A Divisive Warning

Big Idea: Jesus’ urgent call to seek peace with God divides people

Big Application:

Debated danger divides people. Don’t be surprised.

See the signs. Seek peace with God through Jesus while there is still time.

Warn others they are debtors and the time for settling accounts is coming.

Who’s heard the term “climate emergency”? Hands up if you’ve heard that term. Yeah it’s gotten a lot of air time recently hasn’t it with the Climate Rebellion protest group. And perhaps you’ll also know the UK has been busy patting itself on the back for being the first country in the world to declare a climate emergency - 2nd May this year. World leaders, ‘eh!

This is a great example of a neologism: “a newly coined word or expression.” Seems like lots of us have heard the claim that we’re facing a climate emergency but it’s amazing to discover that no-one at all was describing our situation as a “climate emergency” even as recently as last year.

Here’s a cool chart from google tracing the usage of the term “climate emergency” since 2004. As you can see, not so much climate emergency - in fact, basically zero until the start of 2019. Of course that’s just a term, just the latest term, for a wider issue. climate change. global warming. nuclear winter. ozone layer, environmentalism.

Even that wider issue has a pretty short history in the public eye, though. Here’s a chart of how often some of the key terms appear in our literature. As you can tell, I was having too much fun with data this week! So the wider issue has had significant public profile since the late 80’s - and that profile just seems to be rising and rising as time goes on.

But even today, if you stopped people in the street and asked whether we’re currently facing a climate emergency, whether climate change is going to wreck our world, whether we should take urgent action, you’d still get a range of responses. It’s still a debated issue - not everyone agrees that it is scientific fact yet. And there’s even less agreement about how we should respond. Do we all need to switch to electric cars? or even bikes? Should we place sanctions on key global polluters like India and China? Should we just hang on a bit, and wait and see if we’re actually right this time with our theories and models?

Debated dangers divide people. Debated dangers divide people.

It’s a bit like smoking. As late as 1960 only a third of the doctors in the United States agreed the case against cigarettes had been established. There was huge disagreement and division over how we should respond to the debated danger of cigarettes. Was it trampling on people’s freedom to ban or limit them? Or wicked to let people put themselves at such risk without warning them? Of course nowadays there’s really no question in, I think, pretty much anyone’s mind that there is a serious risk of cancer connected with smoking, and that we should guard against it as a result.

Debated dangers divide people. Let me just dare to say one word: brexit. There you go. Did it.

As I say, debated dangers divide people.

And that is where Jesus starts as we pick up the story. We’re continuing our journey through Luke’s gospel, Luke’s telling of the story of Jesus. And today we start with a picture of exactly this sort of passionate division that comes from debated dangers. It all feels very contemporary. Jesus positions himself as someone bringing division, not peace like we might expect. Let’s take a look at what he has to say together: why this division? Then we’ll explore what it means for us here, today.

Nita’s going to read for us this morning - we’re on page ______ in these blue bibles if you want to pick one up or words will be up on the screen too. Luke chapter 12 - big 12 - verse 49 - small 49. Page ______ - Luke 12:49. Big 12, small 49.

Luke 12:49–59 NIV

“I have come to bring fire on the earth, and how I wish it were already kindled! But I have a baptism to undergo, and what constraint I am under until it is completed! Do you think I came to bring peace on earth? No, I tell you, but division. From now on there will be five in one family divided against each other, 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 daughter-in-law and daughter-in-law against mother-in-law.” He said to the crowd: “When you see a cloud rising in the west, immediately you say, ‘It’s going to rain,’ and it does. And when the south wind blows, you say, ‘It’s going to be hot,’ and it is. Hypocrites! You know how to interpret the appearance of the earth and the sky. How is it that you don’t know how to interpret this present time? “Why don’t you judge for yourselves what is right? As you are going with your adversary to the magistrate, try hard to be reconciled on the way, or your adversary may drag you off to the judge, and the judge turn you over to the officer, and the officer throw you into prison. I tell you, you will not get out until you have paid the last penny.”

Jesus comes to bring division, not peace. That’s what he says here in v51. “Do you think I came to bring peace on the earth? No I tell you, but division.” Now that might be rather surprising if you have a gentle-Jesus, all meek and mild, in your mind’s eye. Isn’t his goal to turn the world into one giant group-hug? Nope - that’s not what he says here. Jesus comes bringing division, not peace.

And it’s the sort of division that will split not just nation from nation, or tribe from tribe, but father from son, mother from daughter. These are the closest relationships, the most intimate family connections. Now maybe today this doesn’t doesn’t seem totally shocking - I imagine in this room there are probably some who know division in these close relationships, and probably more for whom these relationships are at least pretty distant. But in those days the normal path for a son ran very close to his father. The norm would be taking up his father’s trade alongside him - like Jesus, learning carpentry alongside Joseph. Families in those days were tight-knit.

And Jesus is saying he has come to divide even the closest earthly relationships. To break up the family unit itself. What gives? How could something like that be at the centre of his mission? Why would something like that come out of his mission? Why does Jesus divide, not bring peace?

...

The answer is here for us: There’s a danger - a terrible danger ahead. But it’s debated. There’s disagreement about it. And that’s what causes this division.

Think back to where we started, with this new term climate emergency. That’s in the news, in peoples minds, mostly because of a group called Extinction Rebellion, and their protests in London which caused absolutely massive disruption to millions of people by shutting down key roads, setting up a campsite at Marble Arch, gluing themselves to trains, staging huge “die-ins” and other crazy stuff.

Why are they doing this? The group think climate change isn’t being taken seriously by the powers that be, and that if things don’t change much more radically then the consequences will be massive and absolutely disastrous for everyone. So they are willing to cause division, to make a massive fuss and to upset millions of people, because they feel this danger is so grave. One banner asked “is this the last generation?” That’s how serious they think the issue us.

A representative for the group said afterwards: “we’re hoping that the political class wake up, because if they don’t the next thing that will happen will be much more dramatic.” But there’s disagreement about just how urgently and extremely action is needed on climate change. There are lots of people just trying to get on with their life. There are plenty of people who are pretty sceptical about the whole idea, who would argue we probably don’t really understand things well enough to be so sure.

A danger. One people disagree about. And so there’s division.

That’s why Jesus comes to bring division, not peace. What is this danger? We’ll get to that. But first Jesus tells us a little more about why there’s such sharp division here - and the root of it isn’t what you might expect.

In v54 and v55 Jesus talks about how the crowds could all predict the weather. I think it was quite a bit easier to do there than it is here in Scotland. Here, pretty much all I can tell you about tomorrow’s weather is there will be lots of it. Four seasons in each day. I remember it snowing in June just the other year. And before this sweltering heatwave we’re living through here just now, remember the absolutely torrential rain?! But, so it seems, your average Joe in the crowd there with Jesus could tell from a single cloud that rain was coming, could tell from just a breeze that a heatwave was coming. The crowd could all read these simple, obvious signs, and understand what’s next.

So how come they couldn’t understand the signs of the times? v56 “how is it that you don’t know how to interpret this present time?”, Jesus asks.

When it comes to something like the weather, you’ve got things to look at: clouds and the like; you’ve got things to feel like the wind. When it comes to something like climate change, there are lots and lots of graphs and models and research and pictures and ice cores and the like. There are lots of signs. So how come people disagree? Well ultimately I think they’d tell you it’s not totally clear from the data. Perhaps you’ll remember the big controversy over a climate scientist who faked a bunch of his data to make climate change look more certain, more undeniable? So maybe there is reason to doubt or debate?

But with the signs Jesus is talking about, it’s something different going on. Jesus tells the crowd just like they can interpret the signs of the weather, they should be able to interpret the signs of the times. There shouldn’t be any disagreement. Nobody ends up divided from others over what a cloud means for the weather. No-one should be divided from others over Jesus, over what he himself signifies (because he is the sign, as we saw a few weeks back). There shouldn’t be any debate.

It’s not like for climate change where the data isn’t quite totally clear. It’s not that the signs are just a little mixed still. Jesus says there’s disagreement, there’s division over the signs because the people are Hypocrites. See that in v56? Hypocrites - that is, people putting on an act, people pretending. That’s what this word means.

So how are these people hypocrites? Because they say “if God sent his chosen one, his rescuer, his promised deliverer, of course we’d welcome him”, “Jesus, prove yourself: show us a sign”, “if we could just know for sure you are the one”. But that’s not true. That’s not really why they are rejecting Jesus. That’s just them acting. That’s why they are called hypocrites, actors. They are pretending they are looking for a sign, pretending they don’t see it, or they’re just not sure about it. When in fact they’re just choosing not to see it.

Have you ever met someone like that?

Are you someone like that? Claiming you’d love to know about God if he would just reach out to you. But, when you’re brutally honest with yourself, you know that’s not true… In fact, you’re ignoring how he has reached out to you, how he has revealed himself: there’s his wonderful, awe-inspiring creation you get to live in; there’s his son, who even the most sceptical historians accept was a real person who walked the earth; there’s his words, recorded in the bible for you, showing you what he is like and what he has done; there’s his church, unimpressive as we are, still a demonstration of God’s power at work. Think about this: how does the message of Jesus survive brutal oppression and the determined resistance of one of the most powerful empires ever, Rome? How do 120 ordinary, terrified followers hiding behind locked doors after their leader is killed become over two billion today.

Claiming you just need a bit more evidence, a bit more data, a bit more confidence, a clearer sign, when really you have plenty to work with already. That’s not debate. That’s not doubt. That’s hypocrisy, that’s acting. Are you someone like that? Claiming you’d pay attention to God if he would just reveal himself, that you’d live God’s way if you only knew what it was?

So Jesus comes to bring division. That division stems from disagreement over the sign that he himself is, a sign of what’s to come.

And what’s to come is something much more catastrophic than climate change. Jesus tells the people a mini parable, a short story, in v58 to lay out for them exactly what he is the sign of. He calls them to judge for themselves how they should respond to the sign, given what it indicates is coming our way. “As you are going with your adversary to the magistrate, try hard to be reconciled on the way, or your adversary may drag you off to the judge, and the judge turn you over to the officer, and the officer throw you into prison.”

What does this story mean? Jesus is telling them - and us - that we have a problem. We have an adversary. A hostile enemy. An accuser. And he’s about to press his case against us. Now if you’ve been around church a while you might hear some of those words and think you know who’s in view, you might be thinking of the evil one, who’s described as our enemy, our accuser. But that’s not who Jesus means here. Here Jesus is speaking to the crowds - and to us - about how we have a problem with God. We’re in debt to him and it’s a debt that we could never pay.

See how v59 talks about not getting out until the last penny has been paid? A bunch of the other terms here have a financial sense to them too. This “officer” is someone with a specifically financial role. The prison in view is a debtor’s prison. The reconciliation we are to seek is literally to be released, a term that’s often used of being released from a debt.

We’re in debt to God. How come? We haven’t lived the way we should. We haven’t honoured him as our creator and lord. We’ve honoured other things instead. We lived in ways we should not have instead. And each and every one of these wrong acts builds up our debt to God, adds to our pile of failures before him, failures which will ultimately lead to penalty, to punishment.

Often times people think about our relationship with God as a kind of balance thing - you know, “so long as I’ve done enough goodish stuff to outweigh the baddish stuff in my life, God’s going to be fine with me, he’ll welcome me.” Or like a bank account where we’re making deposits and withdraws. We might go overdrawn for a bit, doing wrong stuff which takes us into debt, but we’ll put some more back in later, being nice to people and the like. And on balance, we’ll be fine, not in debt.

The problem with these sort of pictures is the idea that we can make any deposit that cancels out a debt, that we can rack up any good that’s enough to oughweigh some of our wrong. Because we can’t. That’s not how it works. That’s not how God works. That’s not what his standard of behaviour and performance is.

A much better picture of how we relate to God, better than a bank account or a balance, is a hole. Every wrong thing, every wrong thought, every wrong attitude, every wrong moment, is digging it deeper. And those moments where we’re getting it right, holding it together, doing as we should? Well, then we’re not digging for a bit. But you know where we are? Still in a hole. And there’s no way out. That’s a better picture of where we are with God: in a hole. In debt in a way we can never repay.

That’s Jesus’ picture here. God, our accuser, is on his way to press charges, to call in the debt that we could never repay, and bring us the consequences we rightly deserve. There’s a day of judgement coming. And recognising this, or ignoring this, is going to cause division - even at the most intimate level of the family. If you know this is true, you have an obligation to tell others, to warn them. But they’re not going to like it.

But as we come to a close here today, there’s one last thing I want to show you: while there’s danger ahead, clearly signposted, there’s also still hope. Jesus’ story isn’t designed to depress us, it’s designed to change our course. Act before it’s too late, he says. Recognise where this is going, recognise how this will end. And while there’s still time, try to do something about it.

Because, gloriously, there is something you can do about it.

Did you notice back in v50 Jesus says he has a “baptism” to undergo? That’s an odd thing for him to say - particularly since he has actually already undergone a baptism, back in chapter 3. Jesus isn’t just being forgetful here - he’s talking about his death, which he knows is coming, in Jerusalem. If you’ve been with us at one of our baptisms you’ll have heard us speak about one of the things which baptism pictures being Jesus’ death and resurrection, going down into the water like he went down into the grave, and coming back up out of it into new life just like Jesus rose again from death.

Jesus - right here as he warns people to see the signs, to recognise the trouble ahead, to recognise that we have a debt we cannot pay, one that we need to deal with while there’s still time - Jesus points to his own death, coming in Jerusalem. How can we be reconciled with our adversary? How can we pay this unpayable debt? We can’t. We simply can’t. But gloriously Jesus did.

Where we could never pay the debt we owed, Jesus has done it for us. He tasted death in our place, experiencing the punishment which should have been ours. And in its place he offers us the chance to be reconciled with God, to be released from this debt forever - if we would just see the sign.

Do you, personally, know you have been released from that debt? Do you know for sure that you will never face God as you adversary, but instead as your friend, even your Father? If not, Jesus urges you: see the sign. recognise what is coming. find deliverance from it in the only way you can: through his death.