Ole and Lena were sitting down to their usual cup of morning coffee listening to the weather report coming over the radio. “There will be three to five inches of snow today and a snow emergency has been declared. You must park your cars on the odd- numbered side of the streets.” Ole got up from his coffee and mumbles, “For Pete’s sake, Okay”. A few days later, again they both are sitting down with their cups of morning coffee and the weather forecast is two to four inches of snow with another snow emergency declared. “You must park your cars on the even-numbered side of the streets.” Ole got up from his coffee and muttered as he walked out the door, “For cryin’ out loud.” The following week Ole and Lena again are sitting down with their cups of coffee and the weather forecast is broadcast, “There will be six to eight inches of snow today and a snow emergency has been declared. You must park your cars on the crrrshsh....” and then the power went out and Ole didn’t get the rest of the instructions. He complains, “Gosh darn Lena, what am I going to do now?” and Lena replies, “Aw, Ole, just leave the car in the garage.” Weather can certainly be a frustration and we’ve experienced that in spades over the past week. For the first time all summer, rain and cold forced us indoors for our 9:00 worship service. High winds last week twisted off tree limbs and downed power lines leaving thousands of households without power for days including some of you! More tragically, lightning struck a number of facilities setting off fires that inflicted even more damage. Around 3 am on August 12th, lightning hit the roof of Prospect Park UMC in South Minneapolis, Becky Sechrist’s former congregation. After smoldering for three hours, fire broke out and was noticed by early morning walkers who called 911 and the Fire Department’s prompt response saved the building. In that same storm during the night of August 12th, Rev. Barbara Moore, pastor of Peace United Methodist Church in Richfield, lost her home of 18 years as another storm induced fire swept through the entire house while she and her husband Larry were on a Charles Wesley tour of England. Escalating storm sewer runoff across the metro area has hampered 35W bridge recovery and demolition efforts in the Mississippi. We’re generally at the mercy of the weather, with some ability to forecast, but little ability to effect change. Sometimes we’re tempted to similarly throw our hands up to fate in other arenas of life, but Jesus admonishes in our text for today that faith, more than fate determines our future. Here at the end of chapter 12, Luke gathers together Jesus’ words describing the events he sees lurking in the future. A cursory read leaves us feeling like this passage is rather problematic with violent images of fires, family divisions and raging storms – all apparently a product of following Jesus. But let’s take a second look. In verses 49-50 Jesus says he comes “to bring fire upon the earth and wishes it were already kindled!” Fire was a frightening, community-threatening scourge to ancient cities and towns. Their wooden, thatched and straw-based structures, packed close upon each other, made it possible for fires to spread easily and with deadly consequences. Yet the “fire” that awaits Jesus’ disciples is not a destructive force. The baptism of fire that Jesus forecasts is later revealed in the flames of Pentecost as a baptism in the Holy Spirit that builds rather than destroys, that infuses life and vitality rather than death and charred emptiness. In verses 51-53 we read about impending division and strife. There is good reason to believe that verses 51-53 were an editorial expansion by Luke to deal with realities facing the first-century church. Luke repeatedly states that Jesus is in fact, God’s peace on earth beginning with his incarnation to bring light in our darkness and guide us in the way of peace in the first chapter of Luke (v. 79) all the way through his death and resurrection to bring peace and comfort in the last chapter of Luke (v. 36-40). But the events that first-century Christians had witnessed, the persecutions they had suffered and the tensions and divisions that erupted within house-churches and blood relatives all testified to the yet unrealized fullness of Christ’s peace. Jesus’ words acknowledge this situation -- he does, in fact, bring division. But this doesn’t mean that creating strife was the purpose of his mission. Division is not something Jesus creates -- others create it through the choices they make. Private conversation with his disciples now ends, and Jesus’ next words in verses 54-56 are addressed to the crowds that follow them. Jesus points to the common sense observation that allows us to forecast what type of weather may be expected. They know that certain signs on earth and in the skies indicate what kind of weather approaches. For Israel, a cloud from the west meant that the weather was coming from across the Mediterranean Sea where rains originate. A wind from the south would come blowing up from the barren Saudi Arabian desert, bringing scorching heat in its breath. If people can discern weather (WEATHER) patterns from such obvious signs, Jesus points out, then why can’t we discern the “present time”? Why can’t we read the “signs of the times” through eyes of faith? Whether (WHETHER) or not we can forecast how our attitudes and actions of today influence our future is far more an act of faith than blindly accepting to be buffeted by wherever the metaphorical weather of the moment helplessly propels us. I’ve been inspired by some recent examples of this kind of faith. Certainly one was Rich Jahnke’s song at the start of our service about the Good Samaritan who helped rescue children from the bus that plunged from the I-35W bridge. I encourage you to read again the lyrics that celebrate a faith where “action speaks louder than words”. Yesterday I conducted a Memorial Service for Susan Jenkins, sister of Leif Ruona from our congregation. By all outward appearances, Susie was a woman who could have easily thrown in the towel in the face of all the storms of life. She was divorced a couple times, rode the rollercoaster of employment as a flight attendant with chronically troubled Northwest Airlines for nearly four decades, and suffered from scleroderma, an autoimmune disease which slowly, but surely shut down her internal organs over a period of 14 years. But instead of holding a pity party and inviting others to mourn and mope her into the afterlife, Susie maintained a courageous, positive attitude, even coaching others on how to cope with terminal illnesses. Susie would often say, “There’s all kinds of time to be dead, don’t spend time being dead while you’re still alive!” Earlier this month, three young citizens of Newark, New Jersey, ranging in age from 18 to 20, were killed in an execution-style slaying on a school playground in that city. The sister of one of the victims was found nearby alive, but also with gunshot and knife wounds. The four were innocents, shot by a group in a senseless robbery, the latest of the city’s residents to fall victim to the epidemic violence that plagues Newark. Violent crime is hardly even newsworthy in New Jersey, but what has been newsworthy is the refusal of the community to accept this situation as their only lot in life. Political rivals promised to cooperate, young men in gang attire agreed to disarm, members of the clergy organized a youth mentoring program, residents and organizations donated more than $150,000 to help the victims’ families, local anti-violence groups received multiple offers of assistance, and private businesses gave the city unprecedented financial support to install gunshot-detection technology. The money for the technology was pledged by corporate leaders during a meeting with city officials that had been scheduled weeks beforehand, but did not take place until last week. The mayoral aides went to the meeting hoping to get $100,000 to purchase 50 cameras that would swivel toward gunfire. They hoped to place these in the city’s most violent neighborhoods. When they came out of the conference, they had pledges of $3.2 million, enabling them to plan the installation of a highly advanced surveillance system to be used to make the streets safer. Together people started to see the signs of the times and chose to make their collective faith and not fate, the determiner of their future. Rev. William Howard, the pastor of a Baptist church in Newark, put it plainly: “This is a fragile moment for Newark…a pregnant opportunity to break free of its past, but it can’t squander this moment because it may not come again for a long, long time.” There’s a quote from something called The Southern Statesman newsletter floating around the internet. I can’t vouch for the organization, but I liked the quotation enough to revise it slightly for our theme today: “You can’t control the length of your life, but you can control its width and depth. You can’t control the contour of your face, but you can control its expression. You can’t control all the opportunities that come your way, but you can seize upon those opportunities and make the best of them. You can’t control the weather, but you can control the environment which surrounds you. You can’t control the height that your head stands above the ground, but you can control the level of the contents in your head. You can’t control another person’s annoying faults, but you can see to it that you yourself don’t contribute to similar propensities.” Remember the fire that I mentioned at Prospect Park United Methodist Church at the beginning of my sermon? Pastor Nancy Victorin-Vangerud of Prospect Park Church comments further, “The assessment of the fire crew chief is that lightening struck the cross or near the cross, traveled down the guard wire and started burning where the guard wire hits the roof. The symbol of United Methodism is the cross and flame, so now we have both. Only I’m not sure this kind of flame is what they had in mind!” According to Luke 12, that image of the cross and flame isn’t all that far from the mark. It’s just that the flame is intended not to consume, but to illumine and warm us on our quest!