Lakes, Woods and Fire

August 15, 2010
Both of our passages this week – the gospel text from Luke and the words of Isaiah – could well be read as weather reports, and weather reports for the present time, at least for the Richmond area where I’ve been the past two weeks: scorching heat drying the earth to dust, followed by clouds rising in the west bringing storms.
I can read the appearance of earth and sky – and weather.com – with the best of them, but interpreting the present time? Well, that’s a tougher one, to be sure.
What are the signs of our times? The signs of our lives? What do they portend, and how might we respond?
I wish I knew. I bet you wish you knew, too. I even bet you wish I knew, so that I could tell you. Maybe you came this morning hoping I might be able to do that. It would surely bring us some comfort, some peace, some unity of purpose and I honestly wish I could do it. I like comfort. I like peace. I don’t like conflict and division.
On the other hand, in Luke’s gospel Jesus puts it straight out there: I did not come to bring peace to the earth, but rather division.
So perhaps our own lack of comfort, our own discomfort with the signs of the present time, should not be so distressing. After all, if we read the present time with comfort, then there’s probably something seriously the matter with us. Look around at the world these days. Gulf Coast oil spill. Great Recession. Ten consecutive years of American warfare. Not to mention the weather, and what it might be trying to tell us! Are you OK with all that?
Think closer to your own hearts. Families fracture along no-fault lines. We all suffer the vicissitudes of our own human frailty. Our bodies fail, friends and loved ones die. Wills falter. Like Paul, we do the very thing that we hate, and we can’t seem to stop. It often seems as if we are caught up in circumstances not of our own making and far beyond our own control.
At the time of Isaiah, the people are similarly torn asunder by circumstances far beyond their control. They are exiles living in a foreign land. The early chapters of the Isaiah collection, including the passage we just read, tell the people how they got where they are, and place the blame squarely on those who oppressed the widows and orphans, those who are unjust and who lead the people into violence.
By the time of Jesus, the people might be called resident aliens, exiles in their own land; dwelling in a homeland, the people live under Roman occupation and domination.
Jesus utters the challenging words of Luke 12 as if to say, “which side are you on?” "I came to bring fire to the earth, and how I wish it were already kindled! I have a baptism with which to be baptized, and what stress I am under until it is completed! Do you think that I have come to bring peace to the earth? No, I tell you, but rather division!”
Choose this day whom you will serve. It is as if Joshua has returned. Jesus seems clear, it is a time of crisis, a time for decision.
Think back to the list of issues that confront us right now. Add your own to my brief account. Think about these things: social, economic, foreign, environmental crises and then add your personal concerns. It is a weighty load. Seriously. If we are OK with that stuff and all the rest, then there is something seriously the matter with us.
Moreover, if we think that we can solve these problems – the ones that can be solved – on our own, without deep disagreements over both ends and means, over tactics and strategies, then we are also seriously deluded.
I don’t believe for a moment that such delusion is our problem. No. We know much of what is wrong in our own lives and in the life of the world, and we are not OK with those things that can be changed.
The real problems lie in knowing what to do, and then in doing it, and in figuring out what to do when that doesn’t turn out the way we expect!
But take heart! God seems to have a similar problem in Isaiah. God plants a vineyard and expects a fine fruit to grow, but instead some nasty wild grapes take hold and the wine is going to be a bitter vintage. God expected a fine meritage but got grape Nehi instead. God expected justice, but got violence instead. God expected the beloved community but got … well, the Middle East.
Last week at camp I made a bamboo flute. I researched before I began the process. I measured carefully. I placed the holes at precisely the right spots on the shaft. I expected a standard Western tuning scale. I got this much out of my first try, and even “flute 3.0” doesn’t play a standard scale, at least insofar as I can play it.
Mick Jagger was only half right. Truth is, you simply don’t always get what you think you are going to get, much less what you ask for. As the Isaiah text suggests, this is true even for God.
Indeed, much of scripture suggests that God doesn’t always get what God imagines – at least not on the first go round.
To a great degree, though, the entirety of the Jesus story is about the second go round, second chances, another shot – in other words, it’s about grace.
And the challenging words that open Luke 12 offer a surprising form of that grace. Jesus’ words about division are usually read as a negative challenge, a threat even. But what if they are, instead, an invitation to dwell more fully and honestly in our human condition?
A while back, writing in Sojourners, Chilean author Michaela Bruzzese, suggested a different reading. What if, she wondered, “division is not only inherent to our faith, [but] actually essential to it”? In other words, she suggested, “Given that individual and communal perspectives are profoundly limited and based on different life experiences, expectations and needs, our interpretations must be understood as only part of the story. For who among us is the possessor of the whole truth, the most accurate interpretation of scripture and the most loyal implementation of its message? Jesus’ words could be a warning that no individual, denomination, or faith can (or should) even attempt to make such a claim.”
I’ve been reading a biography of John Calvin this summer, and it simply amazes me how many people were jailed, exiled, tortured or executed over differences of opinion about such things as the meaning and interpretation of the Lord’s Supper, or the doctrine of predestination, or the names children could or could not be given upon baptism.
Oh, to be sure, there were all kinds of secular political considerations at stake in such disputes as well, but it is clear that the Reformers and their opponents took the theological issues with deadly seriousness and would have interpreted Jesus’ words on division as a demand to choose which side one is on. It was a choice with often fatal consequences.
But what if Jesus is inviting us, instead, to live faithfully into division from the limited points of view available to us this side of the Kingdom of God? What if the whole of the gospel is condemning not disagreements – which are inevitable – but violence – which is not.
Disagreement is inevitable for we are all limited in knowledge, perspective and experience. But it is ours to choose how to live in the midst of disagreements. Pick an issue – personal or political, individual or broadly social. There will be more than two sides, and chances are exceptionally good that no single answer will suffice. Disagreement may well be absolutely necessary in order to solve complex concerns.
I’ve been at camp for the past two weeks. You put a couple of hundred people together and force them to live in small groups under occasionally trying circumstances – 100 degrees, no AC, living in platform tents or small cabins, cooking over an open fire, violent thunderstorms and so forth – disagreements will happen.
The choice before you, in every such moment, is how you will respond. Will you hang together, as Ben Franklin famously asked, or hang separately? Will you pull together, or pull apart?
There was a young man who lived in a village in Africa … so begins a story that we used to tell in camp. Before his day is done, he will understand divisions that destroy and those that can be united to some deeper purpose.
He was a young man who had grown into an outstanding hunter. He often led the other men of his tribe on their hunts for big cats, one of whom would feed the entire village for several days.
The older men told tales of the great hunters of the past; hunters who could track and bring down even elephants.
The young man was determined to match those great hunters of the past.
In the days preceding the one I want to tell you about, the hunters of the tribe had seen a few signs of elephants in the grasslands a few miles from their village. So the young man decided to rise before dawn, and set out well before the others. He would find, track and kill an elephant that would feed his family for an entire season. He would be the hero.
Amazingly enough, he almost pulled it off just that way. He did go out and find tracks. He followed them with great care, and just as the sun began to rise over the savannah he spotted a huge bull elephant. He snuck up on it with great care, silently stalking it. He pulled out his finest spear, the one he’d practiced with for hours outside his village throwing it at ever smaller targets until he could hit a pebble from a hundred paces.
He studied the elephant and picked out just the spot that he knew would bring down the great beast. He drew his breath, steadied his heart, and fired. The great animal fell, and the young man felt a surge of joy. He would be a hero. The meat would feed his family for an entire season, and the hide would provide a new tent for them.
His only problem was how to get the thing home.
He ran the three miles back to the village, roused the others and said, I’ve killed a huge bull elephant. Come and see. Bring ropes and we’ll haul it back.
Roused from their slumbers, they joined his quickly, bringing ropes to tie the elephant and drag it back to the village. They hurried the three miles out, tied ropes around the great beast’s feet and began to pull.
They surged against the ropes in rhythm and the young man began to chant, “my elephant, my elephant, my elephant.”
The others heard his chant and began to think, “whose elephant?” They dropped the ropes and the elephant stopped, too. The young man looked up from his chanting and pulling and said, “why have you stopped?”
The others answered, “if it’s your elephant, you pull it back to the village.”
So he grabbed all of the ropes together, picked them up and began to pull chanting, “my elephant, my elephant, my elephant!”
The great animal didn’t budge an inch. The young man dropped the ropes. His shoulders slumped. He thought of all the meat that would rot in the sun or be eaten by lions. He looked around at the others. He picked up one rope, began pulling it again, and chanting, “our elephant, our elephant, our elephant!”
One by one, the others picked up ropes, joined their shoulders to the effort and their voices to the chant: “our elephant, our elephant, our elephant!”
Together they pulled the giant beast back to the village. They divided the meat. The divided the skins. They divided the spoils into many different families.
But they united in one common goal.
May we, in all of our glorious differences, find an uncommon courage to pursue the common goals of love and justice as we together follow the way of Jesus.