Sermon Tone Analysis

Introduction

You do not have to live long in this world before you are exposed at some level to the human capacity for evil.

A woman named Rosaria knows this all too well.

Like countless women before her, she loved her daughter.

Born in December 1994, Rosaria named her daughter, Cadeaux, which means “gift.”

There are many reasons why a parent would consider their child to be a gift.

Rosaria’s is particularly compelling.

Cadeaux was not her only child.

She and her husband had four children before Cadeaux.

One of her sons, Alexis, became sick and she took him to the hospital.

While in the hospital with Alexis, violence erupted in her country.

She thought that there would be refuge for her there in the hospital, but the hospital eventually forced all of the patients to leave saying that there were too many military soldiers who needed care.

Now, after being sheltered from the violence for a month, she and Alexis are thrust into it.

Traveling along the roadside they passed bodies that lay in various positions of flight, glass from a smashed-in car windshield glinting in the sunlight, and a wild dog gnawed at something resembling a human leg.

After a few miles she and her still sick son found what they hoped would be a shelter and refuge from the devastation.

They made their way into Holy Family Church, the largest cathedral in the city.

The church was full of people who were barely living: a woman without an arm trying to nurse a baby, an old man moaning with bloodied cloths wrapped around his head, a child crying inconsolably for her missing mother.

But something was wrong.

Rosaria saw the head priest.

The head priest was arguing with some nuns.

Not only was the young priest arguing with the nuns, he wasn’t dressed in a clerical collar or a priest’s garb.

He was dressed like a militia man with a flack jacket around his chest and a gun in his hand.

Two nights later, the militia this priest was a part of raided the church.

Called out the names of particular men seeking refuge in the church.

Took them outside and executed them.

This is one of the stories from the horrific genocide that took place in Rwanda in 1994.

Over the course of 100 days Hutus slaughtered between 800,000 and 1 million Tutsis and moderate Hutus.

In the midst of racial and ethnic cleansing, Rosaria and Alexis, as Tutsis, were unable to find any refuge.

After those men were taken out of the church and executed, she didn’t wait around any longer.

The next morning, she took Alexis and they left Holy Family Church.

Then, their luck ran out.

They were discovered, hacked with machetes and left for dead.

Alexis did indeed die, but Rosaria, pregnant at the time, survived.

Now you can appreciate why she named her child “gift.”

She said that Cadeaux was, “the only gift I had left.”

This is outrageous, and it should make your blood boil.

Humanity’s capacity for evil seems to know no bounds.

What are we to make of the fact that even many churches and priests were not simply indifferent, but were active participants in the genocide?

Why bother with Christianity when so much blood can be laid even at the door of the church?

As Tim Keller asks in his book, The Reason for God, “If Christianity is the truth, why has the institutional church supported war, injustice, and violence over the years?

…Shouldn’t Christians be better people than everybody else?” We’re going to come at this hard to handle question by looking at this amazing passage in the gospel of Luke.

You see, the heart of Christianity isn’t an idea, it’s really not even a message.

The heart of Christianity is person, Jesus Christ.

This person does the work of uniting us to God and to one another.

So, we want to hear what he has to say about the matter.

We’re going to talk about three things from these six verses, The Harsh Reality, The Hard Response, and The Hope Revealed.

The Harsh Reality

I’m calling vv.

1-2 the harsh reality.

Notice this with me please.

Jesus has been speaking in ch.

16, from v. 14 through the end of that chapter, to the Pharisees.

The Pharisees were religious leaders, and they weren’t down with Jesus or his program.

Jesus said that no one could serve two masters.

You’ll either hate one and love the other, or you’ll be devoted to one and despise the other.

You cannot serve God and money.

Right after that, in 6:14, Luke says that the Pharisees, who were lovers of money, heard all these things, and they ridiculed Jesus.

The religious leaders only want to discredit Jesus.

But then there’s a shift in the audience in 17:1.

Luke tells us that Jesus says to his disciples, “Temptations to sin are sure to come, but woe to the one through whom they come!”

That sounds like something he should be saying to the Pharisees.

That sounds like something he should be saying to the people who reject him.

He should be warning the people who want nothing to do with him that they’ll continue to be enticed to do wrong.

Not only that, but they’ll keep on tempting other people to do wrong.

But Jesus is talking to his followers.

He’s talking to people who are saying, “I’m with you Jesus.”

We can have the wrong expectation.

Part of the problem is that people expect that Jesus’ message was, “Follow me and you won’t have to worry about being tempted anymore by unjust people or be tempted yourself to do unjust things.”

The Greek text in v. 1 has a double negative.

We don’t translate the double negative into English because that’s not good grammar.

But it’s perfectly fine in Greek.

Here’s how I’d translate Jesus’ words in v. 1, “It is impossible for the temptations not to come.”

The word “temptations” is plural, broad, general, and inclusive of every kind of wrong.

That includes injustices of every kind.

Be they racial injustices, gender injustices, political injustices, socio-economic injustices, individual injustices, or systemic injustices.

Jesus says this is the harsh reality, you will be unable to prevent the enticements to take part in unjust things from coming your way.

You might be tempted to steal supplies from your office, or you might be tempted to join in a conspiracy to destroy other people.

Faith in Jesus doesn’t free you from temptations to do evil.

Jesus is the Truth, and he doesn’t want us to be deceived as a Christian.

Don’t be deceived into thinking that the Christian life is the easy road.

Don’t be deceived into thinking that as you travel along this road seeking to follow and serve Jesus Christ that you will not be enticed to turn away from him.

Don’t think that being a Christian doesn’t include times of intense struggle to keep the faith and not stray away from Jesus toward whatever is tempting you.

Given that Jesus himself says that that you will face a barrage of temptations to do wrong, is it surprising that even people who claim to follow Jesus can find themselves giving in to those temptations?

Let’s be clear though.

Jesus isn’t playing.

He’s not sweeping the sins or the injustices under the rug as if the harsh reality of temptations always coming excuses us from giving in to those temptations.

Jesus loves justice and righteousness.

Look at what he says in the second part of v. 1 and v. 2, “but woe to the one through whom the temptations come.

It is better for him if a millstone is bound around his neck, and he was thrown into the sea than he tempt one of these little ones to sin.”

The little ones Jesus is talking about aren’t children.

He’s talking about those who follow him.

The little ones are Christians.

It’s not that Jesus is unconcerned about injustice in general and sins committed against non-Christians, but he understands that the Christian community represents him.

It’s supposed to be a witness to his love and his power.

So he speaks to us like the OT prophets when they pronounced doom and destruction because of sin and wickedness.

What Jesus does is put people in community together to grow in righteousness and holiness all the days of our lives.

And he’s serious about it.

How tragic it is that we can all readily think of moral, financial, and sexual scandals that have corrupted the church and dishonored the name of Christ, and people have been turned away from Christ, lead astray because of them.

Jesus says better for them if they had met their downfall before they led others astray.

The Hard Response