JESUS WANTS PEACE FOR US, DOESN’T HE?

He wants us to live together, in harmony, right?

Remember that song from the Youngbloods in the ’60s:

Come on, people now, smile on your brother.

Everybody get together, try to love one another right now.

That’s what Jesus wants, right?

If today’s readings are any indication, I’m not so sure. This Gospel lesson in Luke is, as my mother would say, “hot as blue blazes.”

It would seem that Jesus almost relishes giving the people the bad news: not peace, he says, but division. Not harmony. Mother against child. Brother against sister.

How can this be? This isn’t the Jesus we learned about in Sunday school, is it? So I had this question: division between what? What is being divided from what? To my mind, it is our comfortable views of Christ that are being divided from who he really is.

Sometimes I think Jesus ends up being like one of those inkblot tests they give you in therapy. Ultimately, you project onto the random ink what you want to see. For some folks, Jesus is the great King. For others, he’s a wise and sage prophet. For some, he is but one of a number of choices in philosophical teachers.

Mostly, I think, it has become rather common to believe that following Jesus is mostly about being nice—about going along to get along.

People of God, this is a false proposition. To this, Jesus said a firm no.

The kingdom that Jesus proclaimed was the world turned upside down.

Religious authorities: bankrupt. Temples: not necessary. We are told to walk two miles when only one is demanded, to turn the other cheek, to give our cloak. Sinful thoughts can be just as bad as sinful actions.

If you think about a home renovation project for a minute, the message of Jesus is that a new coat of paint or just sanding the floor is not at all what he’s about. He’s looking for something deeper in the human heart. Indeed, Jesus is a veritable wrecking ball, and when he gets into your heart and mind, he is going to do a gut job and start rebuilding a new house.

This level of change and renovation is hard. It’s scary. I’ll never forget the time Stephanie and I decided to add a new bedroom in the attic of our

house in Mont Vernon, NH. Stephanie was pregnant with Drew. We were bursting at the seams with two kids already, and so we decided to do this project. We always went to my parents’ house in Kentucky for Thanksgiving, so we gave the keys to the contractor, piled in the minivan, and took off across the country.

When we returned on Sunday, I walked upstairs and looked out into a black sky full of stars—where my roof once had been. As a young father, I felt in that moment as though I had made the worst mistake of my life. Two kids, a pregnant wife, and a house in New Hampshire with half a roof on December 1st. What was I thinking?

This is the feeling I had when Jesus first got a hold of me. Oh God, what have I done? I can’t do what Jesus is asking me to do.

As it turns out, you’re right. You can’t do what Jesus is asking you to do. But God can. The Holy Spirit, working through us, can, in fact, tear the roof off that convenient and conventional way of thinking about what it is to be a Christian and redirect us in the kingdom way.

In the end, we have two choices. We can allow Jesus to do that work in us and prepare to be at odds with what passes for normal in the world. Or we can hold on to what we know and insist on doing things the way we’ve always done them.

What happens when we hold on to things as we’ve always done them? Ultimately, the way we’ve done it becomes more important than the thing we’re doing. The fruit is not human flourishing, but human process.

What happens when we let Jesus do that work? Ultimately, the widow is cared for and the orphan has a home. The hungry receive food, the homeless are sheltered. God’s name is proclaimed in all places as the source of human dignity. We take care of those who have been beaten and left for dead on the side of the road.

If we insist on doing things the way we’ve always done them, then I think it is more likely that we end up like the vineyard in today’s reading from the Hebrew Scriptures. Isaiah tells the story of grapevines that bear only sour grapes. In Hebrew this story is a poem. The vineyard represents God’s people, and the farmer is God.

God laments that he expected justice … but sees only bloodshed. He looked for righteousness to spring up from the pleasant plantings he had made, but he heard only the cry of the oppressed.

There’s another vineyard story in Isaiah, though, and again, we didn’t read it. In chapter 27, the prophet tells about a day of redemption, a day when the world is remade. In this world, there is a pleasant vineyard, with the Lord as its keeper. He waters it every moment. He guards it night and day, and it clings to him for protection. In that day and the days that follow, Jacob takes root and Israel shall blossom, putting forth shoots and filling the whole world with fruit.

Jesus is calling us, my brothers and sisters, not to the vineyard of how we’ve always done things. Jesus is not satisfied with the sour grapes that that

vineyard produces. Jesus will uproot, he’ll tear the roof right off your house, and remake the landscape of your heart, your home, and your land—if you let him.

It will be messy.

It will scare you to death.

You will look out and think: Oh Lord, what have I done?

Jesus said he was the vine and we are the branches. He knew the prophet’s words. Wonder which vineyard he was talking about. What vineyard do

you want to grow in?

For me, I see Jesus as the one demanding righteousness and the one who sings of justice. My hope is to take root and blossom and fill the earth with good fruit.