That Edge Where Change is Possible

A sermon preached by Rev. Ginger E. Gaines-Cirelli at Foundry UMC May 10, 2015, the sixth Sunday after Easter.

Text: Luke 12:49-56                                                              

 

“Do you think that I have come to bring peace to the earth?  No, I tell you, but rather division!” [Happy Mother’s Day, y’all!] Let’s back up and see what we can make of these hard words from Jesus. I recently read through the entire Gospel of Luke to write reflections for inclusion in the upcoming CEB Women’s Devotional Bible that I’m editing for Abingdon Press. One of the benefits of reading a Gospel all the way through is that you begin to hear the story as a story; another is that themes and details begin to emerge that are harder to discern when all you get are little chunks here and there.  A couple of things that struck me about Luke’s version of the story as I read it all the way through:  in the midst of all the beautiful birth narratives, we get Mary singing about radical reversals—“[The Lord] has scattered the proud in the thoughts of their hearts.  He has brought down the powerful from their thrones, and lifted up the lowly; he has filled the hungry with good things, and sent the rich away empty.” (Luke 1:51-53) We also hear these words from the prophet Simeon to Mary:  “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…” (Luke 2.34-35)  It takes no time at all for Simeon’s prophecy of opposition to Jesus to be fulfilled.  In chapter 4, Jesus gets run out of his own hometown and in chapter 5 we start to hear about the religious leaders taking issue with Jesus’ teaching and healing activity.  By the sixth chapter, they are actively looking for a way to accuse Jesus. 

 

All of this is to say, it should come as no surprise to us today to hear Jesus say “Do you think that I have come to bring peace to the earth?  No, I tell you, but rather division!”  Division, opposition, conflict…  How do these things fit into a faith that we thought was about love, unity, reconciliation, and peace?  Didn’t the angels sing about peace when Jesus was born?!  Don’t we call Jesus the Prince of Peace?  Have we gotten it wrong?  Well, I don’t think we’ve gotten it wrong about love, unity, reconciliation and peace being at the heart of the good news.  But I do think that we struggle to acknowledge the potential conflict that following Jesus necessarily entails. 

 

I don’t know many people who truly enjoy conflict—though there are a few!  Most folks I know do anything they can to avoid it.  To be “conflict-averse” is a well-known trait, isn’t it?  Churches are notoriously good at conflict-aversion, taking the path of least resistance, failing to make hard decisions or take risks, for fear of losing people or making folks uncomfortable or angry. Every church gathering I’ve ever been in chuckles knowingly at the phrase “the way we’ve always done it.”  Disrupting “the way we’ve always done it” is a sure-fire way to create division and conflict.  So it rarely happens.

 

In our faith communities and in our personal lives the lengths to which we go to “keep the peace” can be stunning.  And it really is understandable because conflict is painful, emotionally and sometimes physically.  Some of us have had more than our fair share—and for reasons completely out of our control.  Conflict can mean that we lose friends or others who are dear to us.  Conflict can bring about changes that disrupt what has been meaningful and life-giving in our lives.  Why would we do anything that risks having those effects?  And doesn’t our faith tradition call us to be peacemakers?

 

While the Gospel does say that the peacemakers are blessed, it also says (in the very next line) “Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness’ sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.” (Mt. 5:10)  And here is where we begin to understand what is going on in our text today.  The truth is that Jesus created conflict and that many people were opposed to him almost from the very beginning.  But Jesus didn’t create conflict simply for the sake of conflict.  He created conflict “for righteousness’ sake” and was “persecuted for righteousness’ sake.”  Jesus didn’t come into a world that was peaceful or whole or just.  Jesus doesn’t come to disturb the peace in a peaceful world; Jesus comes to disturb the injustice of an unjust world.  Jesus comes to disturb the things of the world that are not resonant with the Kin-dom of God.   That Kin-dom is characterized by mutual love, respect, mercy, compassion, sacrifice for the sake of the other, equality, and so on.  God’s Kin-dom is characterized by justice—not the eye for an eye, retributive kind of justice that we know and love, but rather the kind of justice that is restorative, that is gracious, that is, frankly, quite challenging for most of us in this time and place. Walter Brueggemann (renowned biblical scholar) says that “Justice is to sort out what belongs to whom, and to return it to them.”[i]  The Kin-dom of God is good news for everyone, but especially those who have had what belongs to them taken away—whether that be their fair and equitable living, their dignity, their freedom, or their safety.

 

One writer says, “It's not hard to decide what you want your life to be about. What's hard...is figuring out what you're willing to give up in order to do the things you really care about.”[ii]  Why would we risk conflict and loss and division and painful changes?  We take those risks if and when we decide to do what it takes to have our lives conform more fully to what we want to be about.  Jesus was about the Kin-dom, about setting people free whether they were the oppressors or the oppressed…and he was in trouble all the time.  If we choose to follow Jesus, there’s a good chance we will find ourselves in trouble.  But that trouble is for a purpose, for the sake of sharing justice and every other good gift of the Kin-dom. 

 

The point is not that we are supposed to go looking for trouble, or that we should “stir the pot” for no good reason.  Jesus comes to change what is wrong—in our lives and in our world—and to show us how to get in on God’s project to make things better.  Sometimes, conflict is a result…and sometimes some “stirring” is required to bring about change.  One woman who has worked at the grassroots level for peace and non-violent change for more than forty years said, “When people ask me, ‘What do you do?’ I say I create crisis, because crisis is that edge where change is possible.”[iii]  Clearly this peacemaker is a student of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. who wrote from the Birmingham jail, “You may well ask, ‘Why direct action, why sit-ins, marches, and so forth? …Nonviolent direct action seeks to create such a crisis and establish such creative tension that a community that has consistently refused to negotiate is forced to confront the issue. It seeks so to dramatize the issue that it can no longer be ignored.”[iv]

 

This is what we are experiencing all over the country right now as communities rise up in peaceful protest, determined to dramatize the issues of police brutality and racism so that these pervasive realities can no longer be ignored. Pride parades and demonstrations like the one at the Supreme Court last week keep the call for justice for LGBTQ persons in front of those who would prefer to ignore or deny the injustice of the status quo. The creative tension extends into conversations between friends and among families as persons choose where to stand.  Perhaps “creative tension” is not how you would describe what you experience with some of your family and friends when it comes to topics like racism, full inclusion for LGBTQ persons in the church, immigration, poverty, and politics in general.  But one important aspect of faith is to prayerfully, thoughtfully, and humbly interpret the scriptures and the tradition, to choose where you will stand, and to risk creating conflict for what you believe to be loving and just.  Today Jesus says in essence, “You are willing to discern the weather and plan accordingly, so put as much energy into discerning what really matters and then act accordingly!” (Cf. Lk 12:54-56)  When you speak and act from a place of thoughtful, humble, loving discernment and, as a result, people challenge you, “unfriend” you on FaceBook, treat you like you are ridiculous, naïve, uninformed, or downright sinful for where you stand or for who you are, remember that you are in good company.  The late, modern prophet Rev. William Sloane Coffin says, “Jesus knew that ‘love your enemies’ didn’t mean ‘don’t make any.’”[v] 

 

In 1946, Jackie Robinson was signed by Brooklyn Dodgers General Manager, Branch Rickey.  This broke major league baseball’s color line and, as result, both Robinson and Rickey stepped into the firing line of all sorts of hateful behavior.  The 2013 film “42” gives the full Hollywood treatment to the story.  It is clearly a tidied-up version, but it does portray the unabashed racism directed toward Robinson from every side—the press, the public, other players, and even his own teammates.  Jackie Robinson’s courage and grace in facing the bigotry and death threats that proliferated the longer he refused to give up or to retaliate in kind are an inspiration.  And, if the movie tells it true, Branch Rickey made the decision to sign Jackie Robinson because his Christian faith told him it was the right thing to do.  In what is an oft-quoted line from the movie, Rickey, speaking of Robinson says:  “He’s a Methodist, I’m a Methodist…And God’s a Methodist; we can’t go wrong.”  Both of these men made a choice about what they would risk for the cause of what was right.  Their choices created conflict and controversy, but ultimately and in the long run, helped usher a little more of the Kin-dom into the world.  A great moment in the story is when Pee Wee Reese (beloved shortstop-originally from Kentucky) crosses the field, and puts his arm around Robinson.  As insults are hurled at them both, Reese says, “Maybe tomorrow we’ll all wear 42 so nobody could tell us apart.”  That is a little inbreaking of the Kin-dom right there…[vi]

 

My guess is that no one here today thinks that the world is as God would have it to be.  Things need to change and conflict is often the “edge where change is possible.”  It is a risky place to stand but the good news is that we can participate in God’s activity in the world to make things different.  Like Jesus, we are called to embody the ways of God’s Kin-dom, to help usher it in, to make it real in the world, to challenge anything in the world that doesn’t reflect God’s love and justice.  This will bring us to the edge, it may create conflict and even crisis. But, it will also bring us into God’s work for real peace—not the kind achieved by denial, but the peace that comes through sacrificial love.  And we are assured that God will give us grace to persevere, courage to stand on the side of justice and peace, a reward that is beyond anything we can imagine,  and most certainly a reality better than the way we’ve always done it. 

 

 

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[i] William Sloane Coffin, Credo, Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 2004, p. 63

[ii] Shauna Niequist, Bittersweet: Thoughts on Change, Grace, and Learning the Hard Way, Zondervan, 2010.

[iii] Lisa Fithian, quoted by Teresa Berger in the article, “Disturbing the Peace” published in The Christian Century, August 10, 2004, p. 18.  Article accessed at:  http://www.religion-online.org/showarticle.asp?title=3116

[iv] Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., Letter from the Birmingham Jail, accessed 5/9/15 at http://www.uscrossier.org/pullias/wp-content/uploads/2012/06/king.pdf

[v]Coffin., p. 67.

[vi]This event likely happened in some form, but probably in Robinson’s second season in 1948. http://espn.go.com/blog/playbook/fandom/post/_/id/20917/undefined