Pentecost 10 – 2019
Luke 12:49-59
Marian Free
May the words of my mouth and the thoughts of our hearts be acceptable in your sight, God our strength and redeemer. Amen.
In Apartheid South Africa it was illegal for a white person to marry a black person or a coloured person or an Indian person or for a colored person to marry a black person or a white person, or an Indian person. If one was unlucky enough to fall in love with someone outside the prescribed parameters the consequences were serious – disgrace, arrest, followed by a jail sentence. Those who formed such relationships were usually isolated from their families and ostracized by their social circle. A white South African sex worker named Ethal, reported that she felt more accepted by her peers when she was a sex worker than when she married a black African man. For many in this situation, the threat of jail or of social censure led to self-imposed exile. In order to be with the one that they loved, they gave up home, family, friends and occupation.
As I have said many times, the first century Mediterranean culture was very different from our own. Greeks and Romans comfortably worshipped a number of gods. Their gods did not command the absolute loyalty of individuals but were variously responsible for the weather, the harvest and so on. It was no hardship for a Gentile to include Emperor worship to this diverse practice. On the other hand the one Jewish God demanded absolute loyalty and was worshipped only in the Temple in Jerusalem. Gentile gods could be worshipped wherever a Temple was to be found.
From a religious point of view, whether one’s starting point was as a Jew or a gentile, becoming a Christ-believer involved a radical realignment of one’s social, economic, religious and even political loyalties. Urban life was closely associated with both the local gods and with the imperial cult. It was essential for the well-being and protection of the city that all citizens fulfill their obligations to Rome and to the gods. Gentiles who came to believe in Christ could no longer associate with the gentile temples. When they stopped participating in sacrifices to the Emperor or to the local gods, they would be seen as putting the whole city in danger of losing the favour of the gods or the privileges extended by Rome.
If this were not enough to create tension, Engagement with the gods and their temples not only provided protection for the city, it was also central to the social life and cohesion of the community. Sacrifices of both meat and wine were part of the practice of worship. Temples were therefore not only gathering places for worship, but also marketplaces and venues in which people met to eat. Further, different gods were associated with different trades and the various guilds would hold their meetings in the relevant temple. A person who believed in Jesus was no longer able to visit the temple and so not only became isolated from his or her family and peers, but they were also excluded from membership in the guilds. This latter meant that they were not able to earn an income – at least not in the way that they had been used to. Christ-believers were regarded as dangerous because they placed their fellow citizens in jeopardy. They were isolated from their families and friends and unable to work.
The situation was not much better for Jews. Those who lived beyond Judea enjoyed many privileges that their fellow citizens did not. They were exempt from the Emperor cult and were free to send money to the Temple in Jerusalem. If some of their number chose to believe in Jesus, the whole Jewish community would be affected. Technically, Christ-believers were no longer Jews which meant that they were no longer under the protection of Rome. The problem for continuing Jews was that outsiders might not be able to distinguish the Christ-believers from the real thing. Jews were worried that they would be tainted by association and that they would be accused of sedition and lose their privileges. For this reason, among others, Jews too kept their distance from those who had come to believe in Jesus.
Whether Jew or Gentile, a person who chose to believe in Jesus was effectively cut off from all their previous relationships – family, friends and work. Faith in Jesus was divisive, potentially pitting “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.” Jesus’ words introducing this passage are perhaps the most passionate and, dare I say, violent that Jesus utters. “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!”
This is not the first time that Jesus tells us that faith in him redefines what it means to be family, but this is the only time that he is explicit about the effect that coming to faith will have on relationships. In a culture in which family formed the basis for social relationships and for social cohesion, Jesus’ words will have been shocking, even frightening, but Jesus is describing the world as it will be for those who follow him. As he does on other occasions, Jesus is warning would-be disciples that following him means not only commitment but a willingness to leave everything behind to face a hostile and even dangerous world.
How reassuring these words must have been to those who found themselves ostracised and financially strapped as a consequence of faith? After all, isn’t this what Jesus said lay ahead? How difficult these words are for us in a world in which once again family is the bedrock of our society and, though the world is changing, a world in which having faith in Jesus puts us within, not outside the status quo? For most of us faith comes at no cost, only with benefits. The danger is that we will become complacent, that we will relegate Jesus’ uncomfortable words to irrelevancy instead of seeing them for what they are – a challenge to our complacency, a prick to our easy conscience, a call to action. Would our faith stand the test if it meant losing everything that is meaningful to us? Would we hold fast if we lost our work, our family and our friends? Would we stand our ground if society turned against us, harassed us, persecuted us or threatened to kill us?
The question is: What does our faith mean to us, and what are we prepared to give up for it?
Swallowsrest 