Those of us who’ve been coming to church for a long time will have heard the Gospel read in church hundreds or even thousands of times over the years. But how many of us can recall a particular instance of hearing the Gospel read, in church, on a particular day? How often has a reading of the Gospel been so memorable, that we’ve never forgotten it? I’ve been an adult member of the Church for well over 40 years now, and in all that time, of all the thousands of times I’ve heard the Gospel read, or read the Gospel myself, there are only a handful of times when I can actually recall one particular reading. And one of those times was a reading, many years ago now, of the Gospel we read this morning.
So what made it so memorable? Really it was the reaction of the parish priest to what he’d just read. At the time, I was a server in church and one of my duties was to carry the Book of the Gospels in the Gospel Procession and hold it for the parish priest as he censed it and then read the Gospel. It was something I did every Sunday so there was nothing especially memorable about that. But as the priest came to the end of the reading, he immediately, and very audibly, added,
“Mmm, what a strange Gospel”
Took the book from me, lifted it up and said,
“This is the Gospel of the Lord.”
I’m not sure what that said about his sermon preparation that week because quite a few people had the impression that he certainly hadn’t read the Gospel of the day before he read it in church on Sunday, but it was very funny, and for that reason, I’ve never forgotten it.
Having said all that though, my parish priest did have a point, this morning’s Gospel reading is strange. We think about Jesus as someone who spoke about love and peace don’t’ we? In fact we call Jesus the Prince of Peace. And yet here Jesus is talking about casting fire on the earth, when only a little earlier in the Gospel Jesus had rebuked James and John for wanting to call down heavenly fire to consume a Samaritan village that wouldn’t receive Jesus. Jesus says that he has not come to bring peace on earth, and that stands in stark contrast to what we read earlier in Luke’s Gospel when Zechariah, the father of John the Baptist, prophesies that Jesus will,
“… guide our feet into the way of peace.”
Jesus says that he’s come to bring division, or a sword as St Matthew’s account of this saying puts it. That he’s come to set even members of the same family against one another. None of this fits in with our image of Jesus as the loving, and peace loving, good shepherd does it? So what is going on in this strange Gospel reading.
One of the problems I’ve spoken about in the past, as indeed has Fr Alex in his sermons, is that because of the way the lectionary is structured, when we read the Gospel in church, we view it like a series of snapshots rather than as a panorama, so it’s often difficult to see where the particular Gospel we’re reading an any given day fits into the wider picture. It’s a bit like trying to understand the plot of a film when all we’re watching is a trailer. Or trying to listen to a piece of music when the radio keeps drifting off the station (and those who are old enough to have tried to listen to the charts on Radio Luxembourg will know exactly what I mean by that!). So if we want to understand what’s going on in this morning’s Gospel, we have to read it in the context of the Gospel as a whole, rather than as a stand-alone section of the Gospel. And in this instance, that means going back to the very beginning of the Gospel.
At the birth of John the Baptist his father, Zechariah, prophesied that the Messiah would guide us into the way of peace. And, as we know, at the birth of Jesus, the angels sang to the shepherds,
“Glory to God in the highest! Peace on earth, goodwill to men!”
Except that’s not what the angels sang at all. The earliest versions of the angel’s song translate as something more like,
“Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace and goodwill to those with whom he is pleased.”
And that’s a very different message indeed. The angels didn’t bring a message of peace and goodwill in general terms and to all people, but a more specific message of peace and goodwill simply to those whom God is pleased with. So Christ did not come to earth to bring peace in the sense of an end to conflict and division among people. He came, actually, to restore the peace between God and humanity that had been destroyed by sin. He came to bring God’s peace to people by showing them how to be pleasing to God. And as we read on through the Gospel we know that the way to please God is by listening to the one he sent, by listening to Jesus, his incarnate Son. That is the peace Jesus came to bring and that’s the peace he guides us into in fulfilment of the prophecy of Zechariah.
But it is a peace that we do have to be guided into, through listening to Christ and living in obedience to his teaching. It’s not a given. And the reality of the world, and people being people, of course, means that some people will listen and some people won’t. Some people will hear Christ’s teaching and follow him, and some will hear but refuse to follow. And wherever Christ is not heard or listened to, there will be division and conflict because there, sin, the way of the world holds sway, and division and conflict is the way of sin and of the world. There will be division and conflict between those who do listen to Christ and those who don’t, even between members of the same family because the way of Christ and the way of the world clash. It’s a clash between light and darkness, the Spirit and the flesh, good and evil, but however we describe it, it is a conflict; it’s spiritual warfare, in fact, and the god of this world does not want to lose.
So while this Gospel reading might well seem strange, and is when we read it as we do as a snapshot of Jesus’ teaching, mission and ministry, it actually makes perfect sense when we read it as part of the panorama of the Gospel as a whole. Jesus did not come to bring peace on earth in earthly terms, but rather to lead us into being at peace with God by showing us how to be pleasing to God. But the reality of the world and of the condition of fallen humanity meant that his coming would, inevitably, sow division and conflict between those who will listen and follow him and those who would rather follow the way of the world. In fact we could even say that his coming fanned the flames of that conflict, that spiritual warfare that in the end only God could win but yet still the god of this world did not want to lose. Hence Jesus words;
“I came to cast fire on the earth, and would that it were already kindled! I have a baptism to be baptized with, and how great is my distress until it is accomplished!”
Of course Jesus was speaking here, in part, of what lay in the future, the fulfilment of his mission on the Cross and his ultimate victory, his victory over sin and death, on that first Easter Day.
Christ’s Passion and Cross, and his Resurrection, assures us of his victory and God’s victory in the spiritual warfare being waged all around us, but the war is still rages on because the god of this world baulks at accepting or admitting defeat, and the god of this world has many disciples, many soldiers. And so in spite of Christ’s coming into the world and in spite of his victory over sin and death, there is still division and conflict and no peace on earth.
As we look at the state of the world around us, I’m sure that none of us can be happy at what we see; division, conflict, unrest and war, a world in flames. And people are asking where is God in all this? Well, God is in all those who suffer for the sins of those who follow the god of this world, as Jesus did as he endured his Passion and Cross. God is in all those who weep for the world as it rushes to its own destruction, as Jesus wept for Jerusalem as it did the same. But the state of the world is not God’s fault. God sent his son into the world to offer us the means to be at peace with him by showing us how to live in a way that’s pleasing to him. It was an offer prophesied to be rejected, and by many people, it was then and still is now because many people have and still do prefer to follow the god of this world. Is that God’s fault or theirs and ours?
This short Gospel reading may seem to show a Jesus who’s out of character, a Jesus quite unlike our usual image and understanding of him but, if we read it as part of the Gospel as a whole, we find that it’s not so strange as it might seem at first. In fact it’s a statement of what God sent his Son into the world to do. That, in Christ, God has done what he can for the world. But also of the trouble that will bring when reality of the way the world is and will be is that people prefer to follow the god of the world rather than follow Christ.
Amen.
Propers for the 20th Sunday of Ordinary Time, 17th August 2025
Entrance Antiphon
Turn your eyes, O God, our shield; and look on the face of your anointed one; one day within your courts is better than a thousand elsewhere.
The Collect
O God, who have prepared for those who love you good things which no eye can see, fill our hearts, we pray, with the warmth of your love, so that, loving you in all things and above all things, we may attain your promises, which surpass every human desire. Through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son, who lives and reigns with you in the unity of the Holy Spirit, God, for ever and ever.
Amen
The Readings
Jeremiah 38:4-6, 8-10
Psalm 40:2-4, 18
Hebrews 12:1-4
Luke 12:-49-53
Prayer after Communion
Made partakers of Christ through these Sacraments, we humbly implore your mercy, Lord, that, conformed to his image on earth, we may merit also to be his coheirs in heaven. Who lives and reigns for ever and ever.
Amen.
Parish Church of St Mark Chadderton 