In the first chapter of Luke’s gospel Zechariah prophesies that when Jesus comes, he will guide our feet into the way of peace. When Jesus was born, the choir of angels sang about peace on earth. Jesus often said to people such things as – go in peace and sin no more; peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you. In a few minutes time we will do what we do week after week – we will share the peace with one another.

So what are we to make of our gospel reading this morning when Jesus said – do you think I have come to bring peace on earth? No, I tell you but rather division.  And if that is not enough, he also says I have come to bring fire to the earth.

The Message translation of these verses says this: “I’ve come to start a fire on this earth – how I wish it were blazing right now! I’ve come to change everything, turn everything right side up – how I long for it to be finished! Do you think I came to smooth things over and make everything nice? Not so. I’ve come to disrupt and confront!”

As we have reminded ourselves so often as we have been working our way through Luke’s gospel this year, Jesus had set his face to go to Jerusalem and Luke recorded that journey. As Jesus travelled, there was an increasing sense of an impending crisis, which would eventually centre on him and lead to his death. Conflict was very much in the air.

Of course, there were those who couldn’t get enough of him – his teaching, his miracles, his healings. At the beginning of this chapter we read “the crowd gathered in thousands, so that they trampled on one another”.

But there were others who were stirred by his words and actions to hostility. The reason for that is very clear – Jesus constantly challenged them and all that they stood for. They were the people in authority, they had real power. Anything that disturbed the status quo, and in particular their status quo, was a threat to them and their position. That group included the scribes, the priests and the Pharisees; and in due course the Roman civic authorities also turned against him.

What was it that caused this division? It was the coming of the kingdom of God. That kingdom, as proclaimed by Jesus, challenged their seemingly ordered way of life, and all that made for the status quo of how everyone lived. Jesus was saying that there was an alternative way – and that led to division.

Last Sunday we were asked to think about where we were laying up our treasure. Jesus had been saying that people should not worry about their life, what they would eat, what they would wear, because life was more than food and clothing. He said that the nations of the world strive after these things, but that they instead should strive for his kingdom. People were of course looking for security. Whether they were in authority or very much under authority – all were concerned to build for themselves a level of security now in this world.

But Jesus said that rather than focussing on this world and its received values, they should be getting ready for the coming of the King, and his kingdom.

And he told his listeners to read the signs of the times. “You all know how to read the signs that tell you what weather is coming” he said; “why can’t you read the bigger signs about what’s happening in the world?”

The reference to divided households is a quotation from Micah chapter 7. As Micah surveyed the world of his time, he saw that everything was falling apart. Everything that should give stability was failing. The rule of law, fundamental to fairness and justice, was corrupted because the judges were being bribed. Families, which should give social stability, had become completely dysfunctional with relationships turned upside down. Micah imagines himself walking in the field after harvest and he can find nothing left to eat or drink – no good thing has survived.

Jesus invited his listeners to look around at the signs in both their civic and religious worlds. Yes, there was a form of peace – the pax Romana – but at what cost? Nations and communities were oppressed to keep the peace, forced to abandon their own cultural practices, and to use a language which was not their own. And it was all made possible because of the slavery to which something like 5 million people across the empire, about 15% of the population, were subject. This could not and would not last. And in their religious world, people lived completely under the heel of the scribes and pharisees, who had built a whole set of detailed rules and regulations about how you must live. And woe betide you if you stepped outside those rules.

Jesus confronted all this, and as he proclaimed the Kingdom of God, he brought a judgement against those worlds and their requirements. Time and again he confronted the Jewish authorities and challenged their rule-based way of life, as he proclaimed and demonstrated the love of God that was unconditional, accepting, and inclusive.

That not only challenged the position of the authorities, but it liberated those who had struggled under those rules. Jesus always associated himself with those who were on the wrong side of the social divides of his day. Those who were unclean, he touched and restored to wholeness. He gave value and dignity to those who were despised – such as women, tax collectors and others generically described as sinners. He spoke of and demonstrated the eternal and inclusive love of God for all people. And that led to division. You accepted it or you rejected it; you could not sit on the fence.

So what does Jesus say today to the nations of the world? We spend our time building security for ourselves as we see it. Security is of course relative, depending on your circumstances, but for us it has much to do with possessions, net worth, and the protection of what we have managed to build up. For us it comes in all sorts of shapes and forms – a home, an income whether earned or otherwise to provide for our needs, savings for a rainy day or a holiday, a pension of some sort for future security, and health to maintain and even enjoy all of that. And of course we want our children and families to enjoy that kind of security too.

And so often that leads to a structured and tiered society in which, depending where sit, we enjoy different levels of security. Many of us here, but by no means all, will have a significant sense of security. And security is often associated with power and authority, in a chicken and egg sort of way.

For many people whatever security they did enjoy was shaken five years ago by the pandemic. And the levels of fear we experienced then have not gone away. And our world has become increasingly driven by fear, as the political rhetoric divides and polarises. You are always on one side or the other of so many issues. You only have to look back over this week – I expect most of you will have heard about Chris Kandiah, the Christian theologian who spoke on Thought for Today about attitudes to refugees and foreigners and it led to a huge row with the BBC withdrawing that part of the programme.

There are many issues today where Jesus and his gospel bring division, when he confronts those who are in power and who have authority. Archbishop Tutu once said that “when people say the bible and politics don’t mix, I wonder which Bible it is that they are reading”.

So still today Jesus come to us with his fire? Fire is not all destructive. It can refine, reveal, and renew. You will know that those who live or work in the forests sometimes start controlled fires in order to clear out the dead wood. You may have seen television programmes showing how remarkably quickly new life springs up where the fire has been.

As we follow Jesus, as we allow his word to penetrate our lives, we will inevitably find that he comes to disturb us in our established patterns of thinking and living which we think give us security.

He calls us to understand our times and to read the signs. And he calls us to belong to his kingdom and to live by the values of that kingdom where, as we walk with him day by day, we allow his unconditional love for all to shape how we think and live.

Amen.