Pentecost 11, Proper 15, 2004:

It had been a rocky marriage from the very beginning. Arguments and fights were the norm. Finally, after a bigger than usual disagreement, the husband said he hadn’t seen his wife for more than a week. About the eighth day he said he could see her a little bit out of one eye.

That joke may cause as much nervous laughter as the hilarious type. We live in a world where physical violence continues to rise and law enforcement officials will tell you that the calls to which they most dread to respond is domestic disturbance ones. Husbands and wives move beyond verbal bantering to physical attacks. Their children witness this method of settling differences and become abusers themselves. Friends argue about an insignificant issue and come to blows with each other. States disagree with the confederation of states about making their own decisions and take up arms against each other. Nations debate economic, political, religious, and ethical views of life and send armies to impose that view on others.

One of the modern responses to all this is what I call "T-shirt and bumper sticker" theology. Even the Episcopal Ad Project participates in this phenomenon. One of those recently made available said, "People used to solve their problems by turning to Matthew & John, not Smith & Wesson."

But, of course, we can’t really agreed on what Matthew and John say; not to mention Mark, Luke, and Paul. Things really get heated when we bring in the Old Testament.

All that got me to thinking about the reasons people do have for coming to faith in the one called Jesus the Christ. The promises that are made in the name of Jesus the Christ are frequently in sharp contrast to the assurances Jesus the Christ himself gave to prospective followers. Jesus never promised outright to eliminate problems from the lives of people who had faith in him as the Messiah. He did not guarantee would-be disciples a quiet mind or harmonious relationships. Never did he say there would be no internal turmoil and heartache, no anguish of soul. Even less did Jesus promise physical health, material blessings (in the form of trinkets and gadgets), or respectability within the society of human beings.

Yet, those are the very things offered as enticements to draw people to particular churches or worshipping communities. I believe we need, most of all and as the first order of business, the basic truth about discipleship. It costs! It may very well cost a lot. The promise is that if we yoke ourselves to Jesus the Christ the burdens are made bearable, not that burdens become non-existent. The promise is that in the church or community of faith that tells that truth, we may find comfort, nurture, forgiveness, positive relationships, challenges to grow more spiritually mature and not one where our prejudices and stereotypes find validation and confirmation.

In the record of God’s relationship to God’s people, particularly the Gospels, there is no obvious progression from trouble to triumph, from distress to success, for those who live by faith in Jesus the Christ. What it comes down to is that life is not made easier, if by easier we mean pain-free, struggle-free, crisis-free, by having faith in Jesus the Christ. Such promises are a vulgarization of God’s radical love for each one of us; a love so deep and profound that we would be given the freedom to choose. Health and wealth theologies are usually intended to sale you something. I pray you don’t buy.

Jesus said that his coming into the world and our coming to him in faith would be more like a refiner’s fire, that would burn away at our false sense of security born out of our infatuation with relying totally on human ingenuity. That refining fire burns at our false values that accommodate the massive injustices and inequalities in the world that helps make possible the extravagances we enjoy. That purifying fire removes our self-satisfaction and self-righteousness and our reliance on the gimmicks and gadgets that rust in our own lifetimes. If we stand close enough to this fire we come to see that full human legitimacy is not ours to grant. That’s God prerogative. Anything else tends to place things ahead of people and personalities before principles.

I don’t particularly like it and you may not either but there is something shattering in the call of Jesus the Christ what jeopardizes the structures and boundaries that we have constructed around us. There is fierceness about Christ’s call to discipleship that we would just as soon suppress. To hand over self-will and allow God in Christ’s will to have charge of our course means we no longer get to judge others by some external standard. A new means of measurement is applied. That measurement is based squarely on love.

The one who said, "Peace I leave with you; my own peace I give to you..."; that Christ we know and accept fairly easily. But the Christ who said, "Do you think I have come to bring peace to the earth? No, I tell you, but rather division!" What of that Christ? Those words seem out of character with what we’ve been told. It’s hard to find comfort in such statements.

I would want to say that Jesus the Christ does not come into our lives and call us to radical discipleship merely to supplement a basically satisfactory life. It that’s all he did during his earthly ministry I doubt the authorities would have had him crucified. He was killed because he called into question the values and traditions that were foundational to the political and religious authorities of his day. Many today would just as soon crucify him again and we perhaps unintentionally join them when we persist in cheapening what his coming was intended to do in and through us and, thereby, in and through the world. We have been called to be salt and add spice to a bland and tasteless world. We have been called to be light in a world darkened by sin and despair. We have been called to be leaven in a lump of flour and help everything around rise to newness of life.

Anytime and in any place God’s people are being treated as less than fully legitimate human beings our discipleship will cost. Anytime and in any place God’s will is being perverted by those who call good evil and evil good our discipleship will cost. Anytime and in any place God’s stamp of approval is snatched away from the minority by those in power our discipleship will cost.

It is absolutely true that God in Christ desires that we know peace. We are to do the hard work of the peacemakers and reconcilers in this world. That is more crucial work than ever before. But the far greater desire of God in Christ for each one of us is that we know glory. And for that to happen our faith, firmly rooted in Jesus the Christ, gives us peace...a peace that disturbs. Amen.