Some biblical passages strike us as strange—until they don’t. Another day comes, and the same text we once set aside resonates with us in an unsettling way. I wonder how many preachers who previously may have breezed by this passage from Luke now find themselves puzzling over it. I also wonder how this passage may sit with our congregations. With social division as sharp as it has been in a very long time, many will hear language about parents set against their children and in-laws against in-laws and draw quick connections to their own lives.
Readers will notice a whiff of apocalyptic fire in this passage. It concludes a larger section that begins at 12:35, where Jesus admonishes, “Be dressed for action and have your lamps lit.” As he occasionally does, Jesus applies the metaphor of enslaved workers who await their enslaver’s return. The metaphor sharply offends us, and we need not redeem it. We might note that Jesus adds a remarkable twist: for those faithful ones, the enslaver, the kyrios, will reverse roles and wait tables for his enslaved workers. Unfortunately, Jesus’ teaching returns to its grim theme, as the kyrios beats those enslaved people who fail to demonstrate faithfulness in his absence. Preachers need not rehearse this context for their congregations, but it does frame the words that follow in 12:49–56.
Luke generally tends to tone down the apocalyptic intensity we encounter in Matthew and Mark, but that is hardly the case here. The language of household conflict also appears in Matthew 10:34–36, where Jesus’ claim to spark division is even more, um, pointed: not peace but a sword. But Luke adds the element of end-time speculation, with images of the earth ablaze and signs in the sky.
