Please note that service recordings will resume when Rev. Moodie returns from leave. His first service back will be on Sunday 28th September.
The Cost of Peace - Luke 12:49–56
In our Gospel Reading today we read these words from Jesus:
“I came to bring fire to the earth, and how I wish it were already kindled! … Do you think I have come to bring peace to the earth? No, I tell you, but rather division.”
It’s a jarring text. What on earth is Jesus going on about? We’re accustomed to hearing Jesus called the Prince of Peace (Isaiah 9:6), the one whose birth was heralded by angels saying, “Peace on earth, goodwill to all” (Luke 2:14). And yet here, in Luke’s own Gospel, that same Jesus says not peace, but division.
How do we make sense of Jesus words? Is he the Prince of Peace or isn’t he?
Did Jesus just wake up in a bad mood? Or is there something deeper that we are being asked to consider? To explore these questions I would like to briefly tell 3 stories:
Beyers Naudé was born in 1915 into one of the most respected Afrikaner families in South Africa. His father had been a chaplain to the boers during the Boer War and a founding member of the Afrikaner Broederbond (Brotherhood / Bond-of-Brothers), the secret society that shaped much of Afrikaner political life.
Beyers Naudé followed in his father’s footsteps. He studied theology, became a Dutch Reformed minister, joined the Broederbond, and at first fully accepted apartheid as God’s will for South Africa.
Then cracks began to appear for him. Reports from missionaries, voices from black Christians, and his own reading of Scripture began to trouble him. After the Sharpeville massacre in 1960 when 91 peaceful protesters were gunned down in Sharpville, south of Johannesburg, he could no longer reconcile the Gospel of Jesus with a system that humiliated and oppressed people purely on the basis of race.
In 1963, when his church demanded that he choose between his ministry in the Dutch Reformed Church and his growing public opposition to apartheid, Beyers Naudé chose to follow what he understaood to be Christ’s call to justice. He resigned from his pulpit.
His last Sunday at the church where he had ministered for many years was painful. He stood at the church door after the service, to greet the congregation as he always did. Some members came forward to shake his hand. But many, his own people, friends whose family members he had baptised and buried, couples he had married, walked straight past him without a word, some deliberately turning away from him. They could not forgive what they saw as his betrayal of the Afrikaner cause.
From that day, he was a man in exile within his own culture and people. Invitations dried up. Friends crossed the street to avoid him. His own community treated him as an enemy.
The story of Beyers Naudé’s is not unique. It is echoed in many other places and times in history around the world.
Martin Niemöller was a German Lutheran pastor, but before that, he had been a decorated German U-boat commander in World War I, a man of fierce German patriotism. Like many Germans in the 1930s, he welcomed Adolf Hitler’s promises to restore the nation’s pride.
When Hitler began to reshape the Protestant churches into a state-controlled “Reich Church”, Niemöller at first didn’t see the danger. But then the demands grew darker: pastors were to swear loyalty to the Führer, Jewish Christians were to be excluded from church life, and Biblical teaching began to be interpretted through the lense of Nazi ideology.
A turning point came when Martin Niemöller realised that the state was asking the Church to betray the plain teachings of Jesus, to love one’s neighbour as oneself, and to respect, love and show care for outsiders, the marginalised and the oppressed. He joined other pastors to form what was called the Confessing Church, declaring that loyalty to God and Jesus was more important than loyalty to the Führer, to the country or even the nation.
For that defiance, Niemöller was arrested in 1937. His congregation lost their pastor. Friends distanced themselves. The state-controlled church branded him a traitor. He spent seven years in Sachsenhausen and Dachau concentration camps.
Half a world away, and decades later, another pastor would walk a similar road.
In 1977, Oscar Romero was appointed Archbishop of San Salvador in El Salvador. The ruling elite in El Salvador breathed a sigh of relief. Romero was quiet, cautious, conservative. They thought as Archbishop he would keep the church out of politics while the military government waged its brutal campaign against dissent.
But then, only weeks after his appointment, Romero’s friend, Fr. Rutilio Grande, was gunned down for preaching that the poor were beloved of God and that injustice was sin. Romero went to view the body. He saw the bullet wounds. He saw the grief of the people. And something shifted deep in his soul.
From that day, Romero’s preaching changed. He began to name the violence for what it was. He spoke of those who had disappeared, the tortured, the murdered. He called on soldiers to disobey orders that went against God’s law.
The backlash was swift. Wealthy Catholics withdrew their support from the diocese. Some priests accused him of politicising the pulpit. Several bishops tried to isolate him. Death threats arrived daily.
And still, he stood in the pulpit, week after week, proclaiming the God of life in the face of a culture and a system of death.
On March 24, 1980, Romero stood at the altar celebrating Mass. As he lifted the bread and wine, a gunman stepped into the chapel and shot him through the heart. He died where he stood. At the altar—offering the peace of Christ to his people.
Getting back to our Gospel Reading how might these stories help us to understand Jesus words in Luke:
“I came to bring fire to the earth, and how I wish it were already kindled! … Do you think I have come to bring peace to the earth? No, I tell you, but rather division.”
What is the fire that Jesus comes to bring upon the earth if not the fierce and strong fire of Divine Love and Truth of God that cannot keep silent in the face of injustice. Speaking the Truth (even when it is done in Love – as it should always be done) is not always well received by others who have grown comfortable with the status quo that may be working for them, even if they might be dimly aware that it is not working for everyone. History shows that speaking up with the Fire of Divine Love and Truth against injustice can bring opposition and division, even dividing people from their family and close friends.
When the prophet Jeremiah spoke out against the injustices, idolatry, and corruption of his own people, he was mocked, beaten, imprisoned, and even thrown into a muddy cistern and left to starve in order to silence him. In Luke’s Gospel, the death of Jesus not so much framed as a sacrifice to atone for sins, but rather his death is a consequence of his identification with the poor, the oppressed and the outsider, and as he proclaims from the cross (according to Luke) “Father forgive them for they no not what they are doing”, Luke shows Jesus death not as a transaction for sin but as the ultimate revelation of God’s forgiving love.
And so according to Luke’s Gospel, the kind of peace that Jesus comes to bring on earth is not the superficial kind of peace that is built on injustice and often maintained with the barrel of a gun, or where difficulties are papered over and difficult discussions and debates are simply avoided. The kind of peace that Jesus comes to bring upon earth, according to Luke’s Gospel is one where the dignity of all people is respected, especially those at the bottom of society, and which may even require that those in privileged positions give up their privilege why, because it is built on and maintained by injustice and exploitation. It is a costly peace, for it end up costing Jesus his own life, put to death by the religious and secular authorities who found his message too threatening.
But the division Jesus speaks of in Luke 12 is not the end of the story, it is a temporary division, the lancing of the wound in order to bring a truer and deeper reconciliation and a truer and deeper peace, that according to the writer of Ephesians will ultimately embrace all things and all people when God will be All and In All. The Jesus who talks of fire and division in Luke 12:49-53 also speaks in John’s Gospel of being lifted up in order to draw all people to himself (John 12:32).
I close with words of Lutheran Pastor Martin Niemoller, written, I believe, while he was in prison in one of the concentration camps in Germany:
In prison, he wrote the haunting words that are quite famous today:
“First they came for the Socialists, and I did not speak out,
Because I was not a Socialist.
Then they came for the Trade Unionists, and I did not speak out,
Because I was not a Trade Unionist.
Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out,
Because I was not a Jew.
Then they came for me,
and there was no one left to speak for me.”
― Martin Niemöller
Who are those in our world today that we are being called to speak out for?
In our Gospel Reading today we read these words from Jesus:
“I came to bring fire to the earth, and how I wish it were already kindled! … Do you think I have come to bring peace to the earth? No, I tell you, but rather division.”
It’s a jarring text. What on earth is Jesus going on about? We’re accustomed to hearing Jesus called the Prince of Peace (Isaiah 9:6), the one whose birth was heralded by angels saying, “Peace on earth, goodwill to all” (Luke 2:14). And yet here, in Luke’s own Gospel, that same Jesus says not peace, but division.
How do we make sense of Jesus words? Is he the Prince of Peace or isn’t he?
Did Jesus just wake up in a bad mood? Or is there something deeper that we are being asked to consider? To explore these questions I would like to briefly tell 3 stories:
Beyers Naudé was born in 1915 into one of the most respected Afrikaner families in South Africa. His father had been a chaplain to the boers during the Boer War and a founding member of the Afrikaner Broederbond (Brotherhood / Bond-of-Brothers), the secret society that shaped much of Afrikaner political life.
Beyers Naudé followed in his father’s footsteps. He studied theology, became a Dutch Reformed minister, joined the Broederbond, and at first fully accepted apartheid as God’s will for South Africa.
Then cracks began to appear for him. Reports from missionaries, voices from black Christians, and his own reading of Scripture began to trouble him. After the Sharpeville massacre in 1960 when 91 peaceful protesters were gunned down in Sharpville, south of Johannesburg, he could no longer reconcile the Gospel of Jesus with a system that humiliated and oppressed people purely on the basis of race.
In 1963, when his church demanded that he choose between his ministry in the Dutch Reformed Church and his growing public opposition to apartheid, Beyers Naudé chose to follow what he understaood to be Christ’s call to justice. He resigned from his pulpit.
His last Sunday at the church where he had ministered for many years was painful. He stood at the church door after the service, to greet the congregation as he always did. Some members came forward to shake his hand. But many, his own people, friends whose family members he had baptised and buried, couples he had married, walked straight past him without a word, some deliberately turning away from him. They could not forgive what they saw as his betrayal of the Afrikaner cause.
From that day, he was a man in exile within his own culture and people. Invitations dried up. Friends crossed the street to avoid him. His own community treated him as an enemy.
The story of Beyers Naudé’s is not unique. It is echoed in many other places and times in history around the world.
Martin Niemöller was a German Lutheran pastor, but before that, he had been a decorated German U-boat commander in World War I, a man of fierce German patriotism. Like many Germans in the 1930s, he welcomed Adolf Hitler’s promises to restore the nation’s pride.
When Hitler began to reshape the Protestant churches into a state-controlled “Reich Church”, Niemöller at first didn’t see the danger. But then the demands grew darker: pastors were to swear loyalty to the Führer, Jewish Christians were to be excluded from church life, and Biblical teaching began to be interpretted through the lense of Nazi ideology.
A turning point came when Martin Niemöller realised that the state was asking the Church to betray the plain teachings of Jesus, to love one’s neighbour as oneself, and to respect, love and show care for outsiders, the marginalised and the oppressed. He joined other pastors to form what was called the Confessing Church, declaring that loyalty to God and Jesus was more important than loyalty to the Führer, to the country or even the nation.
For that defiance, Niemöller was arrested in 1937. His congregation lost their pastor. Friends distanced themselves. The state-controlled church branded him a traitor. He spent seven years in Sachsenhausen and Dachau concentration camps.
Half a world away, and decades later, another pastor would walk a similar road.
In 1977, Oscar Romero was appointed Archbishop of San Salvador in El Salvador. The ruling elite in El Salvador breathed a sigh of relief. Romero was quiet, cautious, conservative. They thought as Archbishop he would keep the church out of politics while the military government waged its brutal campaign against dissent.
But then, only weeks after his appointment, Romero’s friend, Fr. Rutilio Grande, was gunned down for preaching that the poor were beloved of God and that injustice was sin. Romero went to view the body. He saw the bullet wounds. He saw the grief of the people. And something shifted deep in his soul.
From that day, Romero’s preaching changed. He began to name the violence for what it was. He spoke of those who had disappeared, the tortured, the murdered. He called on soldiers to disobey orders that went against God’s law.
The backlash was swift. Wealthy Catholics withdrew their support from the diocese. Some priests accused him of politicising the pulpit. Several bishops tried to isolate him. Death threats arrived daily.
And still, he stood in the pulpit, week after week, proclaiming the God of life in the face of a culture and a system of death.
On March 24, 1980, Romero stood at the altar celebrating Mass. As he lifted the bread and wine, a gunman stepped into the chapel and shot him through the heart. He died where he stood. At the altar—offering the peace of Christ to his people.
Getting back to our Gospel Reading how might these stories help us to understand Jesus words in Luke:
“I came to bring fire to the earth, and how I wish it were already kindled! … Do you think I have come to bring peace to the earth? No, I tell you, but rather division.”
What is the fire that Jesus comes to bring upon the earth if not the fierce and strong fire of Divine Love and Truth of God that cannot keep silent in the face of injustice. Speaking the Truth (even when it is done in Love – as it should always be done) is not always well received by others who have grown comfortable with the status quo that may be working for them, even if they might be dimly aware that it is not working for everyone. History shows that speaking up with the Fire of Divine Love and Truth against injustice can bring opposition and division, even dividing people from their family and close friends.
When the prophet Jeremiah spoke out against the injustices, idolatry, and corruption of his own people, he was mocked, beaten, imprisoned, and even thrown into a muddy cistern and left to starve in order to silence him. In Luke’s Gospel, the death of Jesus not so much framed as a sacrifice to atone for sins, but rather his death is a consequence of his identification with the poor, the oppressed and the outsider, and as he proclaims from the cross (according to Luke) “Father forgive them for they no not what they are doing”, Luke shows Jesus death not as a transaction for sin but as the ultimate revelation of God’s forgiving love.
And so according to Luke’s Gospel, the kind of peace that Jesus comes to bring on earth is not the superficial kind of peace that is built on injustice and often maintained with the barrel of a gun, or where difficulties are papered over and difficult discussions and debates are simply avoided. The kind of peace that Jesus comes to bring upon earth, according to Luke’s Gospel is one where the dignity of all people is respected, especially those at the bottom of society, and which may even require that those in privileged positions give up their privilege why, because it is built on and maintained by injustice and exploitation. It is a costly peace, for it end up costing Jesus his own life, put to death by the religious and secular authorities who found his message too threatening.
But the division Jesus speaks of in Luke 12 is not the end of the story, it is a temporary division, the lancing of the wound in order to bring a truer and deeper reconciliation and a truer and deeper peace, that according to the writer of Ephesians will ultimately embrace all things and all people when God will be All and In All. The Jesus who talks of fire and division in Luke 12:49-53 also speaks in John’s Gospel of being lifted up in order to draw all people to himself (John 12:32).
I close with words of Lutheran Pastor Martin Niemoller, written, I believe, while he was in prison in one of the concentration camps in Germany:
In prison, he wrote the haunting words that are quite famous today:
“First they came for the Socialists, and I did not speak out,
Because I was not a Socialist.
Then they came for the Trade Unionists, and I did not speak out,
Because I was not a Trade Unionist.
Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out,
Because I was not a Jew.
Then they came for me,
and there was no one left to speak for me.”
― Martin Niemöller
Who are those in our world today that we are being called to speak out for?
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