Christ the King/ Epiphany Wilbraham, MA

Luke 10: 25-37

The Rev Dcn Michael Hamilton

August 17, 2025

Please pray that the words of my mouth and the meditations of all our hearts are pleasing and acceptable to God. Amen. (pbs)

Some Gospel readings are easier to preach on than others and when decisions are made between Pastor Martha and me as to who is going to preach when, it is typically done “blindly” as in, we do not look at the lessons and then decide- we leave that to chance, or to the Holy Spirit, as to who draws which lot. In some relationships I know deacons are given what might be considered ‘second string’ readings or the “OMG” passages on divorce, explaining the Trinity, or the Syrophoenician woman being referenced as a dog. But Martha and I both know there are no second-string readings, so pray, listen, prepare, and then pray some more for guidance.

Such is today. This morning’s reading disturbs our preferred imagines of ‘the Prince of Peace’, and the iconic stained-glass window of the Good Shepherd with the lamb on His shoulders, and then, let’s not forget the Sunday School coloring page of the smiling Jesus welcoming the children to sit on His knee.  You know,  the images of Jesus that we love and hold dear to our hearts. Today’s Gospel comes along, and we have the banshee-type Jesus telling us He has come NOT to bring peace, but rather a sword of division that will cleave relationships along with a fire that will burn out of control and His only regret is that the fire is not already raging. At first look, this is a side of Jesus we are not used to. A side we are not comfortable with. It is a script that we would prefer to skip over rather than investigate what He might be saying because it doesn’t appear welcoming, comforting, and gentle as we like OUR Jesus to be. OUR Jesus doesn’t have a sharp edge. Each week we profess ‘that He will come to judge the living and the dead’ but each of us secretly believes that we will see mercy, and others will see the judgement, because OUR Jesus is often shaped exactly how we want Him to be. 

You and I are human and consequently, we have limitations on our imagination and intellect. Limitations that make it incredibly dangerous to think that we can contain, corral, or control Jesus. One approach to possibly re-aligning our image of Jesus is to imagine what we think the Bible would be if condensed into 2 or 3 sentences. I offer this as a spiritual exercise to try to answer for yourselves this week but what I came up with for the sake of this sermon would be;

The Bible and Gospel that I believe I am called to is, to act justly, love mercy, and walk humbly with the God that I love with all my heart, soul, and strength and my neighbor as myself as I feed the hungry, welcome the stranger, clothe the naked, visit the prisoner and sick, and befriend the foreigner that is at risk.

Right now, in my life, that is the condensed message that I can live with. It will probably change at some other time but for right now, this fits. It is without sentimental imagery, the onus of responsibility is on me in how I live into the relationship that I have with God and neighbor, and it also can be a beacon for me to strive for.

In believing this Gospel, I know that I am positioning myself to be at odds with someone that might believe in the prosperity gospel which has been offered as a lens to interpreting the Bible because God helps those that help themselves (which, by the way, is NOT in scripture though many believe it to be). The prosperity bible, or prosperity gospel, is not biblical. It is a false teaching that contradicts core Christian doctrines. While it promises material wealth and worldly success as a result of faith, it misinterprets scriptures, focusing on personal gain rather than God's glory and the needs of others. 

With my condensed Gospel statement, I will be at odds with Christian Nationalists. Christian nationalist ideology believes the United States was founded as, and should remain, a Christian nation. It asserts that the government should be guided by Christian values, and that being Christian is integral to being a "real" American. This often includes the belief that the U.S. government should officially declare itself a Christian nation. On paper, this seems like an idyllic testament of faith but “God bless America” is often understood to be, “God ONLY bless America” or “God has ONLY blessed America and therefore everyone else is damned or unloved”.

My Bible/Gospel definition would put me on the opposite side of the street demonstration with White Supremacists who believe white people constitute a superior race and should therefore dominate society, typically to the exclusion or detriment of other racial and ethnic groups. This movement has taken on a Christian belief system that establishes a new/ improved/ preferred people of God settling into their promised land of non-Jewish inhabitants.

My micro-sized Gospel will run afoul of those people that find concentration camps and caged persons that are held in dangerous, inhumane, and inadequate spaces for deportation acceptable. Whether they are here legally or not, if they are separated from family or not, or if they are shipped to foreign lands that they are not citizens of. My thesis does not allow for people being belittled as non-humans in cages and kept in what is believed to be alligator, mosquito, and snake infested swamps. Many people will disagree with me and will gleefully chat about how clever these placements are in a form of sadistic humor. My tenant of loving God, self, and neighbor could not be stretched further to the point of breaking than this example. I am also perplexed in how so many of those celebrating these imprisonments are also standing on their christian-identities without seeing a discord. I cannot see how they don’t.

These are the type of divisions that Jesus is talking about at the expense of peace. We don’t hear Jesus saying, “we agree to disagree on these topics.” This is not a Bettles song of, “let it be, let it be, whisper words of wisdom, let it be.” When people square off on these issues everything is not made right by singing “Love will keep us together.” These sentimental clichés do not work in this situation, it is not that easy. The message of Jesus is going to cause the friction and the spark of flame between even the closest relationships and Jesus is waiting for that fire to start. The fire itself will happen when enough people accept and enact His Gospel message by living for the kingdom of Heaven. In doing so, the fire of the Gospel will burn, purify, illuminate, and warm the start of Heaven on earth and the plan of God for the people of God. The very nature of what Jesus is preaching is the start of a revolution because there isn’t enough space for two diametrically opposed Gospels to co-exist.

Disagreement on issues and the political divides that we see in society today are the incidents that will pit mother and daughter in laws, fathers and sons, brothers and sisters against each other. Jesus is telling the followers that the Gospel is political. The Gospel is countercultural. The Gospel is where dividing lines can be found. Anyone that believes in the political tropes of,

         · ‘might makes right’

         · ‘earn as much as you can, in whatever way necessary’

         · ‘it is OK to use people for personal gain’

         · and or, ‘it is acceptable to take advantage of the poor and 

            disenfranchised because they do not matter as much as I do’

All of these believers are in grave danger when the fire starts. They are also the people that Jesus cautions that they can read the weather but not the current climate. The kingdom is drawing near and those that can’t see it coming are at great risk.

“I have come to bring fire on the earth, and how I wish it were already kindled! 

This past Lent, and since then, I have had several opportunities to preach and a steady message has been to encourage us to be able to listen across the aisle, repair the broken relationships that can be repaired, and to pray for and not belittle people we disagree with, and I still believe this. I had hoped the book by Bishop Mark Beckwith, Seeing the Unseen would have had more sound bites that we could think about, but it really wasn’t that type of book as I had imagined. It is a good book, and I still recommend it, it just wasn’t written in the format that I assumed it was. I guess you can’t judge a book by its cover if you haven’t actually read the book to begin with… lesson learned. But, without sounding duplicitous, the repairs in the breach that I was, and am still advocating for, are important, but not at the expense of the Gospel. I think this is why we need to figure out what the Gospel message is for each of us that we can stand in the presence of Jesus when asked to do so and have this encapsulated message be the bottom line that defines who we are, whose we are, and where we can witness to the Gospel that we believe in.   Amen.