Divided we stand.

Sermon preached at St Peter and St Paul’s Church, Swanscombe, on Sunday 19th August 2007 based on St Luke xii.49-56

What is the hardest question to answer?

Are we alone in the Universe?

Is there a way in which
we can truly develop world peace?

Why is it that a toaster actually has a setting
that burns the toast to an inedible cinder?

Why does Goofy stand up
while Pluto remains on all fours
when they’re both dogs?

Difficult questions!

But what is
the most difficult question of them all?

[PAUSE]

She’s come downstairs
having spent a lot of time on
her make-up,
her dress,
her hair.

She turns to her husband
and utters the killer question:
“Well?”

It’s a horrible question!

A man has to consider a 47,631 possible answers,
and what’s worse is that
there are 47,631 wrong answers.

Yes, every answer
is the wrong answer!

Even too long a pause is the wrong answer!

It invariably means an argument
and a stay at Fido’s Motel.

[PAUSE]

It’s interesting that
we each have different arguments
with different members of the family.

The killer question “Well?”
does not have the same effect
on a teenager
for whom every grown up
dresses in a style
invariably known as “sad”.

With a teenage son,
you’re more concerned with his appearance,
his multicoloured hair,
those jeans that show
more of his underpants than anything else,
and is that a tattoo on his arm…?

We have different arguments
because we have different relationships
with each member of our family.

What types of argument
have you had with your spouse?

What types of argument
have you had with your children?

[PAUSE]

The Lord Jesus is fed up.

All He gets is grief and argument.

No matter what he does,
He is attacked, vilified, denounced.

His latest miracle,
driving out a demon from a man,
has seen Him accused
of being the Devil himself.

Who is it causing the trouble?

It’s the fathers of the community
- the scribes and the Pharisees,
men whose job it is to lead and guide the people
in the ways of truth and love
– at least that’s the theory.

Here are a group of educated men
more concerned with their own comfort
and rituals that have lost all meaning,
than the spiritual health of their people.

The Lord Jesus comes
to set the world on fire with the Holy Ghost,
and all that happens is that
the Pharisees try to pour cold water on it all.

Can you not hear Jesus say how distressed He is?

Here He is trying to help us
and all we do is fight against Him,
argue with Him,
tell Him to conform to our ways of doing things.

After all,
hasn’t He come to bring Peace to the world?

[PAUSE]

No, He hasn’t.

Listen to Him.

“Do you suppose that I came to give peace on earth?

I tell you, not at all,
but rather division.

For from now on five in one house will be divided:
three against two,
and two against three.

Father will be divided 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 her mother-in-law.”

How can we call Jesus the King of Peace,
if He comes to divide us?

[PAUSE]

Just by being present on Earth,
Jesus divides communities and families.
He has always done so,
and He always will.

There will be those who submit to His rule,
obey His commands,
follow His example,
and there will be those who mock Him,
ignore Him,
deliberately misunderstand Him,
sometimes within the same family.

Look at the division that
He’s already caused in Jewish society.

In the Red Corner,
you have the Pharisees and Scribes,
the Jewish lawyers strutting about
like the invincible Giant Haystacks
weighing in at 48 stone and
standing over 7’ high.


In the Blue Corner
you have St Peter and the disciples
rallying behind Jesus
like Kendo Nagasaki
weighing in at 18 stone
and only 6’ 2’’ high.

All we need now is Mick McManus
and Big Daddy
and we have a nice little wrestling tag team
in first century Jerusalem!

[PAUSE]

There’s another way of looking at this division.

We have the spiritual elders
of the community against
the spiritually younger.

We already have
the fathers divided against the sons,
all split over one man’s words
and actions – Our Lord Jesus.

But to which group does Jesus belong,
the fathers, or the sons?

The elders, or the youngers?

[PAUSE]

Well, Jesus might not make it
past His 40th birthday
in our sense of the phrase,
but then age is not something
you can ascribe to Him.

He’s older than everyone here.

But He is clearly above such distinctions.

He’s eternal.

And what of His message?

It seems radical
like the views of a young man,
but it’s not new.

He’s preaching the same message
that God the Father has been telling us
right from day one.

It’s the Pharisees
that have made all the changes.


It’s the Pharisees
who have changed
the interpretation of Scripture
to make it justify their own meaningless actions.

They are behaving like the young rebels.

[PAUSE]


The division that Jesus is talking about
is that of authority.

Either we submit to His authority and that of His Father,
or we submit to the authority of
Worldly fathers who twist and corrupt
the word of God.

Those who submit to Christ,
who do things His way,
who follow the Eternal Teaching
of an Eternal God
- they are the ones who become
the spiritual fathers
worth listening to.

They are divided from the others
because they are faithful to God.

They are holy and as we know,
‘holy’ means set apart for God.

That’s how we can tell
whether what we’re taught
is really from the Lord.

Any teaching from God
must have the flavour of Eternity in it
– it must be Holy.

[PAUSE]

Jesus divides us,
even families,
into those who follow Him
and those who don’t.

Are there divisions in our family, our Church?

What does this mean?