Jesus is Present Even in the Midst of Conflict

Reverend Ginger Solaqua Sunday, August 17, 2025

Let us pray…Now, O Lord, take my lips and speak through them;
Take our minds and think through them;
Take our hearts and set them on fire with love for Yourself, Lord Jesus.  Amen.

We have before us today a difficult Gospel text, in which Jesus says some surprising and disturbing things: “I came to bring fire to the earth, and how I wish it were already kindled! … Do you think that I have come to bring peace to the earth? No, I tell you, but rather division!”

When I am faced with a difficult text like this one, I often find it helpful to put myself in the place of the people for whom the Gospel was first written.

So this morning I’d like to try something:  just for a moment, let’s try to imagine ourselves as some of the first hearers of the Gospel of Luke.

It’s the latter part of the first century, around 80 AD. We probably live in one of the Greek-speaking cities of the eastern Roman Empire – perhaps in modern day Turkey or Syria. We are educated, able to understand and appreciate Luke’s cultured Greek, his literary forms and references. Most likely, we grew up as pagans, worshippers of a pantheon of local and Roman gods; or perhaps we are Jews with a Greek education, at ease in the secular world.

Perhaps we came to be interested in Christianity because something moved in our hearts when we met a missionary who was an eyewitness to the events Jesus’ life; perhaps we heard about him from a friend. Somehow, we have come to believe that Jesus is the Son of God. And so we are gathered, probably in someone’s home, to share the Lord’s supper and to hear a someone read from this account of the life and teaching of Jesus.

How would it feel to us as first century Christians to hear Jesus’ words from today’s gospel? How would it feel to hear him predict that his coming will bring division within families, will set father against son and son against father, mother against daughter and daughter against mother and so on?

If we continue to imagine ourselves in the place of the first hearers of Luke, most of us would have already experienced this kind of division within our families because of our faith in Jesus.

Can you imagine how angry and scared a first century Jewish family might feel when one of its members says “our respected religious leaders were wrong, Jesus is the messiah and the founder of a new way, and I’m going to follow him?” It would feel like a rejection of thousands of years of faithfulness and sacrifice.

Pagan families might have felt that a convert to Christianity was putting the family in danger by refusing to make sacrifices and pay homage to the gods.

Jewish or Pagan, all our families would probably be furious that we have joined a faith condemned by the Roman empire, dishonored the family, made all our siblings less marriageable, put everyone at risk of persecution.

For the first hearers of Luke’s Gospel, Jesus wasn’t telling them how things should be, he was telling them that he understood how things already were. He wasn’t saying division is a good thing, he’s saying, I know you’re already divided. From this perspective, his words might have been comforting. It might have felt like he was saying something like, “what you are experiencing, the arguments, the pain and estrangement, this isn’t because you have done something wrong or because you were wrong to choose to follow me. You are okay, I knew this would happen. I am with you and will fold this division into my plan for healing and grace.” These were words of comfort, of reassurance not an ominous threat.

And as first century Christians, how might we feel when we hear Jesus say "I came to bring fire to the earth, and how I wish it were already kindled!”

One of the hardest things for us to hold on to as present-day readers of the scriptures is that as much as we might recoil when Jesus talks about a day of fiery judgment, the first readers of the scriptures yearned for a day of judgment. Judgment to them was good news – they were suffering, and it was the day when all suffering would end, the day when all the world would be set right. Evil, injustice and suffering would cease, every tear would be wiped away, and all of creation would be healed and redeemed. The final chapter of the final book of the Bible ends with a prayer for Jesus to come back and set things right – Amen, come Lord Jesus. Judgment, all the fire and brimstone we avoid, that was good news.

Because sometimes in scripture fire destroys, but more often fire purifies. The Gospels return again and again to this image of a wheat kernel that has to be separated from the chaff, the inedible outer layer that protects it. After it was separated, the chaff would be burned while the wheat was eaten. This becomes an image for the spiritual life - fire burns away what is unnecessary in us, leaving behind what is good and holy.  

As the first hearers of this text, we would have thought: yes, come Lord Jesus with the Holy Spirit and with fire, burn away whatever in me is not needed. Leave behind only your love and grace. Come, Lord Jesus, be with me in the midst of the pain of alienation in my family. Reassure me that I will find a new family in you. Remind me that I am not alone.

This passage would have been good news.

If we return to ourselves as Christians living in the 21st century, how might we hear this text speaking in our own lives?

Jesus’ prediction is true – we are indeed divided: as a world, as a nation, within our families; sometimes we are even at war within ourselves. We are set against one another in just the way that Jesus describes.

And perhaps as in Jesus’ time, there is tremendous pressure to pretend that everything is okay.

No doubt, your families are perfect in every way and never disagree and you have no skeletons in your closets at all.

But my family is great, and we still have a lot of stuff. It’s just part of being human. Some of us don’t get along, and there are estrangements and disagreements and profound hurt that might not get healed on this side of heaven. And there is a lot of pressure to hide all of that, to make sure that the world sees only a smooth outer surface.

I wonder if there is some comfort in hearing Jesus say to us today that while division is always a source of grief and pain, it’s also a part of life. It’s inevitable and endurable. It’s not a sign that something is irredeemably wrong with us; Jesus knew it and experienced it, Jesus named it and is with us in it.

Most of our disagreements today are probably not because we took a stand for the Gospel within our families, but perhaps the courage of these first Christians might inspire us to be able to tolerate a little bit more discomfort and division for the sake of our faith, for the sake of justice and love; might encourage us to be a little bit braver and more willing to do the right thing.

I also wonder if we might be able to rejoice in the way that the fire of division and disagreement burns away the extra stuff and helps us to see what really matters to us.

While we grieve the divisions in the world and in our own lives, we can see the way that the fire of conflict pushes us to articulate what is important and what isn’t, what we are willing to compromise on and what we are called to let go of, what is wheat that is essential and what is chaff that can be burned away.

I absolutely hate conflict and am terrible at it. I grieve a world that is divided and in which families, neighbors, and nations are estranged. I join the church past and present in praying, come Lord Jesus and set things right. But the witness of this Gospel is that we are not abandoned in these moments of division and alienation. Jesus is present even in the midst of conflict and can use it for the healing and love. Thanks be to God. Amen.