Returning to Peace
Luke 12:49-56[1]
Sometimes the Bible is easy to read. God’s love just seems
to leap off the pages and fill our hearts. There are other times when the Bible
is confusing. It just doesn’t seem to make sense with what we have been taught
about God, about Jesus, or even about life. The way we tend to read the Bible
doesn’t help. Because it’s the Bible, we tend to think every verse has to be just
as important as every other verse. When we do that, we are “flattening out” the
Bible by taking every verse at what seems to be the “face value” to us. Many
people call this reading the Bible “literally,” and they’re proud of themselves
for doing so. But that approach to the Bible leads to all kinds of confusion.
For example, 25 years ago, Bruce Wilkinson published The
Prayer of Jabez, a book that became a New York Times bestseller. The
“prayer” of Jabez comes from 1 Chronicles 4:10. We know next to nothing about
Jabez. He’s just a guy who shows up in the extended genealogy that occupies the
first ten chapters of 1 Chronicles. And basically, the prayer that Jabez prayed
was for God to make him prosperous and protect him. Nothing wrong with that.
But also not a model of devotion to God. We have another prayer in the Bible
that does a much better job of modeling devotion to God. It’s the prayer Jesus
taught us to pray. And there’s good reason why we’ve been praying “The Lord’s
Prayer” for centuries, not the “prayer of Jabez.” There just really is no comparison
between the two!
Thinking the “prayer of Jabez” might be some formula for
success is one example of the confusion that can result from flattening out the
Bible. And I would argue that it’s not really reading the Bible literally. What
it does is turn the Bible into a convenient “container” for whatever opinion or
viewpoint of ours we want to claim is “from God.” But the Bible isn’t meant to reinforce
what we think we already know. As our lesson from the prophet Jeremiah for
today puts it, “‘Does not my word burn like fire?’ says the LORD. ‘Is it not
like a mighty hammer that smashes a rock to pieces?’” (Jer 23:29). That sounds
ominous, but the idea is that when the Lord truly speaks, it tends to shake up
our lives. The Bible is not meant to just keep us comfortable!
Part of the problem is that when we read the Bible we tend
to forget how language works. We use language in all kinds of ways that don’t
make a lick of sense to take the words at face value. For example, if we say
someone is “barking up the wrong tree,” we all know what that means, because
it’s a figure of speech in common usage. Can you imagine someone coming along from
another planet centuries from now investigating these “earthlings” and how they
lived their lives scratching their heads and trying to figure out why they were
acting like canines and “barking” at trees? It’s a bit of an exaggeration, but
I think you get the point. The way we use language doesn’t always work “at face
value.” We’re so used to it that we think it’s “face value.”
I bring this up because there are people who somehow think
it’s scandalous to think that Jesus may have used figures of speech. We all
know that he told parables to make a point. There are still some people who
want to insist that some of Jesus’ parables were factually true. That’s because
for us, truth has to be “factual” in an objective sense for it to be “truth.”
We forget that truth can sometimes be conveyed much more powerfully through a
poem or a work of art than through a paragraph. That commonsense approach to
the “truth” of the Bible leads us to what I would consider a truly “literal”
way of reading it. We recognize metaphors, idioms, figures of speech, and even exaggeration
for what they are, and seek to discern the original intention behind the words.
It’s not as convenient for us as just throwing out a verse and claiming it
supports our favorite opinion, but it’s more consistent with the truth of
Scripture.
That’s a long introduction for our Gospel lesson for today.
The reason is because when you simply read our Gospel lesson for today at “face
value,” it’s confusing at best. And to some it could be downright disturbing!
Here Jesus tells us that he has not come to bring peace to the world, but
rather “fire” and “division” (Lk 12:49, 51)! And in another gospel, he says he
came to bring a “sword” (Mt 10:34)! That sounds so contrary to what we believe
about Jesus that it may be painful even to hear it! How are we supposed to
reconcile the idea that Jesus came to bring division and not peace with the
joyful announcement at Jesus birth in this same Gospel of Luke that he came to
bring “peace on earth” (Luke 2:14)?
In the first place, we have to understand that Jesus was
speaking to a world in which religion was used to keep a few in power and
privilege in a way that beat down most people. The religious powers of the day
used the language of “clean” and “unclean” to maintain their position and power
and to keep most people “in their place.” After all, if being “unclean” means
you can’t get too close to God, then you have to rely on those who are “clean”
enough to represent you. That gives them all kinds of power over you! I’m
afraid the language of “sin” and “forgiveness” still creates a similar
situation for many people to this day.
Into that world, Jesus came offering God’s love freely to
anyone and everyone. He preached the gospel of God’s goodness to all people,
regardless of their place in society or lack of place in society. And all his
talk of a kingdom of God where the first are last and the last are first
overturned the way the whole world worked. It was like setting fire to the
whole religious establishment, and with that, their whole way of life. It was
like smashing the “rock” of religious oppression in pieces. Jesus’ message
threatened everyone who had worked hard to climb their way to the top of the
social ladder by virtue of their “holiness,” or their wealth, or their power.
As you can imagine, a lot of them didn’t like that. It was a threat to their
very way of life. And they responded to him with rage and hatred, and they
killed him for it.[2]
When you look at our Gospel lesson in that light, I think
it makes sense to recognize that Jesus was exaggerating when he said he
came to bring division rather than peace. Of course Jesus came to bring the
peace of God’s kingdom. He makes that clear with virtually everything he said
and did! But the whole Bible is equally clear that God’s peace comes with a
cost. It comes only by righting the wrongs in this world, especially those that
benefit the privileged few. God’s peace comes only by exposing the untruth of
structures that beat people down in this world.
That kind of message is always going to divide people. Those who benefit from the how things stand will fight tooth and nail to oppose anyone who tries to change things for the benefit of the “least of these,” as Jesus calls them. And at times, they’ll quote the Bible to keep things as they are. At times they’ll kill the people who are trying to benefit the “least of these.” The sad truth is that we still live in a world where “holiness,” wealth, and power determine one’s place (or lack of place). But seeking the peace of God’s kingdom will always be perceived as a threat by those who benefit from beating down others. I think Jesus was warning all who would seek the peace of God’s kingdom that their work would be met with hostility and even violence.[3] I think that’s why Jesus used exaggeration in our lesson for today. History has borne out the truth of his warning. We must be clear: Jesus never endorsed violence.[4] But he knew how far people would go to protect their status and power. And yet he called the people of his day to return to God’s peace, a peace that exists only where there is true justice and compassion. And he calls all who would follow him to extend that peace to the people of our day. It’s not going to be easy. It’s not always going to comfortable. But if we’re going to follow Jesus and align our lives with God’s kingdom, there’s really no other way but to seek peace by helping the “least of these” have a place in this world.
[1] ©
Alan Brehm 2025. A sermon delivered by Rev. Alan Brehm PhD on 8/17/2025 for
Hickman Presbyterian Church, Hickman, NE.
[2] Cf.
J. T. Carroll, Luke: A Commentary, 275–276: “The depiction of Jesus’
fire-dealing, division-engendering mission in 12:49–53 thus stands in tension
with some aspects of the preceding narrative but also anticipates the
heightened conflict that his activity will provoke en route to Jerusalem.”
[3] Cf.
Jürgen Moltmann, Theology of Hope,
18-19: The promises that the hope inspired by the Gospel makes “must stand in
contradiction to the reality which at present can be experienced,” which is a
reality of suffering and death. Cf. also
ibid., 103, 118, 225-226, 330. For this reason, he says (p. 324) that
“Christians must venture an exodus and regard their social roles as a new
Babylonian exile” in which they must proclaim the hope of the Gospel and work
for the transformation of society.
[4] Cf. Karl Barth, Church Dogmatics 3.2:60-61: “That Jesus comes to bring about the ruin of any man is a thought which is
wholly foreign to the New Testament.”
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