BREAKING UP IS HARD TO DO

20th Sunday in Ordinary Time

            Bob and Ted are both executives at Hugecorp, and they are both members of First Presbyterian Church of Hugetown.  In the break room they ponder a question.  They have non-Christians in the company who sometimes ask them about Jesus.  What should they say?  “I would stress his preaching and the presence of God’s kingdom,” Ted offers, “and I would affirm that Jesus demonstrated the presence of God’s kingdom by his healing.”  Bob replies, “I would say he died for all to bring about the forgiveness of sin.  I would say that in Christ God was reconciling the world to himself.”  Ted adds, “Yes, and I would want to stress that Jesus is the Son of God, God’s very self in human flesh.”  Bob chimes in, “And you could also add that the very presence of Jesus is a sign of God’s love for all humanity.”  Ted says, “But I wouldn’t include the gospel reading for this coming Sunday.  Have you seen that?”  “No,” Bob answers, “what’s it about?”  “It’s all about Jesus’ presence being the cause of divisions even within families,” Ted says.  “Nope,” answers Bob, “let’s leave that out.  I’m not sure non-Christians could take that passage.”

            Well, to be completely honest, it’s not so easy for Christians either!  There are certain gospel passages about Jesus we would rather avoid having to deal with.  How come?  Because we have developed in our own minds a certain picture of Jesus, what he was like, the things he said, the things he did.  Every now and then in our journey through the Bible we run into passages that seem to be “out of character” with our picture of Jesus.  Rather than include these texts in our composite picture of Jesus, we prefer to delete them.  We simply try not to run into them or think about them.  When Liz prints the bulletins, she always tries to find just the right artwork to match the sermon.  For today’s bulletin, she found this dramatic black-and-white drawing depicting a cross piercing through a house.  The caption reads:  “A household will be divided.”  Have you seen anything like that artwork hanging in a Sunday school classroom?  Have you seen one like that displayed anywhere in the church?  I haven’t.  That alone illustrates the point.  There are certain gospel passages about Jesus that make us uneasy.  For ourselves and for others, we keep the controversial Jesus in the closet.

            And yet, if the church is to be faithful to Jesus Christ we must be more like Luke and less like public relations agents.  Luke doesn’t want us to see only the pleasant things about Jesus; he wants us to see all there is.  PR agents like to stress only the positives, only what will sell; nothing controversial, like splitting up families.  You can imagine PR agents in their three-piece suits designing a video to promote Jesus Christ to non-Christians.  “I’ll tell you what we’ll do, Fred,” says Ralph, the bug guy at the table, “we’ll put together a montage of all the wonderful things Jesus did.  We’ll show him healing that paralytic man.  That’s a good image.  Didn’t he put a bunch of kids on his lap and bless them or something?  Yeah.  We’ll show that.  Jesus and kids.  Good image.  And then he fed a bunch of people, didn’t he?”  “Five thousand,” Fred pipes in.  “Five thousand!  Great!  We’ll show Jesus feeding the five thousand.  But I don’t want any pictures of Jesus as a small boy staying back in the temple, worrying his parents; it looks like he was disobedient.  And those blessings and woes?  We can hear the blessings, skip the woes.  Too political!  I like Jesus talking about love, but lose the part about loving enemies; makes him look weak.  We don’t want a weak Jesus, baby.  Okay, you got what you need.  Now make me proud!”  In contrast, we picture Luke picking up his pen, lowering it, and scribbling out these words:  “And the Lord said . . . ‘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.”  We need to me more like Luke who gives us the whole picture.  We may not understand it.  We may not like it.  But to be faithful to Jesus Christ we must give the whole picture about him, controversial parts and all.

            So, we tell the truth.  The presence of Jesus in the world requires people to take sides.  There is no middle ground.  We are with Jesus or we are not.  Jesus Christ is our highest priority or he is not.  He is the Lord of our life or he is not.  Granted, probably none of us ever totally commits to Christ all of the time.  So we live by God’s grace.  We are free to aim at committing ourselves fully to Christ, because when we fail—and we all do—God is faithful to forgive us through Jesus Christ.  Forgiven, we are free to start over.  So our aim—whether we hit the mark or not—most be total.  In other words, it cannot be that Jesus is sort of or that he is mostly or usually the Lord of our life.  That cannot be our aim.  It cannot be that in certain matters Jesus Christ is Lord of our life, but in things like business he is only sometimes.  No!  Jesus Christ is Lord of our life or he is not.  There you are at work.  You are pressured by your boss to misrepresent your company’s product to a prospective client.  You want to please your boss.  You have to earn a living and support your family.  You struggle with what you should do.  Even here, either Jesus Christ is Lord of your life or he is not.  We will do his will in every sphere of our life or we will not.  No middle ground.  We are with Jesus or we are not.

            Of course, you see what happens:  When people choose to follow Jesus Christ it causes divisions.  One person follows Jesus, and other does not.  Division!  Someone who follows Jesus tries to be faithful, and another person who doesn’t acknowledge Jesus Christ as Lord isn’t concerned about being faithful to Christ.  Division!  One person in a family begins to take Christ’s commands seriously, others don’t make such a serious attempt to be obedient.  Division!  David Buttrick tells of a suburban couple who said, when their daughter joined a Christian commune dedicated to poverty, “We didn’t bring up our daughter to be a fanatic!”  Division!  Back in the days of the early civil rights struggles, a young man wanted deeply to help register African-American voters in a community far from his home.  For him it was to fulfill Christ’s command to love neighbors.  He and his pastor talked about it, and the young man longed to go.  But his mother put enormous pressure on him to stay at home or, she said, there would be consequences.  Division!  When people choose to follow Christ, it causes divisions.

            The truth of it is this:  Trying to be faithful to Jesus Christ as Lord can be downright disruptive.  Not only in families, but also in communities, if someone is trying to follow Jesus Christ and others are not; that division can upset the quiet and order of the community.  A person trying to be faithful to Jesus Christ can be disruptive even in a local church congregation.  Elder Peter Kemmerle, now an associate for Mission Connections with the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.), remembers what happened to his father and the church his father served.  In 1957, Peter’s dad, Llewellyn Kemmerle, was the pastor of a Presbyterian church in a small Midwestern town.  Pastor Kemmerle took his turn writing a weekly column in the local newspaper, called “Your Minister Speaks.”  On one of those occasions, Mr. Kemmerle chose to write about the minstrel show.  That town loved its minstrel show.  It drew thousands of people.  It helped support the athletic teams of the college.  Some of the town’s most prominent citizens were members of both his church and the booster club that put on the minstrel show.  Llewellyn Kemmerle’s column was critical of that tradition.  He denounced that practice.  No one today would put on such a show, knowing how demeaning they are.  But, in 1957, reaction to Llewellyn’s article was strong.  Most of the letters to the newspaper greatly supported the minstrel show.  Following his article, Llewellyn Kemmerle became the recipient for hate mail and the target for derision.  Later, his son, Peter, wrote, “The following deep division in the church was blamed on his outspokenness.”  Well, you can count on that.  Someone wanting to promote the radical commands of Christ and its implications within our broken society can expect to cause division within families, communities, or even in congregations.  Such was the reaction to Jesus himself, whom the powerful considered a threat, and so had him crucified.  Those who follow this Jesus can expect conflict to be nearby.

            Still—have you noticed?—when we place God first in our life, our life is blessed and turns out the way it is supposed to.  No, that doesn’t mean there will be no conflict; there will be.  But when we obey Jesus Christ as Lord of our life, our life turns out for the better.  God coming in Jesus Christ was not for the purpose of ruining our life, but to give us life to the full.  So, putting Christ first in our life ultimately aims the whole of our life in the right and most fulfilling direction.  You would have thought that Millard Fuller had it all.  He was a millionaire at the age of twenty-nine.  While his business prospered, the rest of his life was coming apart:  his health, his integrity, and his marriage.  Fuller began to re-evaluate his life.  He decided to renew his commitment to Jesus Christ.  Putting Christ first, the Fullers decided to sell all of their possessions, give the money to the poor—the very things we heard Jesus say last Sunday—and they decided to offer themselves in service to Koinonia Farm, a Christian, interracial community near Americus, Georgia.  Founder Clarence Jordan, the Fullers, and others began building houses as a ministry.  From that small start, Millard Fuller founded Habitat for Humanity.  That ministry has blessed countless families.  But more than that, doing that ministry has blessed Millard’s own life as an obedient follower of Jesus.  When we acknowledge Jesus Christ the Lord of our life, our life begins to move in the direction God intends for us, a blessed and fulfilled life.