Hearing Jesus
THE TENTH SUNDAY AFTER PENTECOST
PROPER 15C
Isaiah 5:1-7 • Hebrews 11:29-12:2 • Luke 12:49-56
Sermons are like stump speeches: if you want people to like what you say enough to put some money in the plate, you should say the things that they want to hear. To that end, love is pretty popular. I have never heard someone complain about a sermon on love. Caring for those in need ranks right up there, too. We all like forgiveness, and reconciliation sounds nice. Hospitality is a winner, and you don’t need any polling data to know that peace is popular among those in the pews. We can all get behind a platform of love, prosperity, forgiveness, reconciliation, hospitality, and peace. It doesn’t matter whether you’re a Democrat or a Republican, a Christian or an atheist, an Episcopalian or a Methodist—we can all agree that those are good things. But the problem is that saying all of the things that everyone likes to hear doesn’t usually get a lot done.
Prophets, on the other hand, aren’t interested in stump speeches. Prophets don’t come to tell people what they want to hear. They come to tell people what God is saying to them. And I’ve noticed that God doesn’t have a habit of saying something just to hear herself talk. Usually, when God has something to say, it’s because people like us need to hear it, and we usually need to hear the very thing none of us wants to hear, which is why prophets make pretty lousy politicians and are almost as bad at being rectors.
Jesus was a prophet. Although we try our best to forget it, Jesus didn’t come to earth to tell people what they wanted to hear. “I came to bring fire to the earth, and how I wish it were already kindled!” he declared, “Do you think that I have come to bring peace to the earth? No, I tell you, but rather division!” Fire, stress, division—these are the images Jesus used to describe his ministry. And the division that Jesus has in mind does not reflect the kind of broad-brush dividing lines that separate society but the miniscule splintered factions that even tear families apart: “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.” Why did Jesus come to bring that kind of division and not the message of peace and harmony that we all want to hear? Because the love, prosperity, forgiveness, reconciliation, hospitality, and peace we all like come with a cost.
Unconditional love sounds good until you see that it’s your enemy who is nestled in the bosom of God. Truly caring for the poor means eliminating poverty, and, although there is enough wealth to go around, it has to come from somewhere, which means that universal prosperity requires some of us to have less. Forgiveness and reconciliation are good news in theory, but when it’s your turn to say, “I’m sorry,” or, even harder, to say, “I forgive you,” the cost may be too high. Hospitality sounds like something we can all get behind. Who doesn’t love a practical opportunity to show kindness to another? But what happens when that kindness is needed at an inopportune time or is required for someone who refuses to respond with gratitude? Surely, peace is God’s will for the earth. Luke writes about peace more than any other gospeller. Just two chapters ago, Jesus sent out his disciples with instructions to offer their peace to any home that would take them in. But God’s peace is not the avoidance of conflict but the wholeness that results from the unequivocal levelling and the fire’s purification that Jesus envisions. Understandably, not everyone is enthused about that vision for the world.
Several years ago, a colleague of mine remarked that he had been invited to go to a conference by another priest. “It will change your life,” the inviting priest promised. “But I like my life just the way it is,” my friend replied. Jesus came to change everything—to turn the whole world upside down. We like thinking that means good news for the poor, the oppressed, the immigrant, and the refugee. But we prefer to envision that transformation coming at a cost that is borne by someone else—the ultra-rich, the super-powerful, the eminently-established, and the unquestionably-privileged. But, if we think the change that Jesus came to bring to the world won’t mean a change in our lives, then we haven’t been listening to what he has to say.
“I came to bring fire to the earth, and how I wish it were already kindled!” When Jesus looks out at the world, that’s what he sees—a world ripe for fiery transformation. What do we see when we look around? When you see a cloud rising in the west, you know that rain is coming. When you feel the south wind blowing, you know that there will be a scorching heat. When you see the inverted yield curve, you know that recession is on the way. “You hypocrites!” Jesus says to us. We know how to interpret signs in the weather and the economy, but we refuse to interpret the signs that Jesus’ ministry has brought to us. The radical, transformational message of the gospel is as clear as day—why do you think the powers of this world nailed Jesus to a cross?—but we brush the true gospel aside, cover it up, and disguise it with warm and fuzzy platitudes that make us feel like we’re a part of something godly.
We are, in the words of the prophet Isaiah, yielding wild grapes. God has gifted us a vineyard. On a very fertile hill, God has dug it, cleared it, planted it, tended it, and guarded it. In love, God has bestowed upon us all of the resources and blessings of our lives for one purpose: in order that we might bear fruit for God’s reign. But, when God comes to collect the harvest, instead of grapes, God find wild grapes. Instead of justice, God finds bloodshed. Instead of songs of righteousness, God hears the cry of the poor. Yes, God’s dream for the world involves the super-rich being pulled down from their lofty places and the desolate-poor being lifted up out of the dust, but there’s a whole lot of us here in the middle for whom that dream involves our own transformation. The reordering of the world that Jesus envisions is not an external change that we will witness but an internal baptism that we will endure.
Despite how popular it might be in certain circles, the reign of God cannot be funded by a wealth tax. That’s because God’s dream for the world is not merely the wealthy few giving up their riches so that the poor can have a little bit more. God’s dream is bigger than that. It’s you and me and all of us inhabiting a world in which none of us will tolerate poverty, hunger, discrimination, oppression, and degradation. It’s a world in which no one is satisfied with her life until all of us are satisfied.
I don’t know about you, but I like my life. I like it a whole lot. And that’s a problem. It’s an affliction that makes it hard for me to hear the gospel of Jesus—the good news of God’s dream for the world, a dream which requires a costly transformation. In fancy theological terms, the name for that affliction is sin. And that’s why I need the transformation of the gospel to occur within me. That’s why I need the baptism that Jesus has come to bring to the earth. Because I need to hear what Jesus has come to say to me. We all do. And, until that transformation takes hold of our hearts and minds, we will only hear what we want to hear. And, usually, that doesn’t get a lot done.
© 2020 The Rev. Evan D. Garner
St. Paul’s Episcopal Church – Fayetteville, Arkansas