Distill, Divide, Interpret the Signs, and Decide

TranscriptioN

Good morning. I come from a long line of women with green thumbs. I'm not a horticulturist, but I'm more of a piddler, and I enjoy rooting plants. I normally have a puddle of plant clippings that I am rooting on my kitchen counter by my kitchen sink. This summer, I've had several clippings of impatiens that are rooting, and here's what the clippings looked like when I started. And then, here's my puddle of clippings on my kitchen counter.

I look over these clippings each time I wash dishes at the sink, and this week I noticed they weren't really flourishing. But I looked into the containers they were in, and I could see healthy roots growing in them, so I moved on. But Thursday morning, I looked over at my clippings while washing breakfast dishes, and I saw this: there were a lot of leaves missing, and some small things on the counter. You can see down there on the lower half of it, and these had multiplied. Frankly, these droppings on the counter panicked me, so I began looking up the exterminator's phone number.

My husband, Chris, consulted ChatGPT—you know, the newest version of YouTube for all the do-it-yourselfers. ChatGPT suggested that there was a beetle or a caterpillar, and that's a big improvement from what I thought was going on. When I looked closer, this is what I saw. Oh my word—how in the world had this giant caterpillar been right under my nose the past several days? I had washed dishes just inches from it all week long. I had seen these tiny little black things on the counter, and I had just ignored them. As I studied my rootings, I realized there was a lot more damage than I had been willing to see. These sweet, tender plants could die. They didn't look anything like they once had. I wondered how all this had been going on right in front of me, and I had missed the signs.

In our Gospel text today in Luke, we have a really tough passage to interpret. There's a lot of energy in it, and I find that when things are too uncomfortable, or if you push me too hard, sometimes I just let things go right over my head, or I feign ignorance, or I turn the other way. Does anybody here do the same? Or if something is incomprehensible to me—like how a giant caterpillar got inside my house and ate my baby plants—I might tune it out completely. Exhibit A. Can you relate to this, or is it just me?

I find that with Scripture, there are passages like this one that can be both terribly uncomfortable and really incomprehensible. We just don't have the background, the culture, or the understanding of the culture to fully grasp them. So sometimes we let them go over our heads or just move on. Doing this—as understandable as it is—causes us to miss the signs that Jesus is giving us to shape our lives as disciples.

This is a difficult tone in this passage, coming from Jesus, and these are challenging words. But I believe if we face the discomfort, we can dive in, knowing that the Gospel is good, and that the nature of Jesus is good. He always brings light, hope, and goodness. We can make sense of this message and allow it to challenge and encourage us today.

So let me set this up for you. At this point in the Gospel of Luke, we're on the road with Jesus as he is teaching the crowds and his disciples. In previous chapters and verses leading up to this one, he's been teaching important lessons crucial to the life of a disciple. We'll actually learn in the next chapter that he is on his way to Jerusalem, where he will fulfill what he is called to do on the cross in order to secure our salvation. The end of his time on earth is now in sight—distantly in sight—but we are on that road now. So things are getting real.

You know when you don't have a lot of time left with someone you love, you really begin to focus. You hone in, and you tell them the things you need them to know. When Chris and I would leave our kids with a babysitter, he'd be out in the car waiting on me. I'd be running through the list, finishing up the details with the kids and the sitter. I'd be getting more and more focused, and the last things I would say were the things I wanted to be sure they knew: "That one needs a bath. That one needs to do homework. And they all need to be in bed by nine. Thank you, I'm out."

Or, on a more serious note, I can remember one of the last things my father instructed me as he knew his death was imminent. He said, "Cat, when I'm gone, I want you to grieve for me. Grieve a while, and then I want you to get up and move on." He was very stern, very serious, because I'm not sure he believed I would do it. That was 30 years ago this summer, but I did it.

So we find Jesus teaching here—hard, but helpful—about discipleship and life in God's kingdom, the things we really need to know. In this short, pivotal passage, Jesus is clarifying his mission. He's painting a vivid picture of who he is and what he's doing. He distills, he divides, and he gives us the signs to interpret and decide.

In this passage, Jesus teaches the crowds and disciples that he brings a fire of judgment that distills and purifies. It will fully immerse him in suffering, and it will divide even the strongest, most fundamental relationships. He seems, honestly, a bit exasperated—"You hypocrites!" He seems frustrated that people can recognize the patterns the world gives them to plan for their future, as would be true in an agricultural society, but they refuse to interpret the clear signs he is giving about his kingdom at hand—which is, in fact, their real future, their spiritual future.

And maybe the toughest part of this passage is where Jesus says, "Do you think I have come to bring peace on earth? No, I tell you, but rather division." I had to sit and think about that for a minute. Didn't Isaiah call Jesus "Prince of Peace"? Didn't Jesus promise his disciples to give them peace? Didn't the angels, when announcing Jesus' birth in their proclamation to the shepherds, talk about Jesus bringing peace? You know this: "Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, goodwill toward men." That's the King James Version we sing every Christmas. (You're welcome that I didn’t sing it for you today.)

But newer translations, like the ESV, actually state: "Glory to God in the highest, and peace among those with whom he is pleased." In other words, this peace will be for those who have decided to follow him. This distinction gives us a clue to today's startling teaching of Jesus.

Jesus’ mission is to distill those who decide to follow him from those who don’t, and this distilling or purifying brings division. The whole package of Jesus is so powerful that making the decision to follow him divides even the most fundamental relationships there are. And in Jesus’ context, and often in our own, that is within our families.

Jesus gives quite a litany here: they’ll be divided—father against son, son against father, mother against daughter, daughter against mother, mother-in-law against her daughter-in-law, and daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law.

It’s interesting to note that part of John the Baptist’s mission, when he came ahead of Jesus, was to turn the hearts of parents to their children. That is God’s desire. He doesn’t want families to be divided. Jesus is not announcing that he’s coming in order to divide us from the people we love. Actually, Jesus is giving his followers straight talk: to follow him will inevitably divide them from those who don’t.

We need to hear this message today. To know and love Jesus is to know and love the truth. Jesus says about himself in John 14, “I am the way, the truth, and the life, and no one comes to the Father but by me.” Jesus, being the truth, brings reconciliation to God, but because some people won’t choose him, it brings division. And division from those you love—especially those closest to you—is painful.

Jesus was preparing his followers, and he’s preparing us, so that we can interpret the signs of the kingdom and follow him wholeheartedly. Only reconciliation with God can bring eternal and lasting peace. Truth can unify, but honestly, in the world today, it more often divides. It distills; it purifies.

Peace is found in God through Jesus Christ, the Prince of Peace—but not in the world. Any idea of peace that is created by man apart from God is an unsustainable, fleeting mirage that will dissipate in time. As believers, we pray for peace. We pursue peace on earth because reconciliation with God is our peace. Peace with God overflows our hearts and lives as we abide in Christ, living in union with him, and this peace touches the world.

Any other attempt at peace is missing the fundamental foundation of reconciliation that comes only from God and the work of Jesus. We need to hear this truth today because we are called to be both light and love to our brothers and sisters who do not follow him. We are not to disdain them or be in enmity with them. They are in enmity with him. We are called to love them, to serve them, to pray for them, and hopefully to lead them to him. Even though we’re divided, we are not called to follow them—we are called to follow Christ, even if that divides us.

I recall more times than I care to count having conversations with former members of our church in Charleston who had stopped attending. I would ask, “Is everything okay?” And if they were honest, they would explain that their young adult child—the one we had baptized, discipled, and confirmed—had decided to follow some other teaching rather than Christ. Either the science of atheism, Buddhism, or some new spiritual awakening—something that wasn’t Jesus. And so they were now divided, and they could not stand to be divided. So in order not to be divided from their child, they chose to follow their child and their new teachings rather than the truth of Jesus.

But I can also tell you heartwarming stories of other friends who held on to their belief in Jesus, even when divided from their child. Eventually, their child returned to the faith. I’ve seen it happen with parents as well, both ways.

Romans tells us that it is the kindness of the Lord that leads man to repentance, and it’s true. Jesus’ urgency in this passage is well-founded. He is waking his followers up to interpret the signs right in front of them—that the kingdom is at hand. It’s beginning now, so that they’re prepared for their future with him. He clarifies his mission: he is distilling and dividing, and you must interpret these signs and decide.

He says he came to bring fire to the earth, and he wishes it were already kindled. What’s he talking about—this fire? Then he says he has a baptism with which to be baptized, and he’s constrained until he accomplishes it.

“Fire” is an important word in Scripture. It’s used often pertaining to God and to Jesus. I could write several sermons about it, but I digress. For this passage, in three of the Gospels—Matthew, Luke, and John—John the Baptist announces Jesus, stating that he will baptize with the Holy Spirit and with fire. The scholar F.F. Bruce writes that in Greek, the word “fire” can also mean spirit, breath, or wind.

Earlier in Luke, John the Baptist adds to his announcement about Jesus: “His winnowing fork is in his hand to clear the threshing floor and to gather the wheat into his granary, but the chaff he will burn with unquenchable fire.” So even though “fire” is sometimes connected to the Holy Spirit, in this passage it indicates distilling, purifying, sifting, and separating.

In John’s words, Jesus’ mission will purify, and it will burn like wildfire, leaving absolutely no one untouched. Jesus longs for that fire to be started. The fire is linked to his baptism.

Now, what is this baptism Jesus is speaking of? We’ve already seen him baptized. This is where the passage feels a bit incomprehensible. Jesus is bringing fire, he’s getting baptized again, and he’s under constraint until it’s completed. What’s going on?

Jesus is using the language of baptism here to express his desire to do the will of God. He received a baptism of repentance at the start of his ministry, though he had no sins to repent of. He willingly chose to identify with humanity, following God’s will that we turn away from our sins and be baptized. But now, he’s going to be immersed in the pit of death—again, identifying with humanity, with you and me, and with the curse of sin we carry. He will take that curse on our behalf, even to death, and destroy it by conquering death.

One scholar notes that baptism here is a metaphor for Jesus facing a period of being uniquely inundated with God’s judgment. In both Matthew and Mark, when James and John ask to sit at his right and left hand, Jesus replies: “Are you able to drink the cup I drink or be baptized with the baptism I am baptized with?” In other words: Are you able to share in my suffering and death?

It’s hard language.

So Jesus is telling us he’s bringing fire to the world. He will distill it, even as he suffers for the world, and this will divide even the closest of relationships. At this point, he’s been with them for nearly three years. He’s inaugurated the kingdom of God. For everyone watching—including us—we’ve seen him restore sight to the blind and wholeness to the lame. In that culture, without disability aid, these healings restored people not just physically, but socially and economically. The lepers he healed were no longer ostracized. They could return to families, communities, and worship. He restored far more than bodies; he restored lives.

He delivered people from demons. He raised the dead—a hint of the resurrected life to come. And still, the people missed the signs.

Jesus calls them hypocrites for knowing the signs of the weather but not the signs of the kingdom. They knew the prophecies. They had the Scriptures. Yet they missed the Messiah standing before them.

Jesus is still distilling and dividing, and he calls us today to interpret the signs of his kingdom, already begun, and to decide.

That caterpillar on my kitchen counter had been there awhile. The signs were right in front of me, inches from where I washed dishes, but I ignored them. That creature was tearing through my tender rootings, ready to metamorphosize into new life. I wasn’t paying attention.

When I give my testimony, I share that one of the core lies I believed for most of my life was that I didn’t belong anywhere—not to my family, not to any group of friends. My testimony to the power of knowing and following Jesus is that he defeated that lie. I do belong. I belong to Jesus. And if you have been distilled and divided, and interpreted the signs and decided, you belong with me to Jesus. This is our family.

We are in the family of Jesus. The time is upon us. That is the urgency in this passage, and in Jesus’ tone: to share the good news of the kingdom everywhere we can, especially with those from whom we’re divided. We have the best news in the world.

For that, we can all say: Thanks be to God.

 Transcribed by TurboScribe.ai. Edited using ChatGPT.