I have to admit, this is not the Jesus I'm comfortable with. All this talk about bringing fire to the earth and that he can't wait until it's set ablaze. What kind of talk is that? Then there is the part about how households will become divided because of him. For goodness' sake, that's exactly opposite from the kind of commu­nity we're trying to build here.

Can you imagine if I announced an adult education program that promised to teach you how to divide your families in five easy sessions? You wouldn't come. And I have no doubt but that the number one item on the vestry's agenda at their next meeting would be to ask the question as to whether or not I've lost my ever-loving mind. Nope, I don't like this passage one bit. Perhaps it's because I can hear an echo of church member against church member, min­ister against people, and people against the minister.

And fire? Talk about incendiary speech!

No, I don't like this passage one little bit. But such is the luck of the preacher. This is our text for the day. I didn't pick it. I wouldn't have picked it. But I am stuck with it and consequently since you chose to be here rather than working the New York Times cross­word puzzle over a coffee or two, you are stuck with it, too. So let's make the best of it, shall we? Let's see what Jesus is telling us about his mission.

Peace wasn't part of the deal. John was a trained interim pas­tor and a good one at that. Work for him was never done. As soon as he completed his assignment with one congregation and they called their new pastor, he was asked to move on to another place. Some of these churches were pretty healthy while others were not well at all. It didn't matter to John. In either case, though his tactics might differ, he came not to bring peace, but division and fire. Sometimes, even though he knew in his heart that this was what he was called to do, it was enough to tear him apart.

The most difficult situations for John were when the church thought they were in good shape. On the surface things looked smooth, with everyone getting along with everyone, or so it seemed. What he always seemed to find was that the peace that looked so good was only there because the congregation wasn't being honest with each other. Peace at any cost seemed to be their motto. Never were the sticky and sometimes embarrassing denominational or congregational issues mentioned in polite company lest someone get offended. Controllers, and there were always controllers, were tolerated and even elevated to board or elder status in hopes that they would see what reasonable and thoughtful people the other leaders were and then would stop their contrary ways. If the con­trollers held their ground and didn't budge, well then the rest of the leadership would cave in. Don't trouble the waters. Don't stir things up. Let's keep everyone happy. What a sad, sad mission statement for any church!

Then there were the controllers who specialized in gatekeep­ing. They were usually longtime members who joined the church before God. And they knew better than anyone who fit in and who didn't. They were usually beloved by the rest of the congregation, or perhaps they were just scared to death of them. They took their role very seriously. Whenever someone who was deemed "unwor­thy" because of their age, their race, their clothes, or their sexual orientation showed up on Sunday morning, they would make cer­tain that person learned in subtle but no uncertain terms the church down the pike would meet their needs far better than this one. They performed this "duty" so well that the visitor almost never knew that they were getting the "bum's rush."

As I said, these were the situations where John did his best work. But it wasn't easy work. It wasn't easy at all.

If you asked him, he would tell you that his job was to be a truth-teller, no matter what the cost. It was up to him to point out where the congregation was being dishonest or avoiding the deeper issues of their common life. Even if John wouldn't say that he came to bring fire, at least not out loud, he would admit he came to bring light. While he would readily tell you that he didn't come to bring peace, he did plan to show them where the dividing lines were, but not discussed, as I said, in polite company.

Most congregations didn't like John very much. His reputa­tion always preceded him and often the congregational leaders would balk at the suggestion that they needed him as their interim. Why not bring someone in who could help keep things on an even keel? Why not someone who could be a placeholder until the next pastor was called? No, churches didn't like John very much. At least they didn't at first. But in time, if they didn't throw him out under the guise of not having enough money to pay him, they some­times came to see the wisdom of his ways. They saw that his way was much more the way of peace than it first seemed.

Divisions in churches or in families are never pleasant. And they aren't usually sought. Yet before true peace can be obtained, congregational members need to recognize that the divisions exist and then go about the business of seeking understanding between those who are divided.

For instance, as long as the issue of ordaining openly homo­sexual men or women is kept out of discussions with polite com­pany, some might think that everyone holds the same opinion that they do. Or take the so-called, pro-choice or pro-life positions. If we really discussed what seems to divide us so sharply, we just might come to see how close we are to those that we so often vilify.

What is often missing, when we avoid those troublesome con­versations, is that we don't learn how to respectfully disagree with each other. We don't learn how to sit still and make sure we under­stand what the other's position is. That was how John saw his role. He would point out the hot-button issues and then make sure people had a safe place to talk about them in a respectful way. He kept their feet to the fire until all positions were heard and understood. While some of the divisions were more than even John could over­come, most of the time people found that they were closer together than they had ever thought and despite their differences, they could find aspects of mission and ministry in the church that they could work on together.

We have all experienced examples over the years of respectful disagreement that would make the angels sing as well as nasty, over-the-top hostility that would make a professional wrestler blush. We have seen churches and dioceses that have found ways to live together and work for the kingdom together despite some rather sharp differences. We have also seen churches and dioceses where one or often both sides dug in their heels and never gave an inch nor acknowledged that the other side had anything worthwhile to offer.

I am reminded of a folktale about a heron and an oyster. One day, as the story goes, an oyster was lying on the beach sunning herself. Along came a heron looking for breakfast. When the heron dove down to the oyster and was just about ready to take a bite, the oyster closed its shell.

The heron cried, "If you don't let go there will be one dead oyster by the end of the day."

The oyster replied, "If you don't let go, there will soon be one dead heron."

Along came a fisherman who said, "Well, you're both right!" And he picked them up and stuck them in his bag and went off down the beach to prepare his own breakfast.

In contrast to this, I recently attended two different but equally moving events. At the first, over 3,000 people from every Chris­tian faith imaginable met to recommit ourselves and our churches to the work of justice. In that room over the three days of this "re­vival" I know that if we cared to we could have found huge differ­ences in theology as well as differences in moral issues like abor­tion, same-sex marriage, and so on. We all knew that these differ­ences were there, but for the time being at least, we put them aside so that we could be about the work of doing justice together in­stead of the sometimes piecemeal efforts our relatively small con­gregations attempt on our own. We never said that these differ­ences weren't there or that they didn't matter, but we did say that the only difference that mattered was the difference we could make if we didn't sweat the "small stuff."

A week later, I went to yet another rally and joined a reported 2,300 people of faith communities from all over the county. Once again this group was extremely diverse in theology and moral be­liefs but that night we were united around the justice issues of pay­day lending, preparing children for kindergarten, and expanding our county's drug court. It is amazing to me what we can accom­plish if we set aside our differences and work together.

One day I asked a rabbi friend of mine why Jews didn't be­lieve that Jesus was the Messiah. Without going into a long expla­nation that the question undoubtedly required he replied, "Where is the peace? The Messiah is supposed to usher in peace and we didn't and still don't see evidence of that." Good answer, I thought. How do we reconcile that expectation with the reality we face? And while we're at it, how do we reconcile it with Jesus proclaim­ing that he came as a fire starter, a division bringer?

Part of the answer for me is not found in contentious church board meetings, or wars in the Middle East, or starving children all over the world, but in the potential I see at meetings like the ones I shared. There we experienced a time of peace when what divided us didn't matter as much as the work that God had given us to do. We learned how, for now at least, to bash our swords into plow­shares, to put down our weapons of words, to hold hands together, and to walk toward those parts of our world that have known noth­ing but devastating war and hunger and poverty and division.

When we do that, we are people of peace and justice. When we stop our bickering and begin attending to the root causes of hunger, poverty, and war, we are people of peace and justice. When we stop looking for what divides us and instead strive toward what unites us in Christ, we are people of peace and justice. If we are, as followers of Jesus, also to bring division and fire — let us set fire to the underbrush of hatred, mistrust, and prejudice and let us be people of peace and justice in Jesus' name. Amen.