If there is a place for ‘harmony’ in the teaching of Jesus, it is about unity with God and what God is doing in the world and a sense of solidarity with those travelling that path. In Jesus’ conversation with the ambitious James and John in Mark 10:35-40 Jesus uses the image of baptism to speak of his death. Water, flood, was a disaster, just as a fire storm is a disaster. Jesus is walking into disaster and taking others with him. Matthew’s version of the Q saying spells it out less tactfully: Jesus has come not to bring peace but a sword (Luke has: ‘division’). While Mark sees Jesus entering the treacherous waters of that Jerusalem Passover, Luke directs our attention to family.
‘Peace at all costs’ has no place here. That kind of harmony gilds oppression with respectability and rewards wrong. Instead we face a full scale conflict, taken right into the heart of human formation: the family. The family is being dethroned from its absolute claims. It is not an invitation to the kind of fanaticism which dislocates sectarians from family and friends and all else for obsession with an unrelated cause. Rather this passion springs from the heart of the human condition. It is the passion for love, for change, for justice, for renewal. These are not the fanatical tenets of a cult, but the foundations of hope. So Jesus is confronting the gods of family and warning that this is very dangerous territory.
from http://wwwstaff.murdoch.edu.au/~loader/LkPentecost12.htm
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