Disruptive Love - Sermon for the Tenth Sunday After Pentecost (August 17, 2025)

Scripture Readings: Jeremiah 23:23–29 | Psalm 82 | ​Hebrews 11:29–12:2 | ​Luke 12:49–56

“Is not my word like fire, says the Lord, and like a hammer that breaks a rock in pieces?” (Jeremiah 23:29).
 
This summer, many of us across Canada have been thinking a lot about fire. Specifically, the wildfires that burn through our forests, and from time to time threaten our communities. Right now especially, we remember and hold up in prayer all of our neighbours in Northeastern New Brunswick, as well as in Nova Scotia, and Newfoundland, as they seek to keep lives and property safe from the many serious fires that are still burning across the Maritimes.
 
I can imagine very few things as dangerous and disturbing as these kinds of fires. These fierce forces of nature capable of consuming everything in their path, and calling for all those nearby to be constantly vigilant and ready to respond right away should the need arise.
 
And yet, at the same time wildfires are also an important part of our country’s ecosystem… a natural and necessary process of cleansing and renewing, so that new life can arise in abundance again out of the ashes.

Of course, due to our rapidly changing climate, this natural system is no longer following familiar, predictable patterns, and so we’ve been seeing much more wildfire activity then we are used to. But even so, and as frightening, and disruptive as these fires can be… they still serve an important role in the overall health of our world.  
 
In short: They are needed, but need to be taken very seriously… and whenever we face them, we need to be ready to respond to the danger they pose right away. Every other concern gets put on hold, and navigating the flames takes centre stage.
 
In our Gospel reading this morning, from Luke Chapter 12, Jesus our Lord uses some pretty alarming imagery in order to capture our attention, and to drive home the serious nature and significance of His own mission and message: He speaks of bringing fire upon the earth… and of dividing family members from one another… of not establishing an easy peace, but actively threatening things we care deeply about.
 
What’s going on here? Isn’t Jesus supposed to be our loving Saviour, and not the source of danger and division in the world? What is our Lord saying to us this morning through the inflammatory imagery in this passage?
 
Before we go too much farther, we need to remember one vital thing: the Jesus who said these words is the same Jesus we have come to know in the whole of Scripture… the same Jesus sent by the Father to rescue and redeem our world, once and for all. This is the same Jesus who fully embodies the great mercy and grace of the Living God, and gave up His life at the cross to save us sinners and set us free. This is the same Jesus who calls us to love not just our neighbours, but even our enemies… and who also, again and again, challenges us and the ways we tend to operate.
 
Wildfires really can’t be ignored. Family divisions shake us to the core. Jesus clearly has something serious to say to us in this passage. And because we know His great love for us, we can trust that what He says is for our ultimate good… even if it is deeply disruptive.
 
But after all, the Gospel itself… the Good News of Jesus Christ and His good Kingdom… is already deeply disruptive! His ways are destructive to sin… undermining a lot of things that the world around us elevates, and that we think we need. And as we follow Jesus, the Holy Spirit begins to burn away parts of our old ways of life… patterns of thought, and heart, and body that don’t really do us any good… but as He does so, He also offers us something so much better! Clearing space within us for God’s new life to take root and grow.  
 
Like an unquenchable fire, the Good News of Jesus is not simply something nice to add to our otherwise preoccupied lives. No, the Gospel claims centre stage in our lives… consuming them… cleansing them… and re-creating them for good. When faced with the reality of Jesus Christ, and all that He has come to do… we’d best be ready to respond, and focus our full attention on Him.
 
After invoking the imagery of fire, Jesus turns to another disruptive impact of the Gospel: the causing of divisions between the members of families… parents against their children, and children against their parents.

Family ties have served as an essential anchor for cultures and communities all over the world… and for good reason! They tend to offer us the stability, security, and social bonds we need to weather the storms of life, and to experience the joys of mutual love. And from the beginning, the Bible tells us that God created humans to belong together… to be bound to one another… to love and serve one another. And although humanity as a whole has become deeply divided after the Fall, God still worked through human families to bring about His saving plan.
 
And yet, as good and life giving as the bonds of family can be… our Gospel reading today reminds us that they are not where our most enduring allegiance is to be placed. For Jesus Himself lays a claim upon us that unsettles and challenges even these deep bonds of blood. Not because Jesus secretly hates families, but because He knows that they cannot save us.
 
And He’s not the first one to remind us that even though our families can be great gifts from God, they can also end up becoming a trap for us, leading us away from the Living God, and the new life that He has in store for us.
The prophet Micah, centuries earlier, offered these words to God’s people… warning them to place their ultimate trust and allegiance in the LORD, and not to be led astray even by those closest to them.

Micah 7:5-7,
“Put no trust in a friend,
have no confidence in a loved one;
guard the doors of your mouth
from her who lies in your embrace;
for the son treats the father with contempt,
the daughter rises up against her mother,
the daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law;
your enemies are members of your own household.
But as for me, I will look to the Lord,
I will wait for the God of my salvation;
my God will hear me.”
 
In our Gospel reading today, Jesus echoes Micah’s words… telling His listeners, back then and today, that He has come to turn our hearts back to the Living God, our only true Saviour… even if this brings serious tensions and divisions between us and those closest to us.
 
Why is that? Well, we know not everyone will embrace and believe the Good News of Jesus, and even those closest to us may turn against us when we turn our lives over to Him. It’s not that God intends to tear families apart, or wants to wreak havoc in our relationships. Far from it!
 
The Good News reminds us that God’s intentions for us are truly good! Where our world tells us to cut off those who offend us, Jesus offers us all forgiveness, and He calls us to pursue reconciliation and restoration as best we can.
 
But Jesus also knows that our current reality resists the ways of His Kingdom, and that there is much that still needs to be cleared away… both out there in our world, and inside of our own hearts as well… so that God’s new life and the fruit of the Holy Spirit can take root and grow in us… replacing the weeds and thorns that keep us from sharing in and sharing God’s love with those around us.
 
In short, Jesus is warning us that if we follow Him, we can expect it to be a bumpy ride. That even though the Good News is meant for all, not all will welcome it, and some will choose to walk away from us if we choose to stick with Jesus.
 
These words of warning are, deep down, an invitation to stay faithful. To trust Jesus, and to stay true to Him above all else, even when it costs us dearly. These words call us to being reorganizing all of our relationships… even our most settled and familiar ones… around the conviction that Jesus alone is our rock and our salvation. This kind of commitment is bound to cause tensions, but rather than asking us to turn against those we love, Jesus is ultimately inviting us to learn how to love them more completely. To learn to love others not simply as members of a close knit family, but with the holy love of the Living God that can make all things new. 
 
The Gospel is disruptive. God’s holy love is disruptive. But we are not asked to face this disruption all alone. No, as the pioneer and perfector of our faith, Jesus our Lord paved the way before us, and He has already bore the brunt of that disruption on Himself!
 
In Jesus, God has truly given Himself to the world, offering up His own faithful life as an atoning sacrifice in order to bring us peace. At the cross He was betrayed and cut off from friends and family… abandoned by all… but raised again from the grave and lifted up to draw all people to Himself. 
 
And not only do we have Jesus, we also have all of our brothers and sisters in Christ… all the saints, in the Old and New Testaments, and throughout the centuries since… whose lives have been completely turned upside down by God’s holy love, but who have stayed true to Him to the end.
 
Think of the list that we heard in our second reading from the letter to the Hebrews: Rahab, Gideon, Barak, Samson, Jephthah, David, Samuel… not to mention all those whose names and stories we do not know. Think of how the lives of the Apostles were disrupted at Pentecost when the Holy Spirit descended on them like tongues of fire: setting their hearts ablaze, and through their words and deeds spreading the holy flame of the Gospel from Jerusalem out to embrace every people and nation of the earth… creating a whole new family, the Church, not bound together by natural human relationships, but by the precious blood of Jesus Christ that was shed for us at the cross… a family that’s still wide open to all who turn to Christ Jesus in faith.
 
Our world needs to know this Good News of God’s disruptive love in Jesus Christ. And it needs to see this love being lived out here in Gondola Point. The signs are all around us, and the Good News of Jesus is calling us to take action. To be ready and willing to walk in His good ways, even if it means that our lives get turned upside down. 
 
So may the fire of God’s disruptive, holy, and life-giving love in Jesus Christ do its work in us, taking centre stage in our hearts, and minds, and actions… so that His New Life can grow in us and through us for the good of all. Amen.