DELIBERATELY DIVERSE | the Rev. Terry Pierce
“Deliberately Diverse” represents the opinions of a group of Taylor friends who never completely agree about anything but enjoy diverse discussions.
In Luke 12:49-52 New Revised Standard Version, Jesus makes this radical statement: “I came to bring fire to the Earth, and how I wish it were already kindled! I have a baptism with which to be baptized, and what stress I am under until it is completed! Do you think that I have come to bring peace to the Earth? No, I tell you, but rather division!”
Jesus, I have a problem here. You are love and peace. How can you come to bring fire and division?
The baptism Jesus talks about in this verse, the baptism of fire, is both his baptism in the Jordan River and the baptism of suffering that marked his death.
Jesus’ baptism in the Jordan River marked his consent to enter the journey of teaching and preaching that would lead to his death and would mark for us a path of transformation and life.
So what is this division and fire that Jesus brings? Fire is used in the Bible for judgment, but also for commissioning.
God appeared to Moses in a burning bush that was never consumed, calling Moses to lead God’s people. The division that fire produces is a “setting aside” that makes something holy. And that holiness transforms the one who experiences it.
How does division transform? I heard a family therapist say, “I need to create disorder to disrupt the current state so that a new and healthier one can emerge.”
I have heard Jesus described as the Holy Disrupter, the one who turned things upside down so people could see that collaborating with earthly powers brought death instead of life.
Jesus saw people not doing what God asked of them. The priests were taking the last of the widows’ money, appearing to glorify themselves rather than God, while the orphans and refugees were left hungry and without resources. The wealthy people supported an occupying Roman force that oppressed the inhabitants because the well-off benefited.
Jesus has come, not to judge, but to call us to a new way of being: To divide us from our attachments to wealth and power so that we may serve God and our neighbor.
Jesus is the one who does the division – not us.
We are not called to divide, oppress and judge one another.
Micah 6:8 reminds us: “He has told you, O mortal, what is good, and what does the Lord require of you but to do justice and to love kindness and to walk humbly with your God?”
Jesus calls us to notice and to speak out when we see oppression.
Jesus calls us to participate in the transformation of the world to bring justice and peace to all people.
Pierce is the vicar of St. James’ Episcopal Church in Taylor and can be reached by email at ministry@ stjamestaylor.org.
