Sermon for Proper 15C RCL: Luke 12:49-56 & Hebrews 11

Homily for Proper 15C Revised common Lectionary
Preached at St. John’s Lancaster on 18 August, 2013

Isaiah 5:1-7
Psalm 80
Hebrews 11:29-12:2
Luke 12:49-56

The argument can be easily made that one of the greatest illuminations of today’s Gospel lesson is that of St. Ambrose of Milan in his Exposition of the Gospel of St. Luke. He points out that Jesus often said things which at first seemed offensive or illogical to his hearers, but when we think about them, and understand them in their proper Biblical context, they are perfectly reasonable, and draw us to a deeper understanding of God‘s will for our lives. Such is today’s lesson. All of us remember the many admonitions of Jesus that we ought to love each other. We are admonished to honour our parents, and he pronounces plainly that he gives us his peace. So what is all of this talk about divisions within households and family members being at enmity with each other? After promising to bring peace and harmony, does Jesus instead bring us discord at the end? Does he, to employ his own words, promise us an egg and deliver a scorpion?

Ambrose tells us that the issue is really quite simple. “It is necessary that we esteem the human less than the divine. If honour is to be paid to parents, how much more to your parents’ Creator, to whom you owe gratitude for your parents! If they by no means recognize their Father, how do you recognize them? He does not say children should reject a father, but that God is to be set before all. Then you have in another book, He that loves father or mother more than me is not worthy of me. You are not forbidden to love your parents, but you are forbidden to prefer them to God. Natural children are true blessings from the Lord, and no one must love the blessing that he has received more than God by whom the blessing, once received, is preserved.”

But there are realities in this world that we would not choose. Every one of us is either of God or of the Devil. We have either received the Father’s grace through Jesus the Son in the power of the Holy Spirit, or we wander in darkness and sin, separated from God and seeking our own way with map and compass corrupted for our use by the father of lies. When such an awful thing happens in our homes, we must always remember the admonition that we must never prefer anyone or anything to God. And at that point comes the division of which Jesus speaks. It is never easy. In the eleventh chapter of Hebrews, we read that “By faith Moses, when he was come to years, refused to be called the son of Pharaoh’s daughter; Choosing rather to suffer affliction with the people of God, than to enjoy the pleasures of sin for a season; esteeming the reproach of Christ greater than the treasures in Egypt: for he had respect unto the recompense of the reward.” Like Abraham before him, he desired “a better country, that is, an heavenly: wherefore God is not ashamed to be called their God: for he hath prepared for them a city.”

Indeed he has prepared for us a city, “not made with hands, eternal in the heavens.” We pray from the bottom of our hearts that we and all those we love might dwell there forever, in that place where there are no more tears, and where disease and broken relationships will be put away for ever. But when we are forced by the evil choices that so often abound in this world to choose between God and another, we as Christians are called to walk in the way of God, even if it means upsetting those who are nearest and dearest to us. We continue to love them, and to pray for them (not at them), and to do all we can to live virtuous, kind, and loving lives in their presence. But we are now marked as Christ’s own, soldiers of the Cross, sworn to fight against the forces of the world, the flesh, and the devil now and until Jesus comes.

And so on this Thirteenth Sunday after Pentecost, and Twelfth after Trinity, in the Year of Our Lord Two Thousand and Thirteen, I bid you love your family with all your heart and strength, but love God more. Realize that if you have family members who have not yet known the grace of God through the blood of Jesus, that they are still people for whom Christ died, and that you ought to love them and pray for them and when possible enjoy their presence whatever their life choices. But know that if Satan, the enemy of our souls, sets the stage for that division over matters of lifestyle and faith, that division which our Lord prophesied. If your Christian faith, attitudes, and practices, disrupt the non-Christian expectations of someone you love; remember that your first loyalty is to God. Be faithful to him with humility and obedience to his way of holiness and love. Do not seek to batter members of your family into submission by judgmental attitudes or argument. Rather convince them by the constancy of your love for them and by the peace that is in your heart, which is that peace of Christ which passes all understanding. Pray for them privately every day, trusting in God’s sweet Spirit to woo them into his blessedness.

I hope this has helped someone today to understand how we might live our faith within our broader families. Like Ambrose said, “The question really is quite simple.” We are called to love the Lord our God with all our heart, soul, mind, and strength, and our neighbors as ourselves. We are also called to realize that this is not a perfect world, and that divisions will occur within our families. Let our faith be so constant and loving that our motives and love can never be doubted for long. And let us persevere in faithfulness to God and love to those we call our family, even if they do not yet acknowledge his grace.

Through Jesus Christ our Lord and Saviour. AMEN.