August 14, 2016 - Thirteenth Sunday after Pentecost - Division Is Not Comforting

Today's Gospel s not meant to comfort. Luke records Jesus' words:

"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."

Earlier today I felt nostalgic for how worship used to make me feel when I was young.  At that time I held no doubt, had no questions.  No one asked me "Do you really believe this or that?"  My strongest memories formed around the illustrations in my Sunday School class and the words animated them.  What was conjured up in my head felt very real.  In worship I would hear the same stories and parables and they evoked something I aspired to and felt it was just out of my reach.

This Gospel snapped me out of that luxurious nostalgia.  A follower of Jesus is called to something beyond what we learn to be our duty in life.  This makes me think of my father and mother and their faith.  My dad died before I started regularly attending church again.  I wonder what he would of thought of my devotion.

Jesus does divide us because what Christianity inspires us to be is different.  My father's formative years as a young adult was a Navy man helping fight World War II in the Pacific.  I only learned towards the end of his life about some of the horrific incident he had witnessed. When he came back to civilian life he needed church life to confirm the order and stability he had fought for and he had seen people die to preserve.

I think he would try to understand what is compelling about worship to me and what is important about my faith.  He would like my continuing to be a part of a Lutheran tradition.  I don't think he would see what is essential to me as being very useful.  I don't know if that means we would be against each other but I could see at times he might fight to preserve something I would try to tear down and vice versa.

As I think about this passage I am struck by the fact that those who are against one another in the pairs are of the same gender - father against son and daughter against mother, not son against mother for example.

Today I thought about worship as habit and ritual rather than a series of acts from week to week.  We are what we do repeatedly.

After worship Creator invited Imam Muhammad A. Naijieb and Nadira Najied to be speakers for Creator's My Neighbor is Muslim series.  They had spoken at Central Lutheran who have been following the same series.

I was very impressed with both.  I have studied and watched documentaries on Islam but when he talked about his Hajj experience I felt the fire and passion of his faith.  He told his story that on the long flight home there were many meals that were offered him over the course of the flight but he refused.  "I did not feel like eating because I felt full", he said.

I've known that feeling too.