Jesus Wants Justice

 Luke 12:49-56

August 17, 2025

 

Aww. Jesus was so nice last week.

Don’t be afraid little flock.

God wants to give you the Kingdom.

And then we get this.

Jesus has come to bring division to this world.

We usually think of Jesus as the one for peace, love.

I mean I’ve told you that Jesus says “do not be afraid” like

21 times in the gospels and that’s second only to

the imperative to “love” which he says 125 times.

 

But not right now.

Yes, Jesus final objective is love and peace.

But Jesus reminds us that doesn’t always mean quick peace.

Not at first. To get to peace, Jesus is going to bring division.

 

Honestly, in this reading today, Jesus sounds stressed out to me.

He even kind of says he’s stressed out right at the beginning.

 

I don’t know if I’m completely comfortable with

the idea of a stressed out Jesus.

Jesus most often seems calm as a cucumber, above the fray.

In control of things, but he basically says he’s stressed here. He says:

“Let’s get on with the whole thing, because it’s stressing me out!”

 

And there’s a good reason for Jesus to be stressed out.

 

So, we’re in chapter 12 of Luke right now.

In Chapter 11, Jesus is invited to dinner at the house of a Pharisee

and while he’s there, Jesus neglects the,

religiously mandated hand washing ritual to prepare for his meal.

The Pharisees see this and start grumbling about it.

  

And then instead of making nice, Jesus starts to berate the Pharisees

“You are worried about how clean the cup and the dish are,

but your insides are filthy”

Which would have been enough to get his point across,

but Jesus goes on for 20 verses

(which is really a long time in terms of scripture )

“Woe to you”, Jesus says, “You give money,

but you neglect justice and the work of God.”

He criticizes them for their hypocrisy

and tells them that they’re not doing their job.

And he’s doing it pretty loudly and forcefully.

 

And then when the religious lawyers in the room said,

“Well, Jesus, when you say that, you’re insulting us too.”

Then Jesus starts in on the lawyers

“Woe to you lawyers too!”

“You load people with burdens and don’t’ lift a finger to help them.”

And “you are responsible for killing God’s prophets.”

Then apparently, Jesus left the dinner party.

Right at the end of the last chapter.

Jesus just took on a group of the most

powerful and influential people in Jewish society at the time,

he berated them, and then just dropped the mic and left without

even eating with them or making nice.

 

Then in Chapter 12, Jesus goes out to a crowd of a thousand people

that’s gathering around the Pharisee’s house and tells them,

“Watch out for the hypocritical Pharisees”.

 

Jesus is pushing the prophetic envelope here.

He’s stirring the pot. He’s calling out the bad behavior

of some of the most powerful people around him.

Basically, he’s just set into motion

the things that will eventually get him crucified.

No wonder he’s stressed out.

Then, after, he warns the crowd about

the Pharisees, he starts this conversation with the crowd

that we’ve been hearing for the last few weeks

He says:

Don’t be afraid of the religious leaders and politicians

don’t fear those who kill the body,

but can’t do anything else to you.

 

Don’t store up useless treasures on earth.

Don’t waste the time you have.

 

Don’t worry about your life

The lilies in the field and the ravens are fine

and they don’t worry.

And then, what we read last week,

Don’t be afraid little flock.

Just be prepared when God needs you.

 

Then we get the stressed out Jesus we read today:

“I’m not here to make nice. I’m here to stir some things up.”

Which he has. Very well.

 

To me, it’s almost as if in this part, Jesus talking to himself,

like he’s trying to convince himself and deal with the sudden

realization of what he’s set in motion at that dinner party.

He’s getting a picture of what his destiny is,

and he knows that his life is not going to end well.

There will probably be a lot of pain involved.

 

Remember, Luke is the same gospel that has Jesus

sweating blood in the garden of Gethsemane,

asking for God to take away this cup that

God wants him to drink.

Stress.

 

Now, Jesus said those things to the Pharisees and lawyers

because he has compassion for the people.

The normal people without power.

The ones that they were supposed to serve but were neglecting

and putting great burdens on.

 

When we say that “Jesus loves us”, we usually think of hugs,

and hand holding, and the Good Shepherd finding the lost sheep.

We want that Jesus. We want the puppies and kittens Jesus.

Not the Jesus that calls out religious leaders at their dinner parties

and walks out. But that is love too.

 

Cornel West, the modern American philosopher rightly said

“Justice is love in public.”

Jesus is love incarnate, the love of God come down to earth.

And sometimes God’s love needs to be hard and difficult.

It’s the love that comes in the form of truth, and honesty.

It’s the love that comes through justice and change.

This is the love that comes through the cross.

As a famous theological writer, Frederick Beuchner wrote,

“The Gospel is always bad news before it is good news.”

 

Jesus is not here just to have people get along and put on a happy face. 

Jesus is here to fix things, to change us, others, the world,

the systems of the world, our churches, our relationships . . .

Not just cheap peace, but real peace.

And that causes upheaval, and division, and stress.

 

We’ve all seen how cheap peace works.

If you’ve ever had a quietly tense Thanksgiving dinner

with your family, you know what cheap peace feels like.

Everyone smiles and eats and talks about innocuous stuff.  

There’s deep disagreements, but too much water 

has gone under the bridge to talk about in front of all these people

or it’s too painful to bring up again.

We eat and get indigestion and go home and complain 

about each other and do it again next year. That’s cheap peace.

 

As the Church of Jesus, we can do cheap peace.

We could all put on smiley faces

and hold hands and sway back and forth and

just have a Coke and a smile.

We can ignore what’s going on

and the sin that is running rampant.

That’s not real peace. That’s not the peace that Jesus brings.

 

Real love, doesn’t stop at cheap peace.

Real love -- the transformation and reconciliation

that God is intent on -- requires real truth and change and

that often causes real pain and real division to get there.

 

We want the puppies and kittens Jesus all the time.

But that’s the end of the story,

that’s the end result of a lot of work.

But when we’re in the middle of God’s work it

doesn’t always look so beautiful and sweet.

We always have to go through Good Friday to get to Easter Sunday.

We are not at the end of the story yet.

 

Some think that the church should not be controversial at all.

That we shouldn’t bother or annoy anyone with our message.

But we are at a time now, where the most innocuous stuff

is controversial. If we tried to avoid everything that is

divisive, we would quickly lose Jesus message.

 

I recently posted this picture of myself  

on the church facebook page.

These were a couple comments –

not from anyone at Christ Lutheran.

 

-        “Christ Lutheran and the ELCA have gone too far.

I’m glad I found this other church I’m going to.”

-        Someone else said, “which immigrants? Legal or illegal?”

And another: “Why the need to post and bring divide to a community? 

We do love immigrants!

Churches should be uniting and bring people together.

Politics has no place in churches.”

Since when has a pastor saying that we love people

been controversial?

I guess all the time when I think about it.

(And by the way, thanks to everyone who came to support

me and the gospel on the page.)

 

We are in a time when just bringing up the basic

gospel and teaching of Jesus can be a point of contention.

This is a time when we have to decide who we will

be loyal to: the way of Jesus or the way of cheap peace.

Do we want to make everyone happy and comfortable,

or do we want to make Jesus happy.

We have to choose between the puppies

and kittens Jesus and the real Jesus.

 

“Do you think that I have come to bring peace to the earth?

No, I tell you, but rather division.” 

 

Now we can have peace in our hearts and actions even

when the world is raging and on fire.

And I believe that there will be a promised peace finally, in the end.

But we are no where near the end.

 

And I think if you’re a person of faith and you’re at peace

with the way things are right now, you’re cashing in

Jesus message for something else.

And silence from us right now is just aiding and abetting.

I would like to just like to preach puppies and kittens,

and not get called out on facebook and nextdoor,

but the Spirit just won’t let me do that.

 

God is looking and hoping and working for real change in this world.

Jesus will not leave us alone.

Jesus will not leave us comfortable in our sin.

Jesus wants to change us and our society from the inside.

And that is necessarily political and uncomfortable.

Jesus hasn’t comet to bring peace first, but division.

 

Lots of you have gone through renovations in your house.

And it’s messy, and it dusty, and stressful and people

argue and disagree, and yell at each other

And the color of the walls isn’t right,

and you don’t know where the can opener is,

And then if they find some water damage or termite

damage, then they have to do more digging and removing

and replacing and it’s more costly and more stressful.

 

And you just want to get to the end, but you

have to go through all the trouble and stress

to get  to the other side, there’s just no two ways around it.

 

So it is with the sin of this world.

God is not just trying to make a cheap peace or simple repairs.

God wants to renovate everything.

God wants to get to the bottom of our hatred,

greed, prejudice, racism, sexism, homophobia, our love of power,

our neglect of those in poverty.

God wants to renovate the whole house.

And that creates upheaval and a lot of dust.

 

I do believe all of everything that we’re seeing

and experiencing right now is God renovating

things that have needed to be overhauled for a long time.

 

We pray to God for peace.

And I’m sure we’re thinking about the time when

no one is fighting or disagreeing.

But when we pray to God for peace, watch out!

God is going to do it the right way.

We’re praying for renovation.

 

But still, don’t be afraid little flock.

Don’t worry about your life.

The lilies in the field and the ravens

are fine and they don’t worry.

 

Don’t store up useless treasures on earth.

Don’t waste the time you have.

And don’t fear the powers that be.

They can’t take what’s really important.

 

So let us continue to be Jesus hands and feet.

To bring, truth, light, hope –

and yes justice to this world.

 

And let’s continue to share the love of Jesus

with the world too.

 

The love that comes through struggle and hard work.

The love that is controversial.

The love that stresses us out before it heals.

The love we see on the cross

 

The love that brings true peace.