Excerpt:
"Jesus challenges us to…recognize the moment that he’s marking in his life on earth and in the baptism that he will fulfill in his death and Resurrection. He’s marking the time of His life as a turning point in how we understand God in our lives; God is present, not silent or absent. God cleanses us from our sins in one single event and again and again and again as we continue to lay down and pick up the yoke that we can bear to claim our freedom from this earth and our membership in the kingdom of God. Each time we lay down the yoke we’ve created to pick up the yoke Jesus has made for us it can cause division, because we don’t always get to that point at the same time as the ones around us that we love."
Preaching from Luke 12:49-56:
Jesus said, "I came to bring fire to the earth, and how I wish it were already kindled! I have a baptism with which to be baptized, and what stress I am under until it is completed! Do you think that I have come to bring peace to the earth? No, I tell you, but rather division! From now on five in one household will be divided, three against two and two against three; they will be divided: father against son and son against father, mother against daughter and daughter against mother, mother-in-law against her daughter-in-law and daughter-in-law against mother-in law." He also said to the crowds, "When you see a cloud rising in the west, you immediately say, 'It is going to rain'; and so it happens. And when you see the south wind blowing, you say, 'There will be scorching heat'; and it happens. You hypocrites! You know how to interpret the appearance of earth and sky, but why do you not know how to interpret the present time?"