and run them elsewhere, done laundry, had maintenance done, and fixed things that were broken…and some stuff – we find is still broken. We’ve been to doctor appointments, dental appointments, cut the grass, bought groceries, fed the cat, and got gas. Business as usual, RIGHT?
The constant bombardment of “busy-ness” fools us into thinking we have “everything under control,” as long as we can keep checking things off of our “TO DO” lists. We must be doing stuff right!
And in the middle of our long list of “TASKS” to be completed, Jesus just shows up and starts SPEWING OFF.
Just when we think WE KNOW what “we are supposed to do” and HOW WE are “supposed to do it,” the King of Kings, the Lord of Lords and the Prince of Peace LASHES OUT at us in SHRILL FRUSTRATION at our blindness, our foolishness… Oh great, we are the recipients of “a NASTY GRAM from Jesus!”
“The division” that he speaks of – sounds like folks at their annual family gatherings, be they Thanksgiving, Christmas, Easter or a family picnic. “This one” against “that one” and “that one” against “this one”…more business, as usual…
Ah, family, gotta love it!
But as I have said, so many times: CONTEXT IS EVERYTHING…Jesus and his disciples are on their FINAL JOURNEY to Jerusalem. As Jesus moved closer and closer to his final destination – (HIS DEATH) – a sense of urgency must have been RISING WITHIN HIM.
It must have been VERY FRUSTRATING for Jesus.
HERE he had been “rolling along” and teaching with stories and parables about “THE WAY” of the Kingdom, and “THEY” still didn’t get it.
Once in a while, there would be “a GLIMMER OF UNDERSTANDING,” but it would “FADE QUICKLY,” as the disciples “who knew Jesus best” kept trying to put him into “the box” of THEIR OWN expectations.”
Can’t you (almost) hear the exasperation in his voice, as Jesus breaks out of his “mild-mannered Clark Kent persona,” and starts actually RAISING HIS VOICE – first at the TWELVE, and then, at the CROWDS that were always gathering WHEREVER HE WENT?
Jesus KNOWS what lies ahead for him, (and for his disciples,) and he wants TO BE SURE they have been REFINED and TESTED, so that they can remain STRONG when the time comes…and with every step IT is coming CLOSER…
The Jesus we see in this passage seems “OUT OF CHARACTER” with the Jesus who “loves and heals and cares for the poor.” This IS NOT the “sweet baby” Jesus lying in a manger bed.
No, THIS JESUS announces “division instead of peace.” People will be divided, they will stumble and fall over him and his message.
He RANTS like he is typing out his own personal BLOG or TWEET.
The stress Jesus is under IS NOT anxiety, but “A TOTAL ABSORPTION” into his mission. THAT MISSION is to redeem a BROKEN WORLD…and the clock is TICKING.
Did you notice that ALL THE DIVISIONS Jesus lists are BETWEEN generations? Jesus is not saying that it is his intent to “separate family members” from one another, but that FAMILY TIES no longer determine a person’s identity, vocation, allegiance, and status.
Instead, they will be determined by whether OR NOT that person “ACCEPTS OR DENIES” Jesus as Lord. What ties believers together IS NOT the “covenant of ancestry,” but the “COVENANT OF BLOOD” poured out for those who find fellowship “in the family of God.”
NOW, when it comes to the weather…most of us are not “predictors of the weather,” but rather we are “followers of the meteorologists…”
But still, even those of us who ARE NOT FARMERS will check “the weather report” before we go to bed, and again “first thing in the morning,” so we can ORDER our daily lives accordingly.
The people crowding around Jesus were NO DIFFERENT. They could tell if it was going to rain by noticing “the smallest cloud in the west.” AND IF the wind “was out of the south,” coming off the desert, it was going to be a scorcher…a real barn burner…
Jesus is saying that IT IS NOTHING “less than hypocrisy” when the same skills are not brought to bear on – recognizing that “THE DAY OF THE LORD IS NEAR.”
IN LUKE the problem IS NOT so much that we are “UNABLE to interpret the signs of the times, but more that we are UNWILLING to do so.
Jesus holds “division and peace” IN TENSION, and asks us to interpret THE TIMES through GOD’S CLOCK. What time is it? The same time it was 2000 years ago. Time to WAKE UP! Time to take off the blinders and SEE what God SEES!
Time to REPENT of “our complacency,” our “hypocrisy,” our “willingness to act” one way in public – and be “something else” in private, our “willingness to maintain the status quo” instead of moving radically into the demands of Kingdom living.
It’s time to take a good HARD LOOK at WHO we are, and WHAT we do, and SEE how far IT IS from what Jesus asks of us. We have a ways to go. We are still not there yet. We pick and choose.
It’s time to become followers of Jesus that he asks us to be. The time is NOW. We are to practice JUSTICE and EQUALITY for all.
Amen.