Tikkun Olam--Sermon on Lk 12:49-56
Tikkun Olam
(Lk 12:49-56)
LBUCC 8/19/07
Good morning Beloved. We are back to the lectionary this week. The old friend that I like to visit with at least once or twice a month so that we can keep with the calendar of the Church Universal.
I also feel that given my departure from expository preaching last week that I want to grab a hold of a difficult text and suck on its marrow until I am satisfied.
The Gospel text in the lectionary, this week, is just one of those that I feel I can really sink my teeth into.
In this text, Christ will define his ministry in terms of division.
That is something we do not often think about when we think of Christâ™s kingdom.
More often, the image we get is that of being together as parts of a bigger whole; loving each other; making the world a better place.
Not today.
Today we deal with Christâ™s plea to those around him to recognize the signs of the times.
Letâ™s get into the text:
Weâ™re looking at Lk 12:49-56. Iâ™m reading from the NRSV:
The New Revised Standard Version
Luke 12
12:49
"I came to bring fire to the earth, and how I wish it were already kindled!
12:50
I have a baptism with which to be baptized, and what stress I am under until it is completed!
12:51
Do you think that I have come to bring peace to the earth? No, I tell you, but rather division!
12:52
From now on five in one household will be divided, three against two and two against three;
12:53
they will be divided: father against son and son against father, mother against daughter and daughter against mother, mother-in-law against her daughter-in-law and daughter-in-law against mother-in-law."
12:54
He also said to the crowds, "When you see a cloud rising in the west, you immediately say, "It is going to rain'; and so it happens.
12:55
And when you see the south wind blowing, you say, "There will be scorching heat'; and it happens.
12:56
You hypocrites! You know how to interpret the appearance of earth and sky, but why do you not know how to interpret the present time?
It is quite unambiguous to me that Christ is frustrated in this text. It comes to us, as reported by Luke, nestled among a few other texts with similar tone. They seem to be all part of a natural progression of emotion for Christ as he travels closer to Jerusalemâ”and thus, his betrayal and crucifixion.
Christ is irritated with those around him (v. 56) for not getting it. These folks are farmers and fishermen who can simply smell the air and know it is going to rain; or feel the breeze shift slightly and know what the temperature will be the next morning. But they cannot see the kingdom of heaven being unveiled right before their eyes.
But there is also something else here:
Jesus is calling those around him (almost desperately) to think seriously about the decisions that they makeâ”the way they go about living their lives.
The key for me is in v. 50. He is telling the Disciples that he has a baptism that he needs to undergo and he has a great deal of stress that he is under until that time. The word that Luke uses here is of particular interest to meâ”συνεχομαι (sunechomai), it literally means to be pressed or straightened (as on a rack)â”literally âœI am straightened.â
It is a word of physical pain.
In my opinion, I wonder if Jesus, knowing what is coming in the near future, is wondering if it is worth it. Even those closest to him often do not get where he is coming from.
How will the world understand if his own students cannot?
It is little wonder why Christ called Simon, Peter. It comes from the Latin pierto, meaning rock.
It often helps me to remove Simon Peter and insert Simon Blockhead when I am trying to wrap my mind around how Christ must have felt.
Some of you are, or were teachers; some caring professionals like physicians, therapists, and nurses.
I know you have been in this conundrum yourselves.
You try your hardest and they just do not understand!
Imagine how pastors sometimes feel;-)
It is rare, but sometimes, in my own frustration and anger, I really do think of parishioners as sheep who need a shepherd. I am then only more frustrated that this shepherd canâ™t get through to them!
Moments like this in Scripture are the best glimpses, I believe, into who Jesus truly was.
These are the times that his god-kissed humanity comes through. Jesus felt as we do.
In these verses, I am reminded of the story of the transfiguration, which will come a little later in Christâ™s reported life. All Christ asked the Apostles to do was to wait up for him while he went off and prayed. They couldnâ™t even stay awake, let alone provide a proper vigil.
Or the time that Christ blew up at the money changers in the temple courts screaming and overturning their wares. Or the day that Christ went to grab a fig off a tree when they would be seasonally at their peak only to find no figs. He became angry and kindled his anger against the tree.
I think it is important that we recognize Christâ™s humanity. He DID get mad. He DID at times lash out. We have the scriptural documentation thereof.
The council of Chalcedon in 451 CE agonized over Christâ™s humanity. They needed to find a way that he could be both God and human. They decided, after many Scriptural and theological acrobatics that he was 100% both God, and 100% man giving theological priority to the God part. That is the only way they could wrap their minds around the personage of Christ. He had to be 100% human to live as he did.
And he was, Beloved.
What I like the best about these Scriptural instances is that, in them, Christ dispenses with any cryptic sayings.
No parables here.
This is as real as it gets!
When he gets angry, Christ is going to take the gloves off and tell us exactly where he is coming from.
And so, gloves off, letâ™s go back to our text.
Jesus is telling those who will listen that he is bringing fire down to earth and wishes that it were already here.
What I think Christ is getting at here is a practice that is best encompassed by a Jewish theological term: תיקון עול×, (tikkun olam); literally, it means âœrepair of the world,â or âœrepairing the world.â
In the Talmud, the Jewish sacred commentary of the Torah, the term comes into play in the sense that a given practice (such a as a proverbial good deed) should be performed not because it is mandated by law or Scripture, but for the sake of tikkun olamâ”for the sake of repairing the world. It is this phrase, in fact, that the orthodox Jew recites in prayer three times daily.
In Kaballahâ”the most sacred text of mystic Judaismâ”uses this term often. Isaac Luria, one of the most famous Kabbalists of the sixth century used the term tikkun olam to encapsulate what he reported was the true role of humanity in the ongoing evolution of the cosmosâ”the work of redemption and repair of the world in the name of God.
I think it is with this sense of repairing the world that we must read this text. Christ came, part and parcel, to do this.
In saying this, however, I want to make certain that we do not fall into the trap of believing that Christ came to repair the world because we were so evil or unredeemable we could not otherwise hope to get into heaven when our time came.
Christ is so often misread in this way.
I believe that God the Father, like Christ, and like exemplified in Jn 3:16 is about the business of love.
The image of fire in Scripture is an interesting oneâ”more often than not, it is associated with refiningâ”as a master craftsman might refine ore into copper. The metallurgist, however, could also use fire to repair what has been broken.
In modern terms, I think of a welder.
I was recently traveling across the Bay Bridge from San Francisco to the East Bay. Anyone who has been down there in the past few years knows that they have been retrofitting the bridge for earthquake safety.
It is my understanding in speaking to those who know about these things, that the welders on the bridge are not only adding more strength and under-girding to the bridge. They are also fixing stress fractures in the metal that have been caused by simple wear-and-rear.
I believe that Christ came to bring fire, to repair, not to determine who gets into heaven and who does not; rather, I truly believe that Christ came to bring into sharp focus those things that should be most important.
A world that cannot love is a world that is broken.
Would you not agree?
Christ, I know in my heart, came for the purpose of tikkun olam; he came to make us co-conspirators in his plan of repairing that which has become broken through misplaced priority, human-nature, war, poverty, and greed (among other things).
This practice of tikkun olam, I believe is a uniquely human endeavor. For Christians, I believe that Jesus came to show us how to do it.
Popular Jewish theologian and writer, Rabbi David Edleman stated in a recent interview that,
This world is not a world for angels; it's a world for human beings. And our mission is to bring heaven down to earth. The first Lubavitch Rebbe said that if someone goes and separates themselves from the world to study for the whole day locked up in a synagogue, it may be a wonderful thing to do, but it's a cop-out. That's not what we were created to do; that's not our purpose in the world. We are here with a mission to improve ourselves and to improve the world, and it's a path that's fraught with difficulty.
For we Christians, tikkun olam really is a mandate. We are called to bring heavenly things to earth.
These words that Christ gives out of frustration are really words of empowerment; like the welders on the Bay Bridge, we can bring the shards of a broken world back together.
It will not be easy though.
Christ talks about division in this text.
We mustnâ™t overlook or gloss over that.
People will be divided; v 53:
âœthey will be divided: father against son and son against father, mother against daughter and daughter against mother, mother-in-law against her daughter-in-law and daughter-in-law against mother-in-law.â
When people make the decision to be about the business of tikkun olam they also, by circumstance, decide what they are not about.
To be engaged in making the world a better place requires a prioritization of oneâ™s commitments. This is where the division comes.
Christ is talking about focus.
It can sometimes be a lonely place.
We have all been there. We have felt strongly about something and others around you have not.
I am not going to rattle off a list of things where I believe we must focus. That is between each of us and God.
At my work at Apple, a phrase that we often throw around is that one has to âœfix the customer before they can fix the issue.â
The same is true here. In order to be about tikkun olam one needs to work on themselves before they can weld the broken pieces of the world back together.
Change starts, and must continue, on a personal level.
Yes, choosing to be about tikkun olam does divide; but, not all division is for the worse.
Sometimes to be healthy, we must be divided from unhealthy people, places, and things.
God, through the work of tikkun olam, is challenging us to examine the inconsistencies in our own lives.
I want to close, here, with two, really important point:s 1) Remember that Christ was 100% human. He felt, he feels, as we feel. Hurts as we hurt. And as we saw gets frustrated and angry as we do.
You do not do any of this alone.
You do it with his support and that of the rest of us around you. Your family in Christ. If you need help, reach out.
2) Christ NEVER sent anyone out alone. Always in groups. The work of the Gospelâ”the good news is not a solitary affair.
We are to be engaged in tikkun olam as a community.
The time is now, Beloved, Christ is sharing his most intimate moments with us and is pleading with us to get it.
Will we?
(Lk 12:49-56)
LBUCC 8/19/07
Good morning Beloved. We are back to the lectionary this week. The old friend that I like to visit with at least once or twice a month so that we can keep with the calendar of the Church Universal.
I also feel that given my departure from expository preaching last week that I want to grab a hold of a difficult text and suck on its marrow until I am satisfied.
The Gospel text in the lectionary, this week, is just one of those that I feel I can really sink my teeth into.
In this text, Christ will define his ministry in terms of division.
That is something we do not often think about when we think of Christâ™s kingdom.
More often, the image we get is that of being together as parts of a bigger whole; loving each other; making the world a better place.
Not today.
Today we deal with Christâ™s plea to those around him to recognize the signs of the times.
Letâ™s get into the text:
Weâ™re looking at Lk 12:49-56. Iâ™m reading from the NRSV:
The New Revised Standard Version
Luke 12
12:49
"I came to bring fire to the earth, and how I wish it were already kindled!
12:50
I have a baptism with which to be baptized, and what stress I am under until it is completed!
12:51
Do you think that I have come to bring peace to the earth? No, I tell you, but rather division!
12:52
From now on five in one household will be divided, three against two and two against three;
12:53
they will be divided: father against son and son against father, mother against daughter and daughter against mother, mother-in-law against her daughter-in-law and daughter-in-law against mother-in-law."
12:54
He also said to the crowds, "When you see a cloud rising in the west, you immediately say, "It is going to rain'; and so it happens.
12:55
And when you see the south wind blowing, you say, "There will be scorching heat'; and it happens.
12:56
You hypocrites! You know how to interpret the appearance of earth and sky, but why do you not know how to interpret the present time?
It is quite unambiguous to me that Christ is frustrated in this text. It comes to us, as reported by Luke, nestled among a few other texts with similar tone. They seem to be all part of a natural progression of emotion for Christ as he travels closer to Jerusalemâ”and thus, his betrayal and crucifixion.
Christ is irritated with those around him (v. 56) for not getting it. These folks are farmers and fishermen who can simply smell the air and know it is going to rain; or feel the breeze shift slightly and know what the temperature will be the next morning. But they cannot see the kingdom of heaven being unveiled right before their eyes.
But there is also something else here:
Jesus is calling those around him (almost desperately) to think seriously about the decisions that they makeâ”the way they go about living their lives.
The key for me is in v. 50. He is telling the Disciples that he has a baptism that he needs to undergo and he has a great deal of stress that he is under until that time. The word that Luke uses here is of particular interest to meâ”συνεχομαι (sunechomai), it literally means to be pressed or straightened (as on a rack)â”literally âœI am straightened.â
It is a word of physical pain.
In my opinion, I wonder if Jesus, knowing what is coming in the near future, is wondering if it is worth it. Even those closest to him often do not get where he is coming from.
How will the world understand if his own students cannot?
It is little wonder why Christ called Simon, Peter. It comes from the Latin pierto, meaning rock.
It often helps me to remove Simon Peter and insert Simon Blockhead when I am trying to wrap my mind around how Christ must have felt.
Some of you are, or were teachers; some caring professionals like physicians, therapists, and nurses.
I know you have been in this conundrum yourselves.
You try your hardest and they just do not understand!
Imagine how pastors sometimes feel;-)
It is rare, but sometimes, in my own frustration and anger, I really do think of parishioners as sheep who need a shepherd. I am then only more frustrated that this shepherd canâ™t get through to them!
Moments like this in Scripture are the best glimpses, I believe, into who Jesus truly was.
These are the times that his god-kissed humanity comes through. Jesus felt as we do.
In these verses, I am reminded of the story of the transfiguration, which will come a little later in Christâ™s reported life. All Christ asked the Apostles to do was to wait up for him while he went off and prayed. They couldnâ™t even stay awake, let alone provide a proper vigil.
Or the time that Christ blew up at the money changers in the temple courts screaming and overturning their wares. Or the day that Christ went to grab a fig off a tree when they would be seasonally at their peak only to find no figs. He became angry and kindled his anger against the tree.
I think it is important that we recognize Christâ™s humanity. He DID get mad. He DID at times lash out. We have the scriptural documentation thereof.
The council of Chalcedon in 451 CE agonized over Christâ™s humanity. They needed to find a way that he could be both God and human. They decided, after many Scriptural and theological acrobatics that he was 100% both God, and 100% man giving theological priority to the God part. That is the only way they could wrap their minds around the personage of Christ. He had to be 100% human to live as he did.
And he was, Beloved.
What I like the best about these Scriptural instances is that, in them, Christ dispenses with any cryptic sayings.
No parables here.
This is as real as it gets!
When he gets angry, Christ is going to take the gloves off and tell us exactly where he is coming from.
And so, gloves off, letâ™s go back to our text.
Jesus is telling those who will listen that he is bringing fire down to earth and wishes that it were already here.
What I think Christ is getting at here is a practice that is best encompassed by a Jewish theological term: תיקון עול×, (tikkun olam); literally, it means âœrepair of the world,â or âœrepairing the world.â
In the Talmud, the Jewish sacred commentary of the Torah, the term comes into play in the sense that a given practice (such a as a proverbial good deed) should be performed not because it is mandated by law or Scripture, but for the sake of tikkun olamâ”for the sake of repairing the world. It is this phrase, in fact, that the orthodox Jew recites in prayer three times daily.
In Kaballahâ”the most sacred text of mystic Judaismâ”uses this term often. Isaac Luria, one of the most famous Kabbalists of the sixth century used the term tikkun olam to encapsulate what he reported was the true role of humanity in the ongoing evolution of the cosmosâ”the work of redemption and repair of the world in the name of God.
I think it is with this sense of repairing the world that we must read this text. Christ came, part and parcel, to do this.
In saying this, however, I want to make certain that we do not fall into the trap of believing that Christ came to repair the world because we were so evil or unredeemable we could not otherwise hope to get into heaven when our time came.
Christ is so often misread in this way.
I believe that God the Father, like Christ, and like exemplified in Jn 3:16 is about the business of love.
The image of fire in Scripture is an interesting oneâ”more often than not, it is associated with refiningâ”as a master craftsman might refine ore into copper. The metallurgist, however, could also use fire to repair what has been broken.
In modern terms, I think of a welder.
I was recently traveling across the Bay Bridge from San Francisco to the East Bay. Anyone who has been down there in the past few years knows that they have been retrofitting the bridge for earthquake safety.
It is my understanding in speaking to those who know about these things, that the welders on the bridge are not only adding more strength and under-girding to the bridge. They are also fixing stress fractures in the metal that have been caused by simple wear-and-rear.
I believe that Christ came to bring fire, to repair, not to determine who gets into heaven and who does not; rather, I truly believe that Christ came to bring into sharp focus those things that should be most important.
A world that cannot love is a world that is broken.
Would you not agree?
Christ, I know in my heart, came for the purpose of tikkun olam; he came to make us co-conspirators in his plan of repairing that which has become broken through misplaced priority, human-nature, war, poverty, and greed (among other things).
This practice of tikkun olam, I believe is a uniquely human endeavor. For Christians, I believe that Jesus came to show us how to do it.
Popular Jewish theologian and writer, Rabbi David Edleman stated in a recent interview that,
This world is not a world for angels; it's a world for human beings. And our mission is to bring heaven down to earth. The first Lubavitch Rebbe said that if someone goes and separates themselves from the world to study for the whole day locked up in a synagogue, it may be a wonderful thing to do, but it's a cop-out. That's not what we were created to do; that's not our purpose in the world. We are here with a mission to improve ourselves and to improve the world, and it's a path that's fraught with difficulty.
For we Christians, tikkun olam really is a mandate. We are called to bring heavenly things to earth.
These words that Christ gives out of frustration are really words of empowerment; like the welders on the Bay Bridge, we can bring the shards of a broken world back together.
It will not be easy though.
Christ talks about division in this text.
We mustnâ™t overlook or gloss over that.
People will be divided; v 53:
âœthey will be divided: father against son and son against father, mother against daughter and daughter against mother, mother-in-law against her daughter-in-law and daughter-in-law against mother-in-law.â
When people make the decision to be about the business of tikkun olam they also, by circumstance, decide what they are not about.
To be engaged in making the world a better place requires a prioritization of oneâ™s commitments. This is where the division comes.
Christ is talking about focus.
It can sometimes be a lonely place.
We have all been there. We have felt strongly about something and others around you have not.
I am not going to rattle off a list of things where I believe we must focus. That is between each of us and God.
At my work at Apple, a phrase that we often throw around is that one has to âœfix the customer before they can fix the issue.â
The same is true here. In order to be about tikkun olam one needs to work on themselves before they can weld the broken pieces of the world back together.
Change starts, and must continue, on a personal level.
Yes, choosing to be about tikkun olam does divide; but, not all division is for the worse.
Sometimes to be healthy, we must be divided from unhealthy people, places, and things.
God, through the work of tikkun olam, is challenging us to examine the inconsistencies in our own lives.
I want to close, here, with two, really important point:s 1) Remember that Christ was 100% human. He felt, he feels, as we feel. Hurts as we hurt. And as we saw gets frustrated and angry as we do.
You do not do any of this alone.
You do it with his support and that of the rest of us around you. Your family in Christ. If you need help, reach out.
2) Christ NEVER sent anyone out alone. Always in groups. The work of the Gospelâ”the good news is not a solitary affair.
We are to be engaged in tikkun olam as a community.
The time is now, Beloved, Christ is sharing his most intimate moments with us and is pleading with us to get it.
Will we?