Confusion

 Luke 12:49-56

Division. This is just what we need today, right? Living the way of Jesus though causes division. It means we aren't going to line up with the values of this world.

Let's dive in. Jesus in Matthew 8:10 tells the crowd that a Roman centurion has more faith than anyone else in Israel. Imagine how much this delighted the people hearing it. Rome was the enemy, the ones who occupied them. How could one who took advantage of them, didn't respect their culture or traditions, and occupied their homeland? Yet this is exactly what Jesus tells them. Even our enemies deserve respect when they show a genuine faith.

Or a woman, by a well, in the heat of the day, not in the morning when all the other women come. She is isolated and cast out. Yet Jesus a Jew, speaks to her a Samaritan and tells her about the living water she could come to know. It is not a wasted talk because she goes back to the village and tells all of them what Jesus has told her. Good news, she is accepted as she is.

Or the parable we just had a few weeks ago about the good Samaritan. We hear this parable with familiar ears and don't realize the significance of Jesus telling it to a crowd of Jewish people who expect the hero of the story is going to be someone of their faith, their tradition, their religion and it isn't. The one who acts most like loving your neighbor is the person they despise. Samaritans were those Jews who were taken and dispersed in the Babylonian/Assyrian captivity. They were forced to marry and take on the traditions and outside culture. They were not pure Jews any longer and they worshipped on a hill and not at Jerusalem. They were not pure to the religion and yet Jesus' example of doing as God has commanded is one of them.

So try and think of some of the ways in which we separate people out and cast them as different or them. Then think about how popular you might be with friends or relatives because you are treating all people with respect or remembering all of us are created in God's image. Are you now getting the picture about division.

This is not something we throw in another's face because somedays we don't get it. Somedays even despite our best efforts we don't follow the guidelines of Jesus' teaching. The days we do are not something to wave over everyone else and say, "we did it. We're better." It is because we have done them in the first place and our friends or relatives want something to justify why we would reach out to that person. We don't have to justify our actions though or wave it in their face.

Division comes just because we are trying our best to live the life that Jesus taught. They way of no differences. No republican, no democrat, no MAGA, no poor, no forgotten, and no lonely. We have to delve deeper into no labels and just living the life we are called to live.

Irshad Manji call's it Don't Label Me in her book, but it is really about the ways we label one another. If we conquer the labels we might engage in dialogue and she gives concrete examples of the ways this might work and that this is not an easy work because the other has to get over their labels as well. But when this works it is beautiful and engaging with each other. It asks us to drop the labels because we then know another deeply and their story. 

This is exactly the work Jesus exemplified here on earth. It is an important work now, especially when everyone wants to engage in labeling and not really knowing one another. It is why at school we engage in a circle before class. It helps us to know what the kids are dealing with and maybe to see that the teachers deal with stuff to. It helps us to grow as a community and engage in understanding. Drop the labels and come together. Expect others may label us but don't worry about that. The good news is this starts understanding and isn't that the example?