I grew up thinking Michigan sports fans were intense. When I was in 5th grade, I had to learn how to play the Michigan fight song for the school band. My father, who is a Michigan State fan, refused to let me practice in his house. I told him it was for school. He told me I had his permission to fail. I thought the rivalry between Michigan and Michigan State was intense, but then I went to college and met some Green Bay packer fans. Those fans were on an entirely different level than anything I had experienced before. A Green Bay packer fan was the first person I ever saw wear a football Jersey to church. I mean this guy went into his closet, asked himself, “what is the finest piece of clothing I own that I can wear to the house of the Lord.”, and he determined it was his Green Bay Packer football jersey. Just as I started to get used to the intensity of the Green Bay packer fans, I was assigned to be a pastor south of the Mason Dixon line and brother let me tell you, y’all are beyond intense. Sports fans in the south are downright rabid. I have seen a Christian brother and sister cuss each other out over an Alabama -LSU game. I have had – I kid you not – one of my own dearly beloved members tell me, they were not sure if they could go to a church where the pastor was an Alabama fan. Thankfully he decided that he could, and he does attend church quite regularly, but I can tell there are one or two Sundays each year when his attendance requires a great deal of effort.
In the south, nothing puts a greater strain on a relationship than sports. In the south people of different skin color, gender, income can live together in harmony, but if they cheer for a different sports team, you can bet your last Washington there is going to be some friction. We have a family in our own congregation where the husband is a Georgia fan, and the wife is an Alabama fan. Frankly I am not sure how their marriage handles the strain of such a divide. That’s what people say by the way. When one person cheers for a different football team than their spouse they say, “we are a house divided.” I have absolutely nothing against the intense sports fan of the north and I have even come to admire the rabid sports fan of the south. I just wish all people were as passionate about their faith as they are about football.
We live in a spiritually tolerant age. People put bumper stickers on their cars that encourage people of different religions to be tolerant of each other and COEXSIST. Those bumper stickers call upon Christians and Jews and Muslims and Satanists to put their differences aside and work together. Sounds so enlightened doesn’t it. But have you ever seen a bumper sticker that called upon Alabama, Georgia, Tennessee, and LSU fans to COEXSIST? The answer is, no, no you have not. Apparently, people only want to be “enlightened” about spiritual stuff not sports. Which is probably why, when it comes to matters of faith, people like to say things like, “let’s agree to disagree”, but have you ever heard someone say that about the result of a championship football game? Have you ever heard a fan from one team say to a fan from the other team, “lets agree to disagree about who really won that game”. Again, the answer is, no you have not.
We live in a spiritually tolerant time full of people who are willing to agree to disagree about matters of faith. But in our gospel lesson for today Jesus makes it very clear that he is not a spiritually tolerant / agree to disagree kind of guy. In Luke 12:51 Jesus says, “Do you think I came to bring peace on earth? No, I tell you, but division.” Christianity by its nature is divisive. Christianity makes absolute statements about faith. Isaiah 45:5 states, “I am the LORD, and there is no other; apart from me there is no God.” Acts 4:12 states, “Salvation is found in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given to men by which we must be saved.” Mark 16:16 states, “Whoever believes and is baptized will be saved, but whoever does not believe will be condemned.” Christianity states there is only one God, and salvation is only found in that one God, and finally, whoever does not believe in that one God will be condemned. Christianity is not a spiritually tolerant / agree to disagree kind of religion.
I am trying hard not to talk about my recent trip to Rome. I desire to be neither a braggart nor a bore, but as I walked through the pagan streets of the eternal city it was striking to see how the Roman empire had tolerated a multitude of religions for hundreds of years. They themselves had a pantheon of gods and were therefore open to the idea that a foreigner might come into the empire worshiping a deity that had not previously encountered, and that was allowed in Rome. Spiritual toleration was the norm in Rome, when it came to matters of the faith the people of Rome were willing to agree to disagree. That is until Christianity. Because of their absolute statements of faith, the Christians could not and would not tolerate worship of a stone statue; the Christians could not and would not agree to disagree with a Caesar who claimed to be a son of the gods. As a result, Christianity was one of the few religions persecuted in Rome. You see, the Romans did not feed the Christians to lions because they worshiped Jesus as God. The Romans fed the Christians to lions because Jesus was the only God they would worship.
Christianity has never been a spiritually tolerant / agree to disagree kind of religion. Though today there is serious pressure on us to treat it as though it is. History has not yet repeated the persecutions of the past, but one could argue the kind of persecution we face today is worse. Today there are not a lot of occasions when we are forced to choose between our faith and a lion, but there are many occasions when we are forced to choose between our faith and our family.
I recently had a person ask me for advice because they were fairly confident a family member was about to come out of the closet, and they didn’t know what they should say or do. Though I would never want to intentionally hurt someone’s feelings, I almost wish I could have said to that person, “wow your family is a hot mess! Your family is the only family in the entire congregation that is dealing with a screwed-up situation like this. The rest of us have families that are perfectly united in the faith.” But of course, I couldn’t say that to them because not only would that be a jerk thing to say but it is also completely untrue.
The truth is every one of us, and I mean every single one of us, from the people in the pews to the pastor in the pulpit, every single one of us has faced or is facing a situation like that. In our own little congregation, parents are trying to figure out how to talk to their children about premarital sex and abortion. Children are trying to figure out how to talk to their parents about bigotry and racism. Brothers and sisters are trying to figure out how to talk to each other about the importance of worship and Christian education. Uncles and Aunts are trying to figure out how to talk to nephews and nieces about addiction. Nephews and nieces are trying to figure out how to talk to aunts and uncles about atheism. And the list of things that seek to divide “53… father against son and son against father, mother against daughter and daughter against mother, mother-in-law against daughter-in-law and daughter-in-law against mother-in-law.” that list of things that seeks to divide the family of faith goes on and one and on.
Rarely are we forced to choose between our faith and a lion, but it has become increasingly common for us to find ourselves in situations where we are forced to choose between our faith and our family. The temptation to be spiritually tolerant of the sins committed by our family members is as strong as the lion’s paw and the temptation to agree to disagree about matters of faith so that we don’t upset or offend the people we love is as powerful as the lion’s jaw.
I hope that you are better Christians than I am. I hope that when forced to choose between family and faith you have chosen faith every time. But if you are like me, and you have been guilty of giving in to the temptation to be a spiritually tolerant / agree to disagree kind of person than allow me to direct your attention to what Jesus said in Luke 12:49-50. There Jesus said, “49 I have come to bring fire on the earth, and how I wish it were already kindled! 50 But I have a baptism to undergo, and how distressed I am until it is completed!” Jesus was forced to choose between family and faith. In Mark 3:21 we are told Jesus’ family “went to take charge of him, for they said, “He is out of His mind.” In John 7:5 we are told “For even his own brothers did not believe in him.” There were members of Jesus’ own family who thought He was either a lunatic or a liar. Jesus was forced to choose between His family and faith and though the temptation to be spiritually tolerant and agree to disagree was strong, His love for you was stronger. Though it distressed Him; though it threatened to tear Him apart, Jesus resisted the temptation to be a spiritually tolerant / agree to disagree kind of guy. Jesus chose faith over family every time so that when the time came for Him to undergo the baptism of blood on the cross, He could exchange our faithlessness with His faithfulness. Because Jesus chose faith over family, the sin that caused division between you and your God has been removed and you and your brothers and sisters in faith are able to live in unity in God’s house.
I wish the unity that existed in God’s house also existed in our houses. I wish that our sons and daughters, mothers and fathers, brothers and sisters, aunts and uncles were all perfectly united in the faith. I wish we never had to figure out how to talk to a family member who was living contrary to the faith. I wish we never had to choose between family and faith. But I know, as long as we live in this sinful world, that is a wish that will not come true. Therefore, I will pray for you and ask that you pray for me. Let us pray for each other that God give us the strength to resist the temptation to be a spiritually tolerant / agree to disagree kind of people. Let us pray that God make us as passionate about our faith as we are about football, so that when someone says something contrary to the faith we react with the same rabid intensity as a Georgia fan reacts to a person who says Roll Tide! Let us pray that when we hear someone say something contrary to the faith, even if that someone is a member of our own family, we have the courage to be a house divided. I am going to pray that for you. Please pray it for me. Amen.