Seek division

 Luke 12:49-53

“I came to bring fire to the earth, and how I wish it were already kindled! I have a baptism with which to be baptised, 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.”

Not a gospel I wanted to encounter today

as I celebrated Eucharist

Not a text I wished to contemplate

as we wonder what on earth is going on in the world

and as we fervently pray for peace

And yet a gospel that tells it like it is

A gospel that doesn’t shy away from the mess of relationships

and the carnage of being human

of living alongside difference

in all it’s vulnerability and power

A gospel that calls us to account

for all the ways we are indifferent

choosing the way of least resistance

that leads to an easy life.

Just maybe we are called

by the God of peace

to side with the poor and oppressed

to stand with the persecuted 

to hunker down with the hopeless

and to wail with the bereft

To take sides in conflict

and not side with the oppressor by our passivity

in the face of injustice.

Perhaps this is just the kind of gospel

I need to hear today

to strengthen my resolve

to be where God is

on the side of love at all costs

and in the divisions that may cause.

Liz Crumlish October 2023