DISAGREEMENT, DISSENSION, DIVISION
Rev. Dr. Joyce Antila Phipps
Texts: Jeremiah 23: 16-29; Luke 12: 49-56
Will Rodgers used to say that he didn’t belong to an organized political party because he was a Democrat. The same can be said about the two denominational strands that make up our church. Baptists and Congregationalists have always been independent thinkers; that’s our charm, for lack of a better word. But it means that we are usually fussing about something. Disagreements shouldn’t necessarily lead to dissension and division as they often do. In fact, I think that disagreements can be healthy for they challenge us to reflect about who we are, our place in the universe, and all that kind of stuff. How boring to be in a room -- or a church -- where everyone agrees with you!
This morning’s reading from Jeremiah warns us about those false prophets who claim to speak in God’s name. They are the ones who claim a corner on the truth, that God is in their pocket, that they and they alone hold the keys to the kingdom. Yes, yes, we say, and nod our heads, but in truth we know no one person or theology holds the keys to the kingdom. The Gospel reading is more disturbing because how can we reconcile the Jesus of this morning’s reading with our ideas of the Prince of Peace. Doesn’t peace mean an end to disagreement, a resolution of dissension, and unity out of division?
Most of us have been taught that we must, in the old Yiddish expression, “make nice,” that we should be polite and not cause trouble. Maybe if this world were nice, one could argue that. But this world is not nice, it is not peaceful; it is full of war and division with horrors that are beyond our imagination.
How is it possible to envision the Cambodian killing fields or a rebel group in Sierra Leone that amputated the arms of children as part of a political campaign? What kind of mind looks at truck bombs in the middle of busy markets killing scores of innocent people as a way to express anger at an occupying force? Or Bucha where women and children were raped and murdered? Our world is scarred by these horrors and by many more, including systemic poverty and destruction of the environment.
By using the imagery of division and dissension within the family, that one unit most sacred to most of us, Jesus is saying that redemption can only come if those destructive and death filled systems are shattered and consumed by fire. Life cannot emerge or re-emerge without confrontation. Jesus has not come to shatter a nice world but to shatter the systems that destroy life.
How do we reconcile this with the Prince of Peace we often sing about, especially at Christmas? We much prefer the images of the babe in the manger with beatific images of Mary and Joseph, shepherds and angels, and the rest of it. But when we look at Jesus from only that perspective, we are not being faithful to the Gospel he preached. Okay, we say, but what about turn the other cheek, give a person the coat as well as the cloak, and the rest of that?
Confronting evil does not necessarily mean doing violence although often those who do evil will respond with violence; the violence they do is little more than an extension of the violence they practice every day. What was the difference between the violence experienced by African Americans on a regular basis in the Old South and the violence done to the courageous people who sat at lunch counters in their nonviolent attempt to break down the old systemic violence?
Jesus is telling us what will happen when we confront the systemic violence of poverty and prejudice in our society. Deep disagreements will occur and they will lead to dissension and division, to be sure. When those old Baptists chafed under the theological intolerance of the Puritans, or Congregationalists, and disagreed, there was dissension; and there was division. That’s how this part of New Jersey got settled.
The freedom to disagree was built into the very first charter of the unified colony of New Jersey. And, God knows, that within Old First, from the very beginning, there were disagreements. Some were theological, others political. The Rev. Abel Morgan led his patriots as other Baptists supported the Crown during the War for Independence. And the fierce disagreements didn’t end with the Peace of Paris. They continued into the Civil War, World Wars I and II, into the civil rights era, and beyond with arguments about what this body of Christ and other bodies of Christ needed to do to respond to the AIDS crisis. And disagreements continue down to this very day ranging from immigration policy to how to landscape the property.
Tackling the hard issues that face us requires discernment, the process of deciding where we take our stands and how. The stark words in this morning’s Gospel do not tell us to create conflict for conflict’s sake. Confrontation and conflict are often necessary to bring change because those in power, those who hold the cards will not give up their power or wealth or influence without a fight.
We in New Jersey are coming to the 10th anniversary – if you can call it that – of Superstorm Sandy. Who can forget the iconic image on the cover of Time magazine of half a house in Union Beach or the floating house in Mantoloking Bay that was not demolished until 2013? Those are just two of the more than memorable images of the disaster that struck in October 2012.
But the powers that run New Jersey’s towns eager for more rateables have permitted all kinds of building on the shore. Just look at Mystic Islands, part of Egg Harbor Township. The homeowners there don’t have yards; they have docks. And one house there just sold for $925 thousand.
Conservationists and climate scientists tell the town it’s on a fool’s errand to keep building as the water keeps getting higher and higher. Telling someone that they have to move creates conflict, real conflict. They want to retain their assets. Those in power don’t give it up easily.
Confronting power creates conflict. Jesus knew that. So did Dietrich Bonhoeffer as he sat in his prison cell in 1944. He saw it in terms of fragments leading towards wholeness, of the breaking apart of the world because of a totally inhuman and inhumane war. “This very fragmentariness may point to a fulfillment beyond the limits of human achievement.” He continued in his letter: “The important thing today is that we should be able to discern from the fragment of our life how the whole was arranged and planned.” For as Paul wrote, we see in a glass darkly.
Confronting injustice creates conflict and leads to dissension and division, more than honest disagreement between people of good will, although there is that as well. The history of our faith and of our church has full of such conflict resulting from the disagreements we have had with each other. The question for us today is how we will proceed in the future as we disagree on questions and issues profound or ridiculous. The question is how we discern between the two in order to live the Gospel Jesus preached and died for.
Let us pray: Eternal God of our ancestors, give us wisdom and discernment; give us the grace to listen to others, to learn from our mistakes, and to live your Gospel in this world. In the name of the One who shared your Gospel with others, even Christ Jesus our Lord, Amen.