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Hanging by a thread


Luke 12:49-56
[Image of two sections of rope joined only by a thread] Can you think of a caption for this image?
What about, ‘Hanging by a thread’? Sometimes wear and tear, stresses and strains, leave things hanging quite literally by a single thread. If the problem isn’t spotted in time the thread will snap, sometimes with disastrous consequences.
Have you ever been in the situation where you pulled your shoelaces tight, or your bootlaces, and then realised that one of the laces had been hanging together by a thread. The minute you pulled on the lace it snapped and suddenly you had a problem, perhaps far away from home in the middle of a busy day. Not quite a disaster, but a serious inconvenience.
The other day one of my trouser buttons flew off and shot across the room. That’s what I mean by stresses and strains! The button was clearly under a lot of strain and I hadn’t noticed that it was hanging by a single thread. The thread broke and this time, if I hadn’t been at home, it certainly would have been disastrous.
Life can be like that. We can be under so much stress and strain - at school, or at work, or at home - that things are only hanging together by a single thread. Often we expect Jesus to be able to make things better, to give us more strength. But if that was always the way religion worked it would only be for people who are facing problems or struggling to cope.
Sometimes you can hear people say, ‘I don’t need God because God is just an idea invented to help people who can’t cope by themselves, who need a parent figure in their lives to help them keep it all together, even when they’ve grown up.’
Jesus anticipates that criticism, and this is his answer: Yes, he came to comfort the afflicted, to help people who are only just holding it together, but he also came to afflict the comfortable. 
When people feel they’ve got no worries at all, that there are no stresses and strains in their life, Jesus may challenge them; he may tug on the rope that binds things together in their life and see just how strong it really is. 
For instance, he may challenge them to do something their family don’t like, or to give to someone in need a stash of money which they had been saving for a rainy day. He may want them to say and do things which cause controversy and even conflict - like standing up against injustice or telling people to stop doing things which are harming the environment.
When we visited family in New Zealand a few years ago we found that the most common answer to any question was, ‘No worries, Mate.’ It was nice. Life was calmer there. People were less easily flustered or annoyed - unless they were behind the wheel of a car! 
Sometimes Jesus is like that. When things are hanging by a thread he’s there to comfort and reassure us, to strengthen and support us. But when we feel that things are just fine, that we have no worries, he may be waiting to shake things up, to challenge and disturb us.

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