August 17, 2025
William G. Carter
Jesus said, "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! From now on
five in one household will be divided, 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 her daughter-in-law
and daughter-in-law against mother-in-law."
He also said to the crowds, "When you see a cloud
rising in the west, you immediately say, "It is going to rain'; and so it
happens. And when you see the south wind blowing, you say, "There will be
scorching heat'; and it happens. You hypocrites! You know how to interpret the
appearance of earth and sky, but why do you not know how to interpret the
present time?”
The sky looked threatening on Wednesday morning. Dark, murky. After a long stretch of hot, dry August days, we knew something was going to happen. I didn’t need to ask Alexa or Google, “What’s the weather today?” Neither did I need to tune in to Joe or Jeremy for a televised update. Sure enough, shortly after lunch we looked to the heavens – and those heavens opened up. There was a hard rain, with flash flooding in some places.
The mayor of Scranton said, “We’ve been working on our storm drainage in the city. On Wednesday, we discovered new places for our attention.” Anybody could have looked to the sky to predict it. What did they tell me in Boy Scouts? “Red sky at night, sailor’s delight. Red sky in morning, sailors take warning.” Read the horizon, what do you see?
It reminds me of a moment from years ago. A few of us traveled to Haiti for a mission trip. One night, we were sitting on a flat roof in Port au Prince, learning about that Caribbean country. There was a pause in the conversation, then somebody said, “Have you had many hurricanes here?” Oh yes. Realizing there is not much of an infrastructure in Haiti, she said, “How do you know when a hurricane is coming?” Our host said, “The sky gets very dark. The chickens get very quiet. Then the wind begins to blow.”
Jesus said to the crowds, “You can interpret the appearance of earth and sky, but why do you not know how to interpret the present time?” He says this on the road to Jerusalem. It’s his last journey to Jerusalem. He will be greeted as a prophet. He will speak and act like a prophet. He will be killed like a prophet. Some will greet him. Some will reject him.
What does he see when he looks to the horizon? What is the weather report? Jesus says, “Cloudy with a 100 percent chance of division.” People will be divided against one another. It was a sign of the times.
It is still a sign of the times. There are Eagles fans and Steelers fans. They don’t see eye to eye. There are red states and blue states. If either senses power may slip away, they will gerrymander their territory to gain an advantage. This fierce competition seems to have been written into our DNA. It’s us against them, although it doesn’t seem to be a whole lot of “us” anymore.
One of our retired teachers remembers when the public school system was the great American melting pot. School was for everybody. They received the same education. Great democratic values were passed along to the next generation. The project was never unanimous, although it seemed that way. Then the splintering began. “I don’t like what they are teaching.” “Home is where health class ought to be taught, not the classroom.” “I don’t want my daughter reading Nathaniel Hawthorne.” “My kid doesn’t need algebra,” and so on.
Sorry to say, some church people were behind the splintering. The kids weren’t learning the Ten Commandments at home, and they weren’t going to Sunday School, so somebody had the bright idea, “Let’s print the Ten Commandments on the classroom wall.” In other words, “Thou shalt not commit adultery, but don’t let them read The Scarlet Letter.” So, here we are. Them against them, and precious little “us.”
There is nothing new about that. Jesus said it will be “father against son and son against father, mother against daughter and daughter against mother, mother-in-law against her daughter-in-law and daughter-in-law against mother-in-law." He takes that list from the prophet Micah.[1] It is a generational split, parents against children, children against parents. One generation against another. Your enemies shall live in your own house. That is sobering.
Jesus knew this. If you read the Bible stories, he rarely spoke to a unanimous house. Sure, the Gospel says, “Everyone heard him gladly,” but it wasn’t everyone. Look around the room. Somebody was offended.
It happened on the day of his very first sermon. Jesus went home to Nazareth, went into the hometown synagogue, opened the hometown scroll of the prophet Isaiah. Then he read, “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me to preach good news to the poor.” Everybody said, “Oh, how we love Jesus!” Then he told them two stories out of their own Bible about how God loves everybody, and they wanted to kill him. And that was on his first day.
If they only knew what his mother was told a week after he was born. Mary and Joseph took baby Jesus to the Jerusalem temple according to the Jewish Torah. An old prophet named Simeon stumbled up, mumbling, “I’m looking for the salvation of God.” He peeked into their little blue blanket and said, “Here he is. I have seen God’s salvation!” Then he turned to Mary to say, “He is destined for the rise of some and the fall of others. He will be opposed. And a sword will piece your soul.”
Thirty years later, Jesus says to the crowd, “Do you think I’ve come to bring peace? No, I have come to create division.” That is what prophets do. They tell the truth. People don’t want to hear the truth.
One of the signs of our time is that people cannot agree on what the truth is. Somehing happens, and everybody starts to spin it. They spin it to the right; they spin it to the left. Now we have television stations that tell us what we want to hear. Once upon a time, most folks could agree on what happened. There was a broad consensus. And we could agree on who the radicals were and who were the nincompoops.
But these days, if you report the economic facts and somebody doesn’t like them, you could get fired for simply reporting the facts. You would be replaced by someone unqualified and unexperienced, who told the boss what he wanted to hear. It’s a sign of the times. The new rule is “If you are critiqued, attack the critic.” So spin it.
A few years back, our friend Brent Eelman worshipped with us for a while. One time he said, “I want to teach a class on the loss of truth in our society.” What do you mean? He said, “We are living in a post-truth culture.” That sounded ominous, like red skies in the morning. And he explained:
"Post-truth" is a culture where appeals to emotion and personal belief are more influential in shaping public opinion than objective facts. The distinction between truth and falsehoods becomes blurred, and emotional narratives often take precedence over factual accuracy. So, people start throwing around accusations of "fake news" and spread misinformation.
That is, you can tell somebody what happened. And they will say, “That’s your opinion.” But it’s a fact. “No, that’s not one of my facts.” But didn’t you see it? “No, it wasn’t on my favorite television station.” But shouldn’t we speak up? And there’s silence. Like they told us down in Haiti, “When the hurricane is coming, the chickens get really quiet.”
Here’s the truth about Jesus: he told the truth. In the clarity of his resurrection authority, he still tells the truth. He stands in the tradition of the prophets who thundered against the abuses of his day. Remember what the prophet Isaiah said?
Hear the Word of the Lord:
When you stretch out your hands, I will hide my eyes from
you;
even though you make many prayers, I will not listen; your hands are full of
blood.
Wash yourselves; make yourselves clean; remove your evil deeds from before my
eyes;
cease to do evil; learn to do good;
seek justice; rescue the oppressed; defend the orphan; plead for the widow.[2]
Any questions? And Jesus speaks with the clarity of the Psalmist. Remember what the Psalmist said?
You love evil more than good and lying more than speaking
the truth.
But God will break you down forever; he will snatch you from your tent;
The righteous will see and fear (God) and will laugh at the evildoer, saying,
“See the one who would not take refuge in God
but trusted in abundant riches and sought refuge in wealth!”[3]
There is moral clarity in the kingdom of God.
There is a holy love for those who have been hurt. There is a holy fire that
purges those who are evil. This is the fire Jesus ignites – and many who will
not like what he says, as if their emotions and opinions can protect them from
the truth. Yet ultimately it is the truth of Christ that sets us free – it is the
truth about ourselves, and the truth about God’s cleansing, purging grace.
If there is to be a division, let it be a division
between good and evil.
Let it be a division between right and wrong.
Let it be a division between life and death.
Let it be a division between loving neighbors and hating
neighbors.
Let it be a division between justice and indifference.
Let it be a division between loving God and ignoring God.
Let it be a division between holiness and hellishness.
Let it be a division – ultimately the division - between the sheep and the goats.
As a preacher in the early church would say about Jesus, “The word of God is living and active and sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing until it divides soul from spirit, joints from marrow; it is able to judge the thoughts and intentions of the heart. And before him no creature is hidden, but all are naked and laid bare to the eyes of the one to whom we must render an account.”[4]
Can we read the signs of the times? On his way to Jerusalem, Jesus could read the weather. “Stormy, with a good chance of crucifixion.” But he was not a silent chicken in the face of storm. Jesus was baptized with water and Holy Spirit. And he came to cut us free from all the lies, all the nonsense, all the emotional spin, all the self-important hype, so that we could live in peace with him and one another.
For this is the message of the Gospel: truth is in order to goodness.[5] Honesty is spoken to facilitate peace. Clarity is given to live in mercy. Division can be Christ’s gift, if it is in the greater purpose of building unity.
Or for those who might be empowered by the poets, here is a bit of T. S. Eliot:
The
dove descending breaks the air / With flame of incandescent terror
Of which the tongues declare / The one discharge from sin and error.
The only hope, or else despair / Lies in the choice of pyre or pyre -
To be redeemed from fire by fire.
Who
then devised the torment? Love. / Love is the unfamiliar Name
Behind the hands that wove / The intolerable shirt of flame
Which human power cannot remove. We only live, only suspire
Consumed by either fire or fire.[6]
In this stormy season, let us live by the true fire of Love, which is the Love of Jesus Christ our Lord.
[1] Micah 7:6.
[2] Isaiah 1:15-17.
[3] Psalm 52:3-7.
[4] Hebrews 4:12-13.
[5] PC(USA) Book of Order,
Historic Principles of Church Order (F-3.0104) – “That truth is in order to
goodness: and the great touchstone of truth, its tendency to promote holiness,
according to our Savior’s rule, “By their fruits ye shall know them.” And that
no opinion can either be more pernicious or more absurd than that which brings
truth and falsehood upon a level, and represents it as of no consequence what a
man’s opinions are. On the contrary, we are persuaded that there is an
inseparable connection between faith and practice, truth, and duty. Otherwise
it would be of no consequence either to discover truth or to embrace it.”
[6] T.S. Eliot, Four Quartets, “Little Gidding,” https://www.columbia.edu/itc/history/winter/w3206/edit/tseliotlittlegidding.html
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