Ninth Sunday after Trinity 2022

 

Gospel reading: Luke 12:49-56

I have the Met Office weather app on my phone, and I check it, religiously, every morning. If it forecasts rain, I don’t go out without a waterproof layer, and if it forecasts heat, I leave my jumper at home. But that isn’t what Jesus is talking about. He spoke into an agrarian society, where longed-for rain might soften the ground for ploughing, or activate seed in the soil, but where you would push to bring in the harvest before it was ruined by rain. Or where a hot wind could wither shoots before they were established, and a prolonged hot spell could devastate that year’s harvest. Our own farmers have been hit, first by a lack of rain and then by heat waves. The UK harvests will be greatly reduced this year, at the same time the war in Ukraine is cutting grain off from the global market. Our farmers are already eating into food set aside for their animals for this coming winter. And when the rains do come, on hard-baked ground, there will be flooding and soil erosion to contend with.

For those with eyes to see and ears to hear, we are in the tightening grip of global climate change provoked by human (in)action, and we need to read the signs of the times and know how to respond. But Jesus calls the crowd play-actors (hypocrites, theatre mask-wearers) who act as if the material world was all that exists, and not as a people dependent on the loving-kindness of a faithful covenant-making God.

Longed-for rain in a dry land, and wind that blows wherever it will, are both ways of speaking of the activity of the Holy Spirit. Moreover, they should be understood as metaphors for the lives of Spirit-filled women and men, of the Spirit-filled community. We are called to bless our communities, in Jesus’ name, as life-giving rain falls on a dry land causing crops to bear fruit, resulting in economic stability and in joy. We are called to live lives that are as free and as note-worthy as the wind. We live this way when we are led by the Spirit, who enables us to hear Jesus’ voice, to discern what the Father is doing, and who empowers us to respond with all we are.

We learn to hear the voice of Jesus through the discipline of prayer, rooted in Scripture. All those who are baptized into Jesus’ baptism have the incredible privilege of hearing his voice; but the process is fascinating. Jesus says he has come to bring division within the family, the Church, three against two and two against three. What ought we make of this?

I want to suggest that the division Jesus brings is intentional, between people who are committed to one another and to Jesus himself, and that it is this messy, and at times painful, tension that creates the necessary environment, or conditions, for the life-giving creativity of the Holy Spirit. This is not the radical individualism of five against five, a familiar malaise in our culture, which leads to paralysis. But neither is the goal unity based on all thinking the same thing: that describes a cult. Our unity is in Jesus, alone, and he has come to bring division.

In recent days, Anglican bishops and archbishops from all around the world have gathered for the Lambeth Conference. Almost all the commentary has focused on matters on which they disagree. The Communion is undoubtedly stretched, to what feels like the very limits, and to some extent already broken. And yet it is over this unpromising face of the waters that the Spirit hovers, calling out all manner of life.

Some identify as progressive Christians. Progressive Christianity can be nothing more than the latest iteration of Gnosticism, the heretical belief of possessing a superior faith to the majority. Or it can be the Spirit blowing where the Spirit will; and filling our sails. Others identify as traditional or orthodox Christians. Traditional Christianity can be nothing more than legalism, possessing a form of godliness but denying the presence, and therefore the power, of God. Or it can be faithful countercultural witness in a hostile or indifferent world. Neither camp is right or good by its own virtue, but only in as much as we hear and respond to the voice of Jesus, who calls three against two and two against three, thus opening-up creative space. Moreover, it is possible to set out in step with the Spirit, but to go off track; and it is possible to wander, lost, but be led back into the Way. There is, therefore, no place for confidence in our own wisdom, but, on the other hand, no need for despair. In the tension of three against two and two against three, while remaining members of the family, committed to one another, we may be used by the grace of God to save one another from our own hubris.

In this process, fire, yet another image of the Holy Spirit as witnessed on the day of Pentecost, is kindled on the earth. Fire, by which those who are cold may be warmed, and over which those who are hungry may be fed. We live in days of great turmoil, and in it all, our churches may look to be disappearing. What if, in fact, these are days in which Jesus is renewing our churches in preparation for a great harvest?