The Trouble with Jesus

In the name of the blessed Trinity, one God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Amen.

Well, I'm not Bob Zito.

Bob is one of the number of people who have been caught by the COVID outbreak

we've had among many Trinitarians, as are a good number of people in our choir,

which is the reason they're not here today.

But it's a blessing to be with you.

There's a lot that we don't know about Jesus.

But one thing we know for sure is that he was crucified,

tortured, to death, by a consortium of religious and political leaders.

Why?

Not because he said, let the little children come to me.

But because he caused trouble.

We have to admit that everywhere Jesus went, his preaching was rarely greeted

with acceptance and affirmation.

Crisis, controversy, quarreling accompanied him every step of the way.

And we get a strong taste of it in today's gospel.

When Jesus tells his disciples, he almost brags that he is the cause of trouble.

I came to bring fire to the earth and how I wish it were already kindled.

Do not think I have come to bring peace, but division.

I know that we want church to be a place of stability and peace.

Frankly, I work pretty hard to be sure that we have some level of stability among us at Trinity.

We need we truly need this space to be a place where we can focus on the core truths of God,

and receive strength strength to shake off the anxiety around us,

strength that we may go forth for the living of these days.

Yet, it's only part of Jesus' story.

Because sometimes Jesus causes trouble.

Now, trouble in church occurs not only because sometimes church people can be

difficult, which they can be.

And not because clergy are sinners, which we are,

but because of the gospel of Jesus.

As I say, there is very little evidence of the life of Jesus outside of the

Bible, but one thing we do know is that he was crucified.

Crucifixion was a staple Roman torture method,

and no one would have undergone it by quietly keeping the Sabbath and helping

folks adjust to imperial rule.

Something about Jesus made government and religious authorities collude to shut him up.

Remember back to his birth, when King Herod heard about it, Matthew says that

he was troubled and everyone in Jerusalem was troubled with him.

Early in his gospel, Luke makes a deeper point by reporting that the angelic

messengers bypass the palace and go straight to the poor shepherds working the

night shift in the fields,

saying to them, glory to God in the highest and on earth peace to those whom he favors.

It's actually a paraphrase of the same greeting that the emperor would use when

he made his royal proclamations to the outlying areas of Rome's territories.

The angels are announcing, so to say, there's a new emperor in town.

And he might cause some trouble.

When we ask why Jesus would want to cause trouble, what we see time and time

again in our Bible, in the New Testament,

is not that Jesus seems to have something to say every time the emperor or the

high priests make a decision.

Jesus is rather focused. He causes trouble when he sees that the people of God

are not being treated like the children of God.

When they are oppressed by religion or imperial systems that do not value their worth.

When he sees it, he is piercingly clear.

He criticizes the Pharisees and the scribes for their hypocrisy,

emphasizing piety rather than justice and mercy and forgiveness.

He likens them to white-washed tombs, beautiful on the outside,

but decaying on the inside.

He challenged their overly strict interpretation of the law,

including the Sabbath day,

and accused them of burdensome rules that keep the people from having a relationship with God.

And he deliberately associated himself with people that his religion deemed unclean.

Sinners. Tax collectors. Prostitutes.

Directly contradicting the rules of his own faith. and speaking in that moment

of God's boundless grace and forgiveness.

We do have, I have, a tendency,

when I hear these passages from

the scripture, to want to kind of cut them down to my size, to tame them,

domesticate them try to find some way to make them good news that sounds good to us all,

but we can't get around the fact that Jesus came to call even us to a radical

way of life that often challenges the systems of religion and politics.

In 1963, eight Alabama clergy, all comfortable, white clergy,

in comfortable congregations like me,

cast themselves as peacemakers and reconcilers and wrote to Martin Luther King Jr.,

saying that while they're in favor of racial justice, they were troubled by the disruption.

They implored him to be more patient, not to endanger anything,

not to cause any violence.

What you preach is true, they said, but it's just not the right time to talk about it.

When I read that, I'm convicted because I can so see myself writing that letter.

From his jail cell, he wrote back,

in the spirit of Jesus, as we hear him speaking this morning from Luke's gospel,

and he reminded his fellow clergy to beware,

that their need for stability may be covering up something that Jesus wants to name.

Maybe allowing the powers that be oppress the children of God.

I do not know all the answers of our world and our life for sure. However,

I don't always know when to lean into Jesus as our Prince of Peace,

and when to lean into him as he calls us today, as our Savior of Trouble.

Yet I'm reminded today, convicted By thinking about King's letter And by thinking about Jesus himself,

That sometimes my default for stability Is only part of the story,

And that in the end it's impossible to follow Jesus,

without some level of trouble.

Amen. Amen.

Thanks for listening to 60 Church Street, a podcast of Trinity Episcopal Church

in Asheville, North Carolina.

Now go in peace to love and serve the Lord.

The Homily was offered by the Rev. Dr. R. Scott White.

Introductory and closing reflections were shared by the Rev. Amy Peterson.

Musical contributions were performed by Dr. Kevin Seal.

Sermon audio was prepared by Nanette Popa. Production was guided by Corin Marie Fredrickson