Interpreting the Times

Of all the things Jesus said, the words we read today from the Luke’s gospel are probably not on your coffee mug. “I have come to cast fire upon the earth, and how I wish it were already ablaze!” These are not the gentle, reassuring words we often expect. This isn’t the Jesus we see on our stained-glass windows. This is a Jesus who doesn’t hold back, who doesn’t mince words.

And Jesus doesn’t stop there. He turns to the crowd and says, “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?”

These are difficult words for us to receive. When we place them in the wider context of the chapters around them, they get harder, not easier. We’re often drawn to the feel-good stories about Jesus, and we have a difficult time with passages like this. We aren’t sure what to do with them. How do we, as modern followers of Jesus, two thousand years and a world away from when these words were first spoken, make sense of a Christ who claims to bring fire and division?

We all know what division feels like. We’ve seen it in our own families, maybe a bitter argument over Thanksgiving dinner that left a scar. We’ve certainly seen it in our communities and even in our churches. I remember when the United Church of Canada decided to fully include LGBTQ+ people in the 1990s, the Presbyterian congregation I attended saw new faces—people who left their own churches over that decision. More recently, when the Presbyterian Church in Canada made a similar, long-overdue in my opinion affirmation, it too caused painful division. We don’t always agree, and sometimes that disagreement breaks things. It’s regrettable and deeply unfortunate. When we do disagree, we do need to ask ourselves what the core things are we agree on.

Jesus himself was no stranger to division. His own family tried to stop his ministry, thinking he’d gone too far. He responded by saying that his disciples, those who did the will of God, were his true family. That’s a tough pill to swallow.

On the surface, the message of Jesus seems simple: love God, love your neighbour, be merciful, offer grace. But the moment you try to actually live that way and bring that message into a world and a society that isn’t built on love and grace, you create friction. Living it out can tear apart communities and fracture families. I think Jesus is preparing us. He’s telling us that this ministry we’re invited into isn’t easy. It is very, very difficult. We will face obstacles.

Just look around. We live in a time of incredible polarization. News headlines are crafted to incite anger and division. Our social media feeds become echo chambers, reinforcing things we already believe. We rarely hear a different perspective. Jesus is asking us to wake up, to have eyes to see, and ears to listen. To see the world for what it is.

What do we do with this? How can the “Prince of Peace,” whose birth the angels announced with a song of “peace on earth,” stand here and say, “Do you think that I have come to bring peace to the earth? No, I tell you, but rather division!”

Theologians Chelsey Harmon and Garret Keizer offer a powerful insight: for those who benefit from the way things are, the coming of true peace will always feel like war. (Centre for Excellence in Preaching – https://cepreaching.org/commentary/2025-08-11/luke-1249-56-4/)

Jesus confesses that this world won’t see his ways as peaceful because his ways are diametrically opposed to how many in the world operate. When you challenge the status quo, peace feels like a war—on a way of life, a way of doing business, a way of being comfortable.

Let me give you a modern example. In almost every city in this country, homeless shelters and the churches that house them are under attack. The neighbors complain that the area has become unsafe. They say, “It’s not that we don’t want to help people, but could you please do it somewhere else? Not in my backyard.” The act of offering shelter, of showing radical love and hospitality to the most vulnerable—an act of peace—is perceived as a threat, a conflict, a war on neighborhood safety and property values.

This is the fire Jesus is talking about. It’s not a fire of random destruction. It’s the refining fire of truth that burns away our illusions and our comfortable injustices. And the “baptism” he speaks of, the one he is distressed to complete? That is his own suffering and death on the cross. He is willing to walk through that fire, to endure that crisis, on our behalf. Why? To demonstrate the violence and oppression, scapegoating and shaming are not the way toward human wholeness or fullness of relationship. Jesus came to forgive sin, the broken relationship between people and God, between different peoples.

This idea of creating a crisis for the sake of change isn’t as strange as it sounds. The activist Lisa Fithian once said, “When people ask me, ‘What do you do?’ I say I create crisis, because crisis is that edge where change is possible.” (Centre for Excellence in Preaching – https://cepreaching.org/commentary/2025-08-11/luke-1249-56-4/)

Is this not what Jesus meant? Did he not come to create a crisis for the powers that be? Wasn’t he saying that “business as usual” means injustice and death for the poor, the outcast, and the oppressed, and it must be stopped? The message of Jesus causes division because it calls out false truths and harmful narratives. It forces us to choose.

This brings us to the ultimate question Jesus poses: Will we stand with him and participate in building this kingdom, or will we be part of the problem by refusing to interpret the times we are living in?

This is where the writer of Hebrews gives us our strategy and our hope. The work is hard. The race is long. And so, we read this morning:

“Therefore, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us also lay aside every weight and the sin that clings so closely, and let us run with perseverance the race that is set before us, looking to Jesus, the pioneer and perfecter of our faith, who for the sake of the joy that was set before him endured the cross, disregarding its shame…” (Hebrews 12:1-2)

We are not alone. We are surrounded by a great cloud of witnesses—the saints, the prophets, the activists, the ordinary people who, throughout history, chose to stand with Jesus. They chose to create the crisis that makes change possible. They chose to run the race. They chose to restore proper relationships with one another.

We do this by keeping our eyes on Jesus. He is our prophet, priest, and king. Jesus is our guide, we follow in his way. He ran this race first. He endured the cross, the ultimate crisis, because he could see the joy on the other side—the joy of a world made right, a world of true peace.

I am a fan of the band U2, perhaps you are as well. I enjoy many of their songs, however one of their songs that speaks to me very deeply is titled Wake Up Dead Man. The opening lyrics are as follows:

Jesus, Jesus help me

I’m alone in this world

And a messed-up world it is too

Tell me

Tell me the story

The one about eternity

And the way it’s all gonna be

Wake up

Wake up dead man

This song reminds me that there is a story, a plan. That God has a plan for creation. The dead man who is referenced, isn’t Jesus. Jesus has been resurrected and ascended to heaven. The dead man is me, I’m the one who needs to wake up to hear the story about eternity and how it’s all gonna be.

The question for us today is the same one Jesus asked the crowds two thousand years ago. Will we read the signs of our times? Will we have the courage to join Jesus in bringing the refining fire of truth and justice to the earth, even when it causes division? Will we stand with that great cloud of witnesses and follow in the way of Jesus? Amen.