Why do you come to church on a Sunday morning?
Why do you come to church on a Sunday morning? Do you think about that? I think most of us come for many of the same reasons. We certainly don’t come to follow the crowds.
I think we come to be affirmed as children of God. We come in gratitude to strengthen our relationship with God, the transcendent reality that is our loving Creator. We come to witness to that relationship. We come to see and support friends and acquaintances, folk with whom we share our love for Christ and our recognition of how he faithfully accompanies us in all our living, all our struggles. We come to experience peace, justice, love, and healing in a world that has too little of all this goodness. And I think we come to grow as Christians, including growth in Christ- like service to others.
That’s why today’s Scripture readings can be so discouraging, disappointing, maybe even off putting. We come on a Sunday morning to be recharged for the next week and this morning we hear mostly about ungratefulness, forgetfulness, disobedience, betrayal, destruction, stress, strife, division and willful ignorance. How to be recharged with all of this? Even the Epistle reading from Hebrews can come across as just hard work for generation upon generation with little impressive success. We could well ask, “Where is the good news?”
Maybe today we are being invited to reflect on why there are no crowds flocking to churches on a Sunday morning. Being a follower of Christ can be hard work. Yes, there are limitless rewards, but being a follower of Christ can be hard work. The kingdom of God is not easily built. Just ask Jesus.
The calls for justice and righteousness at the conclusion of our reading from Isaiah for today can bring to mind so many situations in our contemporary world. We as individuals are seemingly powerless to change anything. At the stage in life many of us find ourselves, we manage just to get here on a Sunday. But we can pray. We can write letters. We can donate to worthy efforts. We can take care for whom we vote into office.
Our Gospel reading for today brings the challenges of building the kingdom of God closer to home, to our daily living, to our interpersonal lives, even to how we regard or understand the world in which we live. This closer, “closed in” focus is through the words of Jesus himself. These words are revealing the humanity of Jesus, including his frustrations and impatience. They can help us identify all the more with what Jesus is experiencing and what we might be called to do.
Did you ever get started with something you really wanted to accomplish in your life and then wondered, “Can I actually do this? Can I finish this?” I remember feeling that way during my first semester at VST. It was so hard. But I couldn’t back out. I had rented out my townhouse in Saanichton until the following May. There was no turning back. I had to keep going. I think of that experience, especially my feelings, when I read today’s gospel.
Jesus says, “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!” Jesus has been preaching and teaching, and offering evidence of, the Kingdom of God, but his listeners have not always been receptive to his message. It has become a message of judgment for many and he can see what lies in front of him. He’d prefer it be behind him.
Jesus’ teachings are divisive. Remember the words of Simeon to Mary when she and Joseph brought the infant Jesus to the temple? “This child is destined for the falling and the rising of many in Israel, and to be a sign that will be opposed so that the inner thoughts of many will be revealed – and a sword will pierce your own soul too.” Jesus’ words, and life and death and resurrection force a reckoning. They do not leave much room for equivocation.
Those that have a vested interest in the status quo, those who are satisfied with how things are right now – these folk aren’t so interested in building the kingdom of God. The cries of the poor, the disenfranchised, those discriminated against, those in the margins of societies – all these cries can be so easily ignored by those secure with the status quo. No wonder Jesus’ presence is divisive. No wonder he can bring division even into families.
As an interesting side note, I used to wonder why Jesus lists division between father and son, mother and daughter, mother-in-law and daughter-in-law, but not between father-in-law and son–in-law. Were women more divisive? Finally, I took time to think about the members of a household in Jesus’ time, the household being the primary unit of society. Father-in-laws and son-in-laws did not live in the same households. The same listing of divisions that Jesus uses in today’s Gospel reading from Luke can be found in the last chapter of the book of the prophet Micah.
The VST convocation address last May, delivered by the Rev. Dr. John Swinton, professor at Aberdeen University in Scotland – this address instructed the graduates to be weird -- weird for Jesus in a world that does not work for the kingdom of God. And here I summarize what was said about the kingdom of God, revealing why it doesn’t come easily:
In a world that celebrates self-sufficiency, the kingdom of God looks out for the vulnerable, those that must trust in the abundance of God.
In a world that rewards aggression and self-promotion, the kingdom of God honours those who choose humility and a working together instead of a domination over.
In a world that often seeks retribution and hard justice, the kingdom of God encourages forgiveness and restoration of broken relationships.
In a world fractured by conflict and division, the kingdom of God recognizes agents of reconciliation risking their safety for peace.
In a world of too many consumers mindlessly devouring natural resources, the kingdom of God works to safeguard the integrity of creation.
In our western culture which predominantly denies death and distracts itself from suffering, the kingdom of God acknowledges the sacredness of loss and the dignity of grief.
You get the picture. No wonder the kingdom of God is not easily built. So this morning we in church are being reminded of whose we are and what we are to be about. As I mentioned before, the church is not crowded. In that sense we are weird, but weird for Jesus. In that weirdness we are discovering, and hopefully embodying for others, true freedom and true living. Thanks be to God.