"When Faith and Family Collide"

by Revd Bruce Waldron - 12th August 2007

Luke 12: 49-56
"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?

I went over to Heathrow last Friday night with Sharn. We picked up our daughter Allison on direct flight from Australia. It's been two years since we've seen her and in that time she's moved from being just a Library Officer to being the Ballarat Region Children's Librarian, complete with full degree qualifications and a stunning review of her skills from the Library.

The transition from two years ago to now is profound. And the excitement in Sharn and myself, as we travelled over to Heathrow was about the equivalent to what Allison was feeling when she boarded the plane in Melbourne on Thursday afternoon.

It's very hard to make sense of what Jesus is saying about divisions in the family, when you are so absolutely rapt to be able to throw your arms around your daughter after two years. He seems to be talking about the Christian faith dividing up families. I've always thought the essence of the Christian faith should be to strengthen families, to hold marriage as sacred and the role of parenting just as sacred.

We have to remember of course, the circumstances in which Jesus is saying what he is saying. He's about to get arrested and crucified. He's heading into Jerusalem where it's going to happen. And he has a sense of what is going to happen in the persecution of his followers, where there is going to be division and it's going to be in families. If anything, Jesus words are a symbol of the very pain he's going to go through in the next few days after he says this. Even his closest friend is going to deny him.

Sometimes, when we are standing up for something really worthwhile, we will find ourselves in diametric opposition to the people we love. And it's at those sort of times that we have to find out what is most important to us. But there is no excuse in these words of Jesus for a self righteousness, for a lack of consideration for our families in the name of Christian duty. Quite the opposite. Jesus was quite scathing of people who ignored their financial and emotional responsibility to their families in the name of religion.

What he's talking about is that inevitability in the tensions after his death, there would be people who would have to choose between what their family wanted and what they themselves believed. Jesus knew all about that. His own family at one stage came and tried to stop him preaching because they thought he had lost it. He wasn't being a good conformist and that always unsettles comfortable people. Jesus made it clear that if it came to a choice, the closest ties he had were with God.

I love my daughter, and my son, his wife, the grandchildren, and my wife very, very much. If ever I was faced with a choice between them and my Christian faith, that would be an incredibly painful and heart-rending choice, and I know I would rather face anything than that sort of choice. What Jesus is doing in this passage is letting his disciples know that he understands the pain some of them are going to have to go through. What Luke is doing in recalling this in his book, is letting his fellow Christians know that Jesus understands what they are facing in the world of persecution and very heart rending choices, in the days of the early church.

This isn't a validation of hard-headed carelessness regarding service to God at the expense of family. It is a heart-felt expression of compassion from Jesus for people who are faced with heart rending situations. If you are finding conflict in your home because of your faith, if you are finding people you love don't understand your passion for the Christian gospel, and don't support you in it, Jesus understands the pain and the hurt of that, and his Spirit will be with you. But whatever happens, we, as Christ's followers are called to follow Him, and to do that is to express profound love, especially when people don't really understand what we are on about, especially to the people whom we are bound to in family. We who follow Christ are called to love more, not less.

What Jeremiah, in this mornings reading, calls people to do is to be honest. What Jesus calls people to do is to love God and each other with profound love. What the Apostle Paul calls us to do, is to always be honest, but to do it in love. "Always speaking the truth in Love" are the words in the letter to the Ephesian church.

We cannot hide what we believe for the sake of harmony. But nor can we hold what we believe without wanting harmony with all our hearts. And it is in that passion to love, that desire for honesty in love, that Christians will find they are most likely to be God's blessing to the folk they love, to the people of their family.

May God give us all wisdom in loving our families, wisdom in loving our faith, and the Spirit of God to lead us as we are true to both.

Amen