Science and God

Sermon prepared for Science Sunday, St Paul's Evangelical Lutheran Church, Rye Brook, N.Y., February 12, 2023.

Two years ago one of my former pastors, John P. “Jack” Irwin, died of Covid-19 at the age of 95.

Jack was an amateur astronomer. In the mid-1960s, when the United Church Youth Fellowship met on Sunday nights, he would show black-and-white slides of stars, nebula, and universes light years away. We looked at pictures of alpha centauri, a triple star system that is the closest to our own sun.

By “closest,” Jack explained, it would take a beam of light, traveling at 186,000 miles per second, four and a third years to reach it.

Jack showed other slides of solar systems a hundred and a thousand light years away. In a darkened living room, with Jack’s soothing voice describing the far reaches of space, it was difficult to stay awake. But when the lights came on and we blinked against the brightness, Jack asked a question none of us ever forgot:

“How many of you,” he asked, “have a concept of God that is as large as outer space?”

I suppose we were 15 or 16 years old and certainly we didn’t think of God as an entity of astrophysics. God and science were two different things, God being a powerful but approachable figure some call “the man upstairs;” and science, by contrast, is the empirical exercise of verifying phenomena by observation and experience rather than pure speculation.

Until Jack Irwin’s slide show blew our minds, we were content to keep our notion of God within reasonable bounds, perhaps as a white-bearded grandpa figure who created the world a few thousand years ago and raised Jesus from the dead.  There was no reason to assume the bible was not literally true.

In many respects, we adolescents were at the same intellectual and emotional stage as millions of people in the mid-19th century. Back then most people kept their idea of God under reasonable constraints, and when God said, “Let there be light” (Genesis 1:3), it was not necessary to explain how God did it.

Then in 1859, scientist Charles Darwin published On the Origin of Species, a meticulously documented study that concluded plants and animals responded to changes in their environment by passing their strongest traits on to future generations. 

Today this idea of natural selection and evolution is generally accepted in biological studies.

But Origin of Species exploded like a bomb in church circles in 1859. If, for example, apes could theoretically evolve into thinking and talking beings – if, in fact, human ancestors were monkeys – then humans were not just a little lower than the angels, but just a little higher than the simians.

Church leaders and politicians responded to Origin of Species with rage. It’s worth noting that both Charles Darwin and Abraham Lincoln, born on February 12, 1809, were portrayed as apes by cartoonists of the day.

But it may have been the poets of the Victorian era that felt the pain of Darwin most deeply. Suddenly they were confronted with a God who was not an all powerful and generally benign creator, but an inattentive God who was allowing creation to develop on its own.

If you were a literature major in school, you may have read Thomas Hardy’s “Hap,” a depressing poem in which he lamented good and evil were governed by mere happenstance. If God was causing pain, Hardy wrote,

Then would I bear it, clench myself, and die,
Steeled by the sense of ire unmerited;
Half-eased in that a Powerfuller than I
Had willed and meted me the tears I shed.

But not so.   How arrives it joy lies slain,
And why unblooms the best hope ever sown?
—Crass Casualty obstructs the sun and rain,
And dicing Time for gladness casts a moan. . . .
These purblind Doomsters had as readily strown
Blisses about my pilgrimage as pain.

In the United States, the reaction to Origin of Species was simpler. Many states made it illegal to teach the theory of evolution.

In 1925, in one of the best known confrontations between biblical inerrancy and free thought, the state of Tennessee accused high school teacher John Thomas Scopes of violating the Butler Act, which forbade teachers from teaching evolution in any state-funded school.

The issue came to blows in the “Scopes Monkey Trial” in which perennial presidential candidate William Jennings Bryan defended the inerrant bible, and famed criminal lawyer Clarence Darrow defended John Scopes.

The trial was staged to draw attention to the issue. Bryan and Darrow sparred over the issue of biblical literalism and in the end Scopes was convicted and ordered to pay a $100 fine.

But history remembers Darrow’s defense of the sacredness of ideas, as recorded in the 1960 film, Inherit the Wind. As Henry Drummond, representing Darrow, Spencer Tracy declares the divinity of

“The individual human mind. In a child’s power to master the multiplication table there is more sanctity than in all your shouted ‘Amens!‘, ‘Holy, Holies!’ and ‘Hosannahs!’ An idea is a greater monument than a cathedral. And the advance of man’s knowledge is more of a miracle than any sticks turned to snakes, or the parting of waters!”

The theory of evolution signifies the miracle of the advance of human knowledge. Even so, we know it is still illegal to teach it in many parts of our country – just as it is illegal to teach Critical Race Theory, the 1619 project, the lingering effects of slavery in America, and the genocide of indigenous peoples in our land.

Origin of Species continues to be a threat to right wing Christianity and in many churches Charles Darwin is regarded as the Great Satan. I learned as a Baptist magazine editor that dropping Darwin’s name caused subscription cancellations and angry letters.

I sometimes suspected some of the readers of The American Baptist magazine would have been happier subscribing to Answers in Genesis magazine, still readily available on your smart phone at answersingenesis.org.

In the “answers” section of this web page we learn the following:

1. The earth is approximately 6,000 years old. “If we believe the earth is billions of years old and shows no sign of a worldwide Flood,” we are reminded, “then that belief contradicts the biblical account of Noah. If we accept God’s testimony regarding the Flood, we cannot logically believe in millions of years.”

2. All animals that now populate the earth are the genetic descendants of the animals rescued on Noah’s ark.

3. Dinosaurs were among the land animals God created on the sixth day of creation, which was about six thousand years ago. According to answers.org, dinosaurs and humans existed at the same time. I imagine the massive tyrannosaurus rex reaching out helplessly with its tiny arms to snatch a panicky human being from a cave. For some, The Flintstones is a scientific documentary.

4. Finally, the bible is the inspired, infallible word of God, Adam and Eve were real people, and the bible provides the “correct chronology” of human history on our very young planet.

It’s no wonder science and particularly Darwin are such fearsome threats to many people. 

I was a bit surprised a few years ago when Martha, Katie and I visited Westminster Abby in London and discovered that Darwin is buried there among the monarchs, clergy, politicians, and poets who Britain reveres.

Charles Darwin is not the Great Satan in England. In fact his image is on the 10-pound note. In England, Darwin is remembered as a faithful Anglican layman whose theory of natural selection and evolution were not intended to challenge faith. On the contrary, they vastly expand our concept of God and our scientific understanding of the intricate details of God’s creative miracles.

For many, On The Origin of Species had the same effect on intellect and faith as Pastor Irwin’s question had on his youth group so long ago:

How many of us have a concept of God that is as large as the theory of evolution?

How many of us have a concept of God that is as large the new vastness of space revealed by NASA’s Webb telescope?

How many of us have a concept of God that is as large as the ideas that have developed in human brains 

To create vaccines for serious illnesses? 

To write the computer codes for space travel?

To write the computer codes for diagnostic tools such as CAT scans and MRI’s to maintain our health?

Science expands our concept of God to the very limits of human imagination. And because of Charles Darwin, God is bigger, not smaller. And while we draw breath on this earth, we will never truly comprehend the infinite vastness of God.

C.S. Lewis, the great Christian writer and teacher, wrote an Evolutionary Hymn so show his faith in the vastness of God:

Lead us, Evolution, lead us
Up the future's endless stair;
Chop us, change us, prod us, weed us.
For stagnation is despair:
Groping, guessing, yet progressing,
Lead us nobody knows where.

Wrong or justice, joy or sorrow,
In the present what are they
while there's always jam-tomorrow,
While we tread the onward way?
Never knowing where we're going,
We can never go astray.

To whatever variation
Our posterity may turn
Hairy, squashy, or crustacean,
Bulbous-eyed or square of stern,
Tusked or toothless, mild or ruthless,
Towards that unknown god we yearn.

Ask not if it's god or devil,
Brethren, lest your words imply
Static norms of good and evil
(As in Plato) throned on high;
Such scholastic, inelastic,
Abstract yardsticks we deny.

Far too long have sages vainly
Glossed great Nature's simple text;
He who runs can read it plainly,'
Goodness = what comes next.'
By evolving, Life is solving
All the questions we perplexed.

Amen.

Dark Days for the Baptizer

Sermon prepared for Epiphany Lutheran Church in the Bronx, December 11, 2022.

Today we celebrate the third Sunday in Advent by lighting the pink candle symbolizing the joy of the season.

It’s good that we keep this joy in our hearts because the scripture this morning is a bit of a downer. 

John the Baptizer is in prison because he because he spoke truth to power. He rebuked the king, Herod Antipas, for divorcing his wife Phasaelis and unlawfully marrying his brother’s wife, Herodias.

There is no way this could end well for John.

We can imagine the Baptizer in a dark cell, trying to keep his spirits up. But he is clearly at the end of the line of his prophetic ministry and doubts begin to cross his mind. In his desolation he calls upon his followers to go to Jesus and ask, 

“Are you the one who is to come, or are we to wait for another?” (Matthew 11:2-3)

This is a shocking question from Jesus’ own kinsman. John knew all his life that he has been called by God to prepare the way of the Lord. John had seen the heavens open when he baptized Jesus and heard God’s voice express pride and pleasure in God’s son. We can only guess the depth of John’s despair that made him doubt himself, his life, and now he is feeling doubts about the Messiah’s legitimacy. It’s almost as if, in his desperation to restore his faith, he sends a message to Jesus asking, “are you for real? I think you are but I need to check.”

John, son of Zechariah, was born to play a supporting role for the greatest event in history. He clearly accepted his role, telling his disciples, “One who is more powerful than I is coming after me; I am not worthy to stoop down and untie the thong of his sandals. I have baptized you with water; but he will baptize you with the Holy Spirit.” 

As far as modern scholars are concerned, John is not number one in the drama of world redemption. He’s number two. In other words, the Baptist is the greatest second banana in history.

But as he sits in his darkened prison, assured of an imminent execution, is he struggling with doubts about this celestial assignment?

We know from objective observation that second bananas are not always content with their second fiddle fare (to expand the metaphor), nor are they enamored with those who cast the shadows in which they walk.

Vice President Thomas Jefferson smiled sardonically as his followers accused President John Adams of having a “hideous hermaphroditical character, which has neither the force and firmness of a man, nor the gentleness and sensibility of a woman.” Jefferson may not have used the words, but he could have said, “I’m Thomas Jefferson and I approve this message.”

During the Second World War, British Field Marshall Bernard Law Montgomery dismissed his superior, General Dwight D. Eisenhower, with four words: “Nice chap, no soldier.” More than once, Monty tried to take over Eisenhower’s job as allied field commander in Europe.

Vice President Harry S Truman described his boss, President Franklin D. Roosevelt, as “the coldest man I ever knew,” and “a faker.”

Vice President Richard Nixon, who owed everything to President Eisenhower, called Ike “devious,” although he added a Nixonian qualification that he meant the word in its “best sense.” 

Vice President Lyndon Johnson hid his contempt for President John F. Kennedy, whom he regarded as a callow playboy who was physically not up to the job. According to his biographer Robert Caro, LBJ would put his thumb and forefinger together to demonstrate the circumference of JFK’s ankle, suggesting Kennedy was neither physically nor temperamentally fit for power.

In fact, virtually every empire and geopolitical entity in the world has had its usurpers. Second Bananaship inevitably fuels a drive to the top job.

Church historians and cynical observers have wondered if John the Baptist was content with the role. Did he, in fact, actually think of himself as a Second Banana?

The biblical and historic record suggests he was an extraordinarily gifted man with a magnetic personality who attracted thousands to his watery warren in the Jordan River and acknowledged no authority but God’s. He had innumerable disciples who followed him faithfully.

John’s father, Zechariah, foresaw a starring role for the boy:

“And you, child, will be called the prophet of the Most High; for you will go before the Lord to prepare his ways, to give knowledge of salvation to his people by the forgiveness of their sins. By the tender mercy of our God, the dawn from on high will break upon us, to give light to those who sit in darkness and in the shadow of death, to guide our feet into the way of peace.” (Luke 1:76-79)

Later, Luke introduces John with historical precision, marking for posterity the time and place he first appeared:

In the fifteenth year of the reign of Emperor Tiberius, when Pontius Pilate was governor of Judea, and Herod was ruler of Galilee, and his brother Philip ruler of the region of Ituraea and Trachonitis, and Lysanias ruler of Abilene, during the high priesthood of Annas and Caiaphas, the word of God came to John son of Zechariah in the wilderness. He went into all the region around the Jordan, proclaiming a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins, as it is written in the book of the words of the prophet Isaiah, “The voice of one crying out in the wilderness: ‘Prepare the way of the Lord, make his paths straight. Every valley shall be filled, and every mountain and hill shall be made low, and the crooked shall be made straight, and the rough ways made smooth; and all flesh shall see the salvation of God.’” (Luke 3:1-6) 

 If there was ever a religious or political leader qualified to think of himself as number one, it was John the Baptist. He is one of a small handful of bible characters who appear in extra-biblical accounts. He is mentioned by the Jewish historian Josephus and he plays a prophetic role in the Qur’an. According to the Encyclopedia of Islam, Yahya ibn Zakkariya, Sufi Muslims hold John in high regard because of the Qur’an’s account of his astute wisdom, unfailing kindness, and sexual purity.

John’s significance as a prophet and first century evangelist has led some scholars to theorize his Second-Banana-to-Jesus status was an after thought made up by uneasy Christians seeking a credible cover story. The fact that Jesus was among several thousand who came to John for baptism suggests to some – including scholars who work so hard to destroy the faith of innocent seminarians – that Jesus initially thought of himself as a disciple of John. All the prophetic references casting John in the role of the “voice crying in the wilderness” to prepare the way for the Messiah came later, these cynics say, to explain why Jesus was baptized by John, a mere Second Banana. 

I think all this distrusting skepticism is understandable.

Most of us find it hard to respect Second Bananas, or to trust them to be loyal to the person at the top. History is too full of Second Bananas who were driven to push their bosses aside and snatch the power away.  

Ideally, Second Bananas should not threaten their bosses. And John the Baptist was no comical sidekick, so some scholars have had difficulty thinking of him as a prophet who would be comfortable as a number two.

The skepticism is understandable because it is so difficult to accept the logic of Jesus’ oxymoronic declaration: “So the last will be first and the first will be last.” (Matthew 20:16)

Jesus also made it clear what happens to Second Bananas who seek to usurp power:

“You know that the rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them, and their great ones are tyrants over them. It will not be so among you; but whoever wishes to be first among you must also be your slave; just as the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.” (Matthew 20: 25-28)

Perhaps no one in history had a more important supporting role than John the Baptist.

He was, by his own declaration, not the Messiah. His role was to prepare the way, to call people to repentance, to remind them of the preeminence of God in human lives, and to open their hearts and minds to the coming of Jesus.

That may be only a supporting role, but it’s a great one.

When the imprisoned John asked Jesus if he was actually the Messiah, Jesus responds with understanding and love.

Jesus answered them, “Go and tell John what you hear and see:  the blind receive their sight, the lame walk, those with a skin disease are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, and the poor have good news brought to them. And blessed is anyone who takes no offense at me.”

And Jesus shows he has not lost faith in John:

As they went away, Jesus began to speak to the crowds about John: “What did you go out into the wilderness to look at? A reed shaken by the wind. What, then, did you go out to see? Someone dressed in soft robes? Look, those who wear soft robes are in royal palaces.  What, then, did you go out to see? A prophet? Yes, I tell you, and more than a prophet.  This is the one about whom it is written,

‘See, I am sending my messenger ahead of you,

    who will prepare your way before you.’

 “Truly I tell you, among those born of women no one has arisen greater than John the Baptist.

That is the testimony of Jesus, and that is the verdict of history.

John the Baptist is not the Messiah but neither is he a Second Banana.

In the eyes of God and all who seek to emulate his role every day, his status in the divine hierarchy is clear.

John made it clear with his life and message: Jesus is the Messiah.

John the Baptist is banana number one.

Ten Lepers; Luke17:11-19

Updated.

God Deliver Me From Riches

Sermon prepared for Epiphany Lutheran Church, Bronx, N.Y., September 25, 2022.

But Abraham said (to the rich man in Hades), ‘Child, remember that during your lifetime you received good things, and Lazarus in like manner received evil things; but now he is comforted here, and you are in agony. Besides all this, between you and us a great chasm has been fixed, so that those who might want to pass from here cannot do so, and no one can cross from there to us.’ Luke 16:25-26

No surprises here. Jesus routinely lambasted persons of wealth. Especially unpleasant is this anecdote of the rich man who basks in luxury, scarcely noticing the wretched beggar who dying of psoriatic ulcers and hunger beneath his table. The beggar dies and goes to heaven, while the rich man was consigned to the torments of hell. (Luke 16:19-31). 

Then there the story of the rich young man who abandoned Jesus when he was told to sell all he had and give the proceeds to the poor. (Matthew 19:21)

Too, there is Jesus’ famous clincher that it would be easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than for a rich person to get into heaven. (Mark 10:24)

And there are many other passages that show us God’s love for the poor and disdain for the rich.

James 2:2-5: For if a person with gold rings and in fine clothes comes into your assembly, and if a poor person in dirty clothes also comes in, and if you take notice of the one wearing the fine clothes and say, “Have a seat here, please,” while to the one who is poor you say, “Stand there,” or, “Sit at my feet,” have you not made distinctions among yourselves, and become judges with evil thoughts? Listen, my beloved brothers and sisters. Has not God chosen the poor in the world to be rich in faith and to be heirs of the kingdom that he has promised to those who love him?

Proverbs 22:22-23 .Do not rob the poor because they are poor, or crush the afflicted at the gate; for the LORD pleads their cause and despoils of life those who despoil them. 

And on and on.

Bad news for Jeff Bezos. 

Bad News for Elon Musk. 

Bad news for the Koch brothers. Bad news for Ken Copeland and Creflo Dollar. 

And bad news for most of us. Because millions of us who fall far short of the celebrated one percent are nevertheless richer than any first century rich people could possibly imagine. 

Worse, most of us in that category are as indifferent to the nearly 40 million U.S. residents who live below the poverty line as the rich man was to Lazarus.

These are biblical warnings we should keep in mind the next time we wait hopefully in line to buy multi-million dollar lottery tickets. 

There’s almost no chance we would win, of course, but what if we do? It would ruin our lives. It would suck to be rich.

The other-worldly fate of the rich – almost certain hellfire – is sobering, but perhaps it is too finely drawn. Also dubious is the blissful eternity assigned to the poor. It’s too easy to take these verses and design a dialectic that all rich people are hell bound. And it is equally wrong to anesthetize desperately poor people with a promise of pie in the sky when they die.

But it’s also a bad idea to rationalize these biblical warnings away.  During my undergraduate years as Eastern University, I recall many spirited discussions between evangelicals and social-gospelers about whether a rich person could achieve a heavenly reward. We shrugged off the camel-through-a-needle analogy as hyperbolic humor on Jesus’ part, and we noted his codicil that “with God all things are possible.” (Matthew 19:26) What was harder to explain away was Jesus’ assertion that the rich man had to sell his many possessions and give his money to the poor, because it didn’t sound like he was kidding.

Eastern University (then Eastern Baptist College) provided an atypical academic experience in the late sixties. The beautiful campus offered a cloistered tranquility in Philadelphia’s bustling Main Line, but the times were anything but tranquil. By 1968, the Civil Rights Movement had been eclipsed by urban uprisings, the student protests against the Vietnam War had intensified, the eco-justice movement was budding, and students on sectarian campuses struggled to determine where God fit into it all. 

In some ways, Eastern and the sixties were in mystical sync. The biology department explained creation in the literal terms of the Genesis account, while the religion department insisted evolution was God’s creative modus operandi. There were about 500 students on campus, so everyone got to know everyone else by name, aptitude, and theological slant. Some were evangelicals who believed they were unconditionally saved and spent their time in choirs, prayer groups, and house-to-house visitation to pass out copies of “The Four Spiritual Laws” tract. Others joined the contrary group of social activists who demonstrated for peace and freedom and tried to look serious during anti-war demonstrations which were actually – shall we say – the grooviest of parties.

For those in the latter group, the epistle of James undergirded the basic principles of the social gospel: don’t favor the rich over the poor, love your neighbor, and faith without works is dead.

That seemed to belie the facile assurance of evangelical students that their faith in Jesus was the key to salvation, not their work in food pantries or peace marches.

Back then, social gospel Baptists were so insulated from other currents of Christianity that it was easy to dismiss once-saved-always-saved evangelicals as minions of trailer parks and tent crusades. 

Actually, the notion of “salvation by faith” was over 500 years old. Martin Luther declared it was the grace of God that saved people, not their goodness.

Luther, who systematically excised biblical books he didn’t like (declaring then “Apocrypha”), didn’t care for James’ smug missive, which he called “an epistle of straw.” 

Luther objected to the church’s habit of extorting “good works” from its beleaguered congregations for its own profit, and he declared a gospel of works was a tool of the devil.

Given the corruption of the church in Luther’s day, it’s hard to disagree with him.

In our day, however, James seems to be raising urgently legitimate questions:

What good is it, my brothers and sisters, if you say you have faith but do not have works? Can faith save you? If a brother or sister is naked and lacks daily food, and one of you says to them, “Go in peace; keep warm and eat your fill,” and yet you do not supply their bodily needs, what is the good of that? So faith by itself, if it has no works, is dead. James 2:14-17.

That’s another way of saying that if one truly has faith, good works must follow automatically. There can be no good works in the absence of faith. And if faith is present, good works cannot be stifled.

That’s a sobering thought for any faithful Christian who has stepped over a sleeping homeless person or brushed off a hungry pan-handler, as most of us do.

But most of us ignore human needs far greater than that and assuage our guilt in precisely the fashion James warns us about: by praying for the desperate, as if to invite them to “keep warm and eat your fill.”

For months, tens of thousands of Ukrainian migrants have streaming into Europe to escape certain death in the Russian invasion that has threatened their country's existence. After some debate and hesitation, the nations of Europe are opening their doors to thousands of refugees who might otherwise die on their journeys of escape.

But for persons of faith, this good work should have been automatic. Naturally we have been praying earnestly for poor and endangered people, but some Christian leaders proposed direct action – faith-based good works that can save lives. Pope Francis opened the doors of the Vatican to shelter families of refugees “fleeing death,” and he has called in Catholic parishes, convents, and monasteries across Europe to do the same.

There are, of course, an abundance of crises at home and abroad that cry out for us to prove the bona fides of our faith through good works.

According to the 2020 census, more than 37.9 million persons in the U.S. live below the poverty line, and most of them need more than our advice to keep warm and eat their fill. 

Not long ago, the United Nations general secretariat release this message:

“Projections indicate that in 2015 more than 600 million people worldwide will still be using unimproved water sources, almost one billion will be living on an income of less than $1.25 per day, mothers will continue to die needlessly in childbirth, and children will suffer and die from preventable diseases. Hunger remains a global challenge, and ensuring that all children are able to complete primary education remains a fundamental, but unfulfilled, target that has an impact on all the other Goals. Lack of safe sanitation is hampering progress in health and nutrition, biodiversity loss continues apace, and greenhouse gas emissions continue to pose a major threat to people and ecosystems. The goal of gender equality also remains unfulfilled, again with broad negative consequences, given that achieving the MDGs depends so much on women’s empowerment and equal access by women to education, work, health care and decision-making.”

Most of the world’s churches have endorsed the U.N.’s Millennium Development Goals that were originally set to alleviate these problems by 2015.

Some economists, including Jeffrey David Sachs, point out that a nation as rich as the United States has within its means the ability to wipe out poverty.

But a good work of that magnitude will require a lot more faith than has yet been manifest.

Some Christians, sanguinely saved by faith, even argue against the good works that could eliminate poverty. They quote Jesus that the poor will always be with us, and some intimate that people are poor because they don’t work hard enough.

We don’t need James to be reminded that kind of faith is dead.

And we don’t need the parable of Lazarus and the rich man to be reminded of another consequence we will never be allowed to forget:

It would be a curse to be rich.

On Commending Dishonesty When It Works

Updated.

Division and Fire

 
Luke 12:49-56

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 daughter-in-law and daughter-in-law against mother-in-law.” (Luke 12:49-53)

Oh, boy. 

Last week Jesus was calling us “little flock” and assuring us it is the Father’s good pleasure to give us the kingdom. (Luke 12:32). This week he’s bringing fire and division to the earth, and he describes a household that sounds like an extended family’s combative Thanksgiving dinner in the age of Trump.

We know Jesus’ life on earth was replete with many opponents and divisions. The devil challenged him in the wilderness, The members of the Nazareth synagogue tried throw him off a cliff. The Pharisees tried to catch him in legal conundrums. His own family thought he was crazy and tried to have him taken away. 

Now he is telling his disciples that the divisions will get worse as he brings fire – presumably a metaphorical fire, but who knows? – to the earth.

How we wish Jesus was still offering words of comfort to his “little flock.”

But if we look back on two millennia of church history we see he has a point. Since the earliest days, division and fire have been the most constant threads in church history.

So it was when his mother Mary realized what God was saying in her womb: “He has scattered the proud in the thoughts of their hearts. He has brought down the powerful from their thrones, and lifted up the lowly; he has filled the hungry with good things, and sent the rich away empty.” (Luke 1:51b-53.)

So it was when the baby Jesus was presented in the temple and Simeon declared to Mary, “This child is destined for the falling and the rising of many in Israel, and to be a sign that will be opposed so that the inner thoughts of many will be revealed – and a sword will pierce your own soul, too.” (Luke 2:34-35)

So it was years later when the first of Jesus’ followers came to loggerheads over whether uncircumcised gentiles could be Christians.

So it was in the first centuries of the church when factions and heresies developed over the very nature of Jesus and who he was: adoptionism which said Jesus was a human being who was “adopted” by God as his conception; Nestorianism, which said Jesus had two natures – man and God – which remained separate when he walked the earth; Docetism which said Jesus was not a real human being but only appeared so to those around him; and many more, all declared heresies that had to be corrected by the Nicene Creed adopted by the first Council of Nicaea in the year 325.

So it was during the Catholic Church’s Western Schism in the 14th century when popes and antipopes competed for power in Europe.

So it was when Martin Luther’s 95 theses led to the Protestant reformation in the 16th century, forever dividing the church.

And so it was when Lutherans splintered along ethnic lines: German Lutherans, Norwegian Lutherans, Swedish Lutherans, liberal Lutherans, Missouri Synod Lutherans.

Were it not for divisions and schisms, the church would not be what it is today.

Are these the divisions Jesus promised to bring with flames?

I spent several years on the staff of the World Council of Churches and the U.S. National Council of Churches. For both councils, Christian unity was an idealistic goal. The staffs spent much of their time preparing resources for the Week of Prayer for Christian Unity, an event that is observed each January in concert with the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops.

The prayers for unity have not been entirely successful. It has never been possible for all Christians to sit down together at the Lord’s common table to celebrate the Lord’s Supper. Catholic churches will not allow Protestant Christians to receive the Eucharist. Most Orthodox churches, even those who are members of the World and National Councils, will never sit down with other members to receive the blood and body of Christ. And as we all know, many Protestant churches and congregations bar non-members from the communion table.

Too, the churches cannot agree on styles of baptism – dripping or dunking – and Catholics, Orthodox, Pentecostals, and others refuse to ordain women as pastors and bishops, no matter how clear the call of the Holy Spirit may be.

The divisions are exhausting.

But are they exhausting because, as Jesus said, we do not know how to interpret the present time? (Luke 12:56)

It is a maxim of our time that our country has not been so alienated – politically and spiritually – since the Civil War.

What do we make of the rising clouds, the south wind, the scorching heat that are signs of our times?

For many years we have been feeling the scorching heat:

The heat of sisters and brothers in many of our churches who support political views based on lies, white supremacy, racism, antisemitism, islamophobia, and ethnic hatreds.

The heat of white supremacist crowds marching through the streets of Charlottesville chanting, “Jews will not replace us.”

The heat of racially motivated attacks and mass shootings aimed at African Americans, Muslims, Sikhs, Asians, Jews, and others.

The heat of persons on the far political right who threaten violence and even call for an armed civil war against properly elected leaders with whom they disagree, and against legitimate law enforcement agencies such as the FBI and local police.

The heat of popular media, including Fox News and a plethora of bloggers and talk radio jockeys, who spread lies so huge and so often that some people come to believe them.

Lies like: the 2020 election was stolen, inspiring thousands of people to storm the U.S. Capitol to threaten to kill the Vice president and other government officials in a violent coup attempt.

Are these facts too political for a sermon?

Many preachers have thought so.

Many preachers have kept quiet about these events in the name of Christian unity. Politics, they say, have no place in church. They threaten to stop giving to the church, they threaten to leave the church. It is better to be silent, many preachers feel, in order to keep the congregation calm and together.

Yet why would we be silent about a political movement based on lies, white supremacy, racism, antisemitism, islamophobia, and ethnic hatreds.

Is this silence consistent with the teachings of Jesus?

“I came to bring fire to the earth,” Jesus said, “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!” (Luke 12:49-50)

When Jesus talks about fire, we know very well he is not referring to the glowing logs in our fireplaces on a cold night. That kind of fire soothes us and makes us sleepy. It lulls us to quiet inaction when we are surrounded by threats and dangers all around us.

Could it be that Jesus is calling us to feel fire in our hearts – a burning commitment to be witnesses for justice?

Professor Jerusha Matsen Neal quotes the poet Mary Oliver in her book, What I Have Learned So far.

The fire Jesus brings “is a fire that, like Simeon’s piercing prophecy to Mary, tests the heart – revealing the thoughts of many and calling for a baptism of commitment.

“Oliver minces no words:

“’Be Ignited or begone.’”

As we strive to represent God’s truth and Jesus’ love amid the divisions and dangers of our times, may God give us the courage to be ignited.

What Will Jesus Find?

In today’s Gospel, Jesus’ message may be a little confusing. Is he telling us to fear not? Or is he telling us to be prepared?

I’ve always thought that Jesus’ assurances in Luke 12:32 are among the most comforting words he utters:

“Do not be afraid, little flock, for it is your Father’s good pleasure to give you the kingdom.”

But this is followed by a caveat or two:

Sell your possessions so no thief can break in and steal them. “For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.” (12:34)

And keep the lights on so you can open the door for your master when he returns from a wedding banquet, and the master will be so pleased he will feed you and serve you. (12:36-37)

And be constantly vigilant against thieves so your house will not be broken into. (12:39)

“You also must be ready,” Jesus warns, “for the Son of Man is coming at an unexpected hour.” (12:40)

What do we make of these decidedly mixed metaphors?

Jerusha Matsen Neal, assistant professor of homiletics at Duke University Divinity School, offers this observation:

“The movie Tinker, Tailer, Soldier, Spy (2011) is a puzzle of shifting espionage identities and double agents,” Dr. Neal writes. 

“What one sees is rarely what one gets. This week’s passage is full of shifting identities, as well. How else to explain a reading where a thief is described as both a threat (12:33) and creation’s salvation (12:39-40)? How else to account for metaphors that keep shapeshifting from verse to verse—particularly in relation to the Divine? One might call this week’s reading: Shepherd, Master, Servant, Thief.”

My mother, a Presbyterian elder, was determined to be prepared for that unexpected hour when the Lord returns. She kept the beds made, the dishes washed, and floors swept so the Lord would not suddenly appear and catch her with a messy house.

Of course my mother also sought to be spiritually prepared and she made sure her five children said their prayers at night and were scrubbed clean for Sunday worship at the United Church of Morrisville, N.Y.

But my mother’s strenuous preparedness made me wonder if she was anxious about the Lord’s return. Would he enter houses with white gloves to check for dust and untidiness? Would he suddenly appear when my brothers and I were pummeling each other on the living room floor and shout, “GOTCHA!”? What, indeed, were we to expect about the Lord’s return?

Clearly adults are not the only ones struggling with this question I first heard the joke in 1960 as my fellow adolescents were sitting around a campfire at Pathfinder Lodge, a Baptist camp near Cooperstown, N.Y.

“The good news is that Jesus is back.”

“What’s the bad news?”

“He’s pissed.”

This sounded dangerously impious to seventh graders and the counselor’s silent disapproval was accentuated by the snapping firewood and the gyres of sparks in the humid darkness. The censorious face of a counselor looks satanic in the red glow so we’d cautiously tongue our smores until the evening ended with choruses of kum-bah-yah and we could escape to our tents. There, we’d repeat the hazardous joke and squeal with laughter.

Actually, this is more a hermeneutic than a joke. It’s a brief, two-part sermon with yawning theological depth.

It forces us to ask ourselves: what is there in our world to gladden the heart of a returning savior?

Certainly if Jesus came back this morning and beheld the divisions and strife in our country – the proliferation of guns, the political lies, the racial and ethnic hatred - he would be enraged by our rigid inability to put his greatest commandment into practice: love God and love your neighbor. 

It would be a mistake to think Jesus is neutral about this brazen desecration of the great commandment. 

We might glance wistfully at pastel portrayals on our Sunday school walls, of “gentle Jesus, meek and mild,” the Jesus who tiptoes through the tulips with his entourage of happy children and docile lambs, and tell ourselves that anger is beneath him. 

But scripture makes it plain that Jesus had a temper that he could unleash with a righteous fury in the face of ignorance and hate. He scorned the self-important scribes as poseurs who “devour widows’ houses” (Luke 20:47). He denounced Pharisees and Lawyers as “full of greed and wickedness” (Luke 11:39), called them hypocrites” (Matthew 23:13), “blind guides,” “blind fools” (Matthew 23:16, 17), castigated them as  “brood of vipers” and asked how they could escape being sentenced to hell (Matthew 23:33). He condemned whole villages that rejected him, and predicted an intolerable judgment that would drag them en masse to hell (Luke 10:15). Most famously, he physically drove the money changers out of the temple, calling them “robbers” (Mark 11:17, Matthew 21:12-13).

Who, then, would escape the fury of Jesus?

We might figure that out by looking at the types of persons Jesus hung around with, some of whom are specifically named and others inferred: Pharisees (there were some he liked), tax collectors, officers of the despised Roman occupation, poor people, blind people, lepers, thieves, scoundrels, whores, adulterers, idolaters, LGBTQ persons, and Samaritans (e.g., persons perceived as having an intolerable religion akin to Muslims, Sikhs or Buddhists). When Jesus returns, we can be sure he will not waste time delineating between indigenous peoples and Mayflower descendants. But he will certainly be annoyed if he finds us arguing over which of us is legal and which is not.

And who made Jesus angry? The rich, the powerful, the upper classes, the religious elite, anyone who posed as superior to or exercised power over the persons Jesus loved most.

It’s a fair guess that when Jesus returns he will be angriest at the staunchly ignorant and hateful: persons who deem themselves to be in a higher class than others, persons who deem themselves to be a superior race, white supremacists who sing songs of hate that invite other ignoramuses to join the battle against people of color, or – the list is interminable – Westboro Baptist Church and its insane homophobia. (Perhaps you’ve seen the widely posted sermonette on social media: “Live your life in such a way that Westboro Baptist Church will want to picket your funeral.”)

Some haters are so whack that Jesus might actually take their dysfunction into consideration. He might be inclined to cut the incredibly ignorant some slack because, well, because of their incredible ignorance. 

But would the rest of us be so fortunate?

Jesus has taught us to love one another unconditionally, as God loves each of us. That does make you worry how Jesus will react to the vast majority of us Christians who can’t quite manage to love one another. For most of us, one of life’s greatest challenges is to tolerate persons we can’t stand. 

In my years as a church and newspaper journalist, I had ample opportunities to observe and participate in activities that must have angered Jesus.

I’ve seen congregations split for all sorts of reasons, most of them stemming from the inability of members to “live in love, as Christ loved us” (Ephesians 5:2). Of course churches come apart at the seams over issues of theology or pastoral leadership, but they have also divided over the color of paint in the sanctuary, the style of choir gowns, the artistic quality of banners, the timing of potluck suppers, the casting of the Christmas pageant, the animals chosen for the crèche, and the temperature of the coffee. 

Some of these childish divisions might actually make Jesus smile. Other foibles of human behavior may be less amusing and more destructive, such as family feuds, relationship betrayals, vicious gossip, rumor mongering, jealousy, office treachery, and condescension toward all. 

The Apostle Paul, in his letter to the rowdy Christians at Ephesus, summarized rules for behavior based on the simple command to love one another:

“Let no evil talk come out of your mouths, but only what is useful for building up, as there is need, so that your words may give grace to those who hear. And do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God, with which you were marked with a seal for the day of redemption. Put away from you all bitterness and wrath and anger and wrangling and slander, together with all malice, and be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, as God in Christ has forgiven you.” (Ephesians 4:29-32)

These are familiar words about niceness, but what if we take them seriously? If this is the standard of Christian behavior Jesus expects, the joke takes on deeper meaning: Jesus is back, and he’s mad.

If you generalize this standard of behavior to recent human history, it gets worse. Let’s pick an arbitrary date that has special interest to Americans and Europeans: 1492. That was ostensibly the year the Americas were discovered by European sailors with a missionary zeal to bring the aboriginal peoples to Christ. On the island of Hispaniola, 90 percent of native Tainos were dead by 1519 because the European Christians brought them the gifts of small pox and slavery. Somehow the Christians, who reputedly traveled with their bibles, missed the bit about being kind to one another.

As time went on, the concept of divine right of kings had effectively squashed any notion of Christian kindness. Henry VIII (1509-1547), after defying the church to divorce two wives who bored him and execute two more who annoyed him, tried to win back God’s favor by making it a capital offense to believe the Eucharistic host was merely bread. Perhaps these out-of-control megalomaniacs had already formed in their minds the excuse Dostoyevsky posited in Crime and Punishment (1866): that God placed some humans so far above their fellows that they need not adhere to biblical standards of behavior. It worked for Napoleon (1769-1841) but, as any literature major knows, not for Raskolnikov. (Read the book.) 

But there’s no point to trying to name history’s worst Christians. The list has no end, and there are days when it includes me.

So I contend the case is adequately made to support this theological syllogism:

Jesus is coming; Jesus is mad.

So what are we going to do when the trumpet sounds up yonder? Hide?

My instinct is to recall those moments of my youth (and perhaps a little older than my youth) when I realized I had really screwed up. I had broken a rule so fundamental, so inviolable, that no forgiveness was possible. 

Dare I confess it? When I was 17, I stole my father’s tractor to haul some discarded wood beams across town to a small cave, where my spelunking pals and I thought we could build a wooden doorway.

It didn’t work. The entrance to this cave was pure mud and bats, and no amount of lumber was going to change that. So we packed up the wagon and I drove the tractor home.

There, waiting for me at the top of the hill, was Dad. He waited for me with a red but expressionless face.

Jesus is back and he’s mad? Big deal. This was serious. This was my dad, and he was clearly annoyed. My impulse was to run. Maybe Dad’s impulse was to slap me upside the face, which – truth be told – would have been justified.

But what I remember about this incident, in addition to the horror of being caught, is that it ended okay. He didn’t kill me. He didn’t slap me upside the face. He just gave me one of those sad, disappointed looks that I remember to this day: the look of a father who loved me so much that his disappointment in my bad behavior was more painful for him than for me.

That, I suspect, is the kind of anger with which Jesus is returning. He’ll be mad. He’ll be hurt at our behavior. But his love for us will be the same.

Henry M. Nouwen wrote: 

“Jesus’ whole life was a witness to his Father's love, and Jesus calls his followers to carry on that witness in his Name.  We, as followers of Jesus, are sent into this world to be visible signs of God’s unconditional love.  Thus we are not first of all judged by what we say but by what we live.  When people say of us:  ‘See how they love one another,’ they catch a glimpse of the Kingdom of God that Jesus announced and are drawn to it as by a magnet.”

It’s not going to be easy. There are still going to be people we can’t stand. There are still temptations we can’t ignore. There is still the potential that we will make terrible mistakes, errors that will make Jesus mad.

But “in a world so torn apart by rivalry, anger, and hatred,” Nouwen writes, “We have the privileged vocation to be living signs of a love that can bridge all divisions and heal all wounds.”

Jesus is coming. And we sense the possibility that he is coming in anger.

But even more important: Jesus is coming in love. Jesus is coming with the message that God, who prepares a place us, loves us – all of us – unconditionally and endlessly.

May Jesus take loving note of our futile efforts to “put away all bitterness and wrath and anger and wrangling and slander … and to be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another as God in Christ has forgiven us.”

And may we never cease our efforts to be seekers of sometimes impossible standards, to be members of a tiny sleeper cell of love amid all the hatred and cruelty and pain that surrounds us.