Reading the prophets of Israel can feel like witnessing an abusive relationship. “I love you, I love you, I love you,” “Wham! You’ll get what you deserve.” “Oh, but I love you and one day it’ll all be wonderful…” These writings tell the story of a broken relationship between God and God’s chosen people, who seemed incapable of fidelity despite God’s gracious provision and forgiveness. And the way the prophets rendered the words of God (and the way those who later wrote down those words conveyed them) often make God sound like a petty tyrant as well as a thwarted lover.
We get a sense of danger as well as deep disappointment, “Here is what I wanted for you, what I did everything to ensure for you – but you could not stay with me, and now I can’t protect you from the consequences of your choices.” It’s often a bitter message, and I confess as I read both the gospel appointed for this Sunday and the passage from Isaiah, it’s hard not to see these texts through the lens of the deep divisions in our country and world.
Let’s start with the Gospel, which shows Jesus in a dire mood, speaking of fire and division. He has just been telling a parable about being prepared for God’s appearing, and he seems pretty ticked off: “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!”
If division is what Jesus was after, he’d be happy in America at this moment in our history. We are defined by many things other than our divisions, but our fault lines keep getting more pronounced, our positions dug in, fissures widening. This cannot possibly be God’s will for us, can it?
Jesus is the Prince of Peace, as the angel foretold at his conception. He is the source of peace for us, and the power for us to be peacemakers. But let’s not forget: Jesus did come into this world to do battle with the powers of evil – that is the fight he was itching to engage, the fight he wants his followers to join him in. Each time those who might be his disciples capitulate to injustice, tolerate intolerance, benefit from systems rigged in favor of the white and wealthy, fail to love our neighbor as ourselves, we recede from that fight. And every time we make a different choice, an inconvenient or even sacrificial choice, we help usher in the reign of true peace Jesus brought into this world.
How does this scripture sit with you? Where are you being called to draw the line, to pray for the conversion of those who seek only their own good to the harm of others? We are called to stand with Jesus against evil and hate-mongering. That’s a division, if you will, one that can lead us to unity.
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