Calling for a Division of the House
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The text for today is our Gospel
lesson, Luke 12:49-53.
Grace and peace to you from God our
Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.
I know for most of you “parliamentary
procedure” is a dirty word. But I must
confess I am a fan of Robert’s Rules of
Order. I’ve actually taught courses
for Jaycees and judged state FFA parli pro contests. Well done parliamentary procedure really does
make for shorter, more orderly meetings, assuring that while the majority
opinion prevails, the rights of the minority are also protected.
One of the more interesting
parliamentary procedures originated in the Roman Senate. Ordinarily, the Romans used voice vote. But if there was a vote that was disputed or
considered too close to call, one of the members might rise and call for a
division of the house. Those who were
voting divided themselves up—the “ayes” on one side of the house and the “nays”
on the other side.
The call for a “division of the
house” is still useful for verifying the results of a voice vote. It can also be a method of putting pressure
on people and calling them to account.
Voice votes are comfortably anonymous.
But a call for a division of the house forces you to take a public
stand, and likely, to take the heat or consequences for your stand.
That’s the kind of division our Lord
speaks about in our text. The kind of
division where people must take a stand for or against, where there is no
neutral territory, no safe ground. In
fact, Jesus talks about a literal division
of the house: “Do you think that I have come to give peace on earth? No, I tell you, but rather division. From now on in one house there will be five
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” (vv 52-53).
Wow, Jesus! As if family life weren’t already difficult
enough! Families divided? Not peace, but division? Perhaps most unsettling about this is that
Jesus is the cause of this division. Actually,
He is the point of division. He is the
reason for the division. And nothing is
more important than on which side of this division you stand: on the side with
Jesus Christ and His Word or on the side apart from—and that means
against—Jesus Christ and His Holy Word.
Where people stand on Christ divides
families, and in fact, it divides the whole Church, into true and false,
committed and uncommitted, true believers and hypocrites. It can cause anguish and suffering. It can cause embarrassment by exposing your hypocrisies
and inconsistencies. It can even cause
division and strife between your Old Adam and your new man, so that, even
inside you there is division. Jesus
comes to bring division. Not peace, but
division. That statement in itself is
troubling. How do you square this
passage with the Gospel’s message of peace and love and forgiveness? It sounds terribly out of step with the
Gospel. A strong dose of the Law at
best. Contradictory and antithetical to
the Gospel at its worst. But it is
not. It is really a blessed division,
one for which to give thanks.
Let me explain how. Consider the world apart from Jesus. How could it best be described? Sinful.
Unrighteous. Dead. Enslaved to sin. Evil. Damned. Make no mistake, those who are dead in sin
are hostile to God. And because of that
sin, we all faced God’s judgment. In
other words, we were all united,
together—it’s just that we were united in sin, death, and condemnation.
Jesus came to save us from sin. That is to say, Christ came to divide us from
sin, hostility, and God’s wrath. That’s
why He became flesh. That’s why He lived
a perfectly holy life. That’s why He
submitted Himself to endure death on the cross.
That’s why He rose again three days later and ascended into heaven. All of this was for you and for all the
world—to open the gates of heaven once more, that “whosoever believes in Him
should not perish but have eternal life.”
Jesus came to restore communion with
God, to bring you back into the presence of your Creator. This is entirely a gift of His grace. He offers it to all by means of His Word, but
He forces it upon nobody. Not everyone
will hold onto His gift of life: many in their sinfulness will reject it, throw
it away. There will be those who repent
and those who do not. There will be
believers and unbelievers. There will be
the living dead and those who live as though they have died. That is the division that Christ brings, that
Jesus gives. But it is a blessed
division. You see, apart from Christ, all would be lost. Because of Christ, many are saved.
Think of it this way: We are rightly
troubled at the news of a disaster, such as a plane crash or a terrorist attack
where many are killed. We mourn their
death. But we also give thanks for those
who survive, for those who are divided from the dead by still being alive. We give thanks for the work of medics and the
triage nurses who go to disaster areas; for even though they cannot save all
who are injured, they do save some.
Likewise, we give thanks for this
division Jesus brings: we rejoice that while not all are saved, many are—solely by the grace of God. Furthermore, we rejoice that the Lord doesn’t
limit His atoning grace. He does not
divide out some for salvation and say to the rest, “I desire that you be
divided and lost. I want you to be
separated from Me in hell forever.” No,
the Lord desires all to be saved. He
delights in the death of no one. He
wants all to be united in Him! Those who
remain divided from Him do so by their own sinful rejection of His grace.
To read Jesus’ words about bringing
division and determine Jesus to be spiteful or mean is completely to miss the
point of this text. In fact, we must
read it in the context of the verses which precede it. Jesus says, “I came to cast fire on the
earth, and would that it were already kindled!
I have a baptism to be baptized with, and how great is My distress until
it is accomplished!”
Fire destroys whatever it can burn
away. It also purifies what
remains. Jesus says that He has come to
destroy all that would divide you from the Lord and the life that He has for
you. But because the Holy Spirit has
worked faith in you, His fire does not destroy you. It purifies you. It purifies you by removing all of your sins
that would divide you from God.
And how does Jesus cast this fire on
the earth? It is by His baptism that He
must undergo. Jesus is not referring to
His watery baptism in the Jordan River, but
His fiery baptism on the cross, although the two are actually closely
connected.
At His baptism in the Jordan, the
sinless, pure Son of God takes His place among sinners. He declares that He has come to bear all of
our sins, and He will take all of our impurities, all of our unrighteousness to
the cross. With every sickness Jesus heals,
every sin He forgives, every dead person He raises, Jesus is both releasing
creation from its bondage and absorbing into His body all the fallen world’s
sickness, sin, and death in order to take it to the cross. There, on the cross, Jesus takes our place
and suffers God’s fire. Jesus satisfies
God’s wrath for sins. That’s the baptism
of fire that He speaks about. And that’s
a blessed division.
See, if you faced God’s fiery wrath
for sin on your own, it would destroy and purify—but there would be nothing
left of you, because there is nothing pure in you. So Christ has faced that fire in your
place. He has been destroyed in your
place. He suffered hell in your place
before His death and resurrection. Because
the fire destroyed Him on the cross, now He purifies you. He divides you away from sin and death, and
sets you apart as a holy child of God.
So let no one read Jesus’ words that
He has come to give division and conclude that He is gleefully causing
problems. The division Jesus brings is
really only a revealing of our true standing before God—as believers or unbelievers. And the stakes are high. Jesus is dividing people from death to life
at the cost of His own blood, at the price of His own life.
Today’s Epistle describes the
hostility our Lord Himself experienced and tells us that we can expect
hostility too: “Consider Him who endured from sinners such hostility against
Himself, so that you may not grow weary or fainthearted.” Jesus said that anyone who would be His
disciple “must take up his own cross and follow Me.” Therefore we are being foolish and naive if
we think that there will be no difficulties in our lives. Actually, every Christian can expect
trials. Every Christian should expect
trials. But we don’t, do we? It’s ironic, really. We confess every week that we deserve nothing
but temporal and eternal punishment. But
let a little trouble come our way, and we think we’re getting a raw deal, that
God has forsaken us. Actually, we’re
only experiencing a small portion of the temporal punishment we deserve—and God
is using even that for our good, to discipline us, to purify our hearts, to test
the genuineness of our faith.
Just remember, when things get hot,
it is the Lord’s purifying fire, refining your gold from the dross, even as He
separates you from an unbelieving world.
Trials are a normal part of life for God’s children. Division is inevitable. Christ is calling for a division of the
house, but He does not leave you to stand on your own. By the hostility He Himself endured, He
enables you to stand on His side.
So let’s make some applications to
your Christian life. For these divisions
are often presented as “evidence” that the Christian faith is untrue, wrong,
hypocritical, or possibly even immoral.
When division arises, it’s the Gospel that often gets the blame. But it doesn’t make sense to blame the
Gospel.
Picture the aftermath of a shipwreck
with survivors flailing around in the water trying to escape drowning. A rescue ship arrives on the scene, with
rescuers pulling survivors aboard, dividing the drowning from death to
life. But instead of joining those on
board ship, imagine that some refuse, insisting that they be saved by another
way. Imagine that they would say that
the rescue ship should not take anyone in until it is ready to accommodate
everyone’s preferred method of rescue.
That’s the position in which the
Church finds itself today in the world. We
proclaim that there’s plenty of room on board; but the world will declare that we
are divisive for proclaiming life in Christ alone. So there will always be pressure exerted to
change our confession to something like “Jesus is one way to heaven.” But that says that every false god is as
worthy of honor as Jesus. That leaves everyone without hope, united in
hopelessness: everyone’s sinking, and there’s no true Savior to rescue. No, it is far better to rejoice in the
dividing Savior, to declare, “Jesus is the one true Lord and Savior—and He has
died to save you, too!”
A worship service creates division,
too. Everyone is invited and all are
welcome to attend, but a worship service is designed foremost as a family meal,
where the Lord feeds His beloved children.
Some will visit a worship service and not like what they hear—I’m not so
much speaking of style as I am of content.
The fact is, apart from faith, people will not like the Gospel. To Old Adam, the Gospel is as threatening as
fire to Frankenstein’s monster, or daylight to Dracula.
Now, a lot of “worship theory” these
days says that a worship service is primarily to attract unbelievers who may or
may not come, not the family of God in that place. And those who hold to this view say that the
proclamation of the Gospel should be minimized so as to not offend. But if we take such a view, we are saying
that the Gospel is the problem, not
the false beliefs that others hold. We
are saying that we would rather settle for a superficial peace rather than
boldly proclaim the crucified Christ who seeks to divide sinners from death.
So we do well to examine ourselves:
if visitors find us distasteful because we are unfriendly, that is our problem
and a reason for repentance. But if they
do not like the Gospel that they hear, we do not blame Jesus or the
message. Instead, we give thanks that
they were here to hear that Word, and pray that the Holy Spirit will continue
to work by that Word they’ve heard to bring them to saving faith; in other
words, to divide them from death to life.
As long as sinners remain, the
division Jesus brings will be apparent.
This is an important truth to accept, because many will argue that
division is proof that Jesus isn’t there.
Many will argue that peace and quiet is the proof of God’s
presence. This isn’t really new. Look at the Old Testament lesson for today. God complains about the false prophets whom
He hasn’t sent, but who claim to have gone out in His name. And what do they proclaim? They proclaim that “all is well” when it is
not, that “no disaster will come upon you” when disaster is going to destroy
the city. They proclaim “peace, peace”
where there is no peace. This is the
very sort of “peace” that Jesus comes to destroy, because it’s a false peace. So it’s left to Jeremiah to declare that
God’s judgment is about to fall. Then, who gets the blame for causing
division? Jeremiah—for telling the truth. But while he received the blame of men, then,
the prophet now rests from his labors in heaven.
Do not try to measure the presence
of Jesus by how much peace you feel. You
know Jesus is present in His Word and Sacraments, no matter the storms
around. He promises to be! We do well to remember Luther’s observation
that a superficial peace may mean that people have departed from the faith so
far that the devil sees no need to trouble them anymore.
Don’t place your hope in some
superficial worldly peace. Instead, give
thanks that, no matter the storm, you know that for Jesus’ sake you’re not
going to drown. Because Jesus comes to divide. He divides you from death to life, from sin
to holiness, from grave to heaven, from “enslaved to the devil” to “child of
God.” He has done so by taking on your
sin and enduring the cross, that baptism of fire which damned Him so that you
might be purified and blessed for His sake.
And you are blessed! For Jesus has come to divide you from sin,
death, and the devil. He’s even doing it
right now. How? With His Word, with this Good News of peace
with God: You are forgiven for all of your sins. In the name of the Father and of the Son and
of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
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