Devotion for the Week

… week of August 17, 2025

It’s So Confusing

Entering someone else’s conversation halfway through can be disorienting. You don’t know the context, and you’re confused about the background, so you can’t really make heads or tails of what’s being discussed. Today’s gospel reading is kind of like that experience. It’s so confusing to hear Jesus talk like this!

But if we’re honest with ourselves, we know our world is already full of the divisions Jesus describes. Political divisions have only deepened. Religious divisions cause people to talk over one another. We encounter racial divisions that we’re afraid to talk about or even acknowledge, and economic divisions that isolate people according to status and means. Yes, our world is already full of divisions. And what about the tone of this gospel reading? Jesus’ sayings are so provocative! With the kind of rhetoric being thrown around in our world today, do we need more alarming words?

When we look closely at the reading and pay attention to the context, we can get a better idea of what exactly Jesus is proposing in these inflammatory sayings. Notice the divisions he mentions here: divisions within families. In the context of the ancient world, the family was the central unit of connection and the source of your identity. The family told you who you were and how you could (or could not) operate.

It is into that kind of ordering, the foundation of identity, that Jesus brings disruption. His point is that in the kingdom of God, whether you were born into wealth or poverty, a family of prestige or one of pandemonium, you are God’s beloved child. The message of God in Christ breaks up the social boxes and social games of this world, erasing the dividing lines we already set up for ourselves.

In the death and resurrection of Christ, we’re all united in God’s family, enjoying a new ordering of identity that breaks down what divides us.