Communion Service Sunday 17th August – led by Martyn Macphee
Good to have Martyn with us again. We generally get something “meaty” from this Scottish Islander – and today was no exception.
Martyn warned us that the reading from Luke 12 – an account of Jesus’ words – was a shocker. “I came to set the earth on fire”. “Do you suppose that I came to bring peace anymore? No, not peace, but division.” And Matthew’s version was downright violent, “I didn’t come to bring peace, but a sword”.
In Luke Jesus set out in detail how families were going to be divided. And in Matthew an explanation, “He who loves father and mother more than me Is not worthy of me. He who loves son or daughter more than me isn’t worthy of me. He who seeks his life will lose it, and he who loses his life for my sake, will find it”.
The background, Martyn thought, was the harassment of Christians by the Romans and the Jews at that time. Jesus was telling an important truth about the meaning of discipleship, and the cost that was involved. He knew that in the future the strength of the disciples’ faith in their Lord and the discipleship of the early Christians would be severely tested. It would mean that families would be divided – those who followed Christ and those who ignored and rejected the hope and true peace that he was offering to his followers. He was giving his followers a warning that they would have to make some very tough choices. And choosing between loyalty to family, and loyalty to Jesus, that was a tough choice, even today.
But it was a message that bothered Martyn because his perception of Jesus was of someone who’d called people to come together in unity. And first century churches were known for their Christian love, their Christian activity, their Christian acceptance of their enemies. Martyn believed that it was basic human nature to want to live at peace with one another. In spite of the fact that the world today was filled with discord and disagreement, he believed that the majority of us didn’t want to rock the boat. And the most enjoyable and fulfilling times in our lives, in our families, in our workplaces, and in our church, were times when everybody was getting along, and there was no conflict or division. The problem came when people sought peace at the expense of principle. When our goal became simply to get along and not to make waves, it often led to abandoning who we were and what we stood for.
And he recalled watching a young lassie torn choosing between two sets of friends, one set sunbathing on a jetty and the others in a rowboat. She’d had one foot on the boat, the other on the jetty, and the inevitable happened. She’d fallen in the water, trying to please everyone. He thought this was what Jesus was addressing in the Gospel reading. He was warning us that there would be times when following Him would require us to turn away from something, times when we would be required to say yes to one thing, and therefore no to another. And the action we often took was the same as that girl. We tried to say yes to it all and ended up falling in between. Choice between following Christ and following the call of the world could be hard when the call of the world looked so awfully attractive.
Following Jesus might require us to change direction, break promises, or renege on commitments that we’d made, for example, with a business partner when involved in practices that were a bit close to the wind.
He’s known a young couple, she a very strong Christian, he not even to be dragged into a church. When they had had a child, she’d wanted her baby baptized, wanted to teach at Sunday school, and join the Young Mums group. But he had put his foot down. Every time she came to church after that, Martyn was reminded of Jesus’ words, “From now on, a family will be divided, because of me”.
Christian life was like that. Every day we were called to make choices, and sometimes those choices were costly in terms of money, or family, or friendship. If our destination was important to us, we would make the correct choice – not every time, but often enough.
He asked God to give each of us the wisdom and courage to make the right choices in the days ahead.
Potters Bar United Reformed Church 