13 Pentecost/Lectionary 20 August 18, 2013
Luther Memorial Church Seattle, WA
The Rev. Julie Guengerich Hutson
Jeremiah 23: 23-29 + Psalm 82 + Hebrews 11: 29-12:2 +
Luke 12: 49-56
May the words of my mouth and the meditations of our hearts be acceptable in your sight, O Lord, our rock and our redeemer. Amen.
How many of you have seen the movie Talledega Nights? In this movie, Will Ferrell is a race car driver, named Ricky Bobby who insists on praying to Jesus as a baby. As his family and friends gather around the table, Ricky Bobby opens his prayer, with “dear tiny six pound baby Jesus, lying there in your ghost manger”. And while this is very funny, it is a reminder to us that we all have our own ways of thinking of Jesus. They are often informed by the images we were familiar with of Jesus….usually in our area of the globe, those images show a mostly white, long hair, clean shaven, slightly feminine man wearing a long robe and sandals. In other areas of the world, Jesus is most often imagined differently.
And of what of his personality? How do we imagine Jesus to be when he comes into a room or a group of people? Are we hoping that he will be the post-resurrection Jesus who enters our locked doors and says “Peace be with you?” Are we looking for Jesus in the garden, calling us by name so that we will recognize him? Are we looking for Jesus the Good Shepherd who knows each one of the sheep? Or are we looking for Jesus the gate – showing us the way to God? I’ll take any of those….at almost any time.
But today’s Gospel gives us Jesus, who has come to bring fire to the earth.
In these days when our news feeds are filled with stories and images of wildfires, this Jesus is hard to imagine. I don’t really want fire bringing Jesus. But that’s who we have in Luke’s Gospel today – Jesus, bringer of fire, Jesus divider, Jesus a threat to family values. Listen to what he says again: I came to bring fire to the earth and how I wish it were already kindled! 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…”
So what do we do with this image of Jesus as fire bringer?
Too often, we think of fire as something that only occurs at our bidding, but fire is a natural occurrence in nature. And like all things in nature, it can both destroy and create. I remember growing up with Smokey the Bear telling me that I had a great responsibility for the prevention of forest fires. ONLY YOU CAN PREVENT FOREST FIRES. I was seldom ever in the forest, but I knew that if I was…preventing fire was the name of the game.
But fire is a natural part of a forest’s life; it clears underbrush, making way for mushrooms and smaller trees. “The suppression of all fires, not just the ones that are caused by humans, disrupts a forest’s life cycle. There are even trees that cannot reproduce without fire. The stately lodgepole pine has a pine cone that can only release the seed for a new tree if it is exposed to the intense heat of fire.
“ [And} ironically, artificial suppression of fire is largely to blame for the huge fire crisis we are now facing in the west. Too many years of putting out natural fires, of protecting homes in the path of fire, and the result is forests more volatile and far more dangerous than they would have been if nature had taken its course.” [1] It has been noted by environmental groups like the World Wildlife Fund that fire is not an ecological catastrophe; it performs many beneficial services to ecosystems.
What do we know of fire, in the church? When we learn of Creation, how was fire created? Well, this is just the thing….there are no stories in Scripture or in Hebrew legend of the origins of fire. In Genesis we read of the Creation of light and dark, of water and land, of animals, and of the Creator giving them over to humanity. But nothing of fire. And this is specific to the Hebrew tradition and to the Christian tradition, because other traditions DO have stories of the origins of fire.
The stories we do have of fire depict fire as being the presence of God. Moses saw God in a bush that was ablaze with fire. When the Israelites were led out of captivity in Egypt, they were led by a cloud pillar in the day and at night by a pillar of…fire.
John the Baptist tells the crowds that are following him that although he baptizes with water, Jesus will baptize with the Holy Spirit and with fire. And at Pentecost, when the Holy Spirit comes upon those gathered it appears upon their heads as tongues of fire.
Jesus said I came to bring fire to the earth and how I wish it were already kindled!
The fire that Jesus has brought to the earth is the presence of God.
God who, the prophet Jeremiah notes in our first reading this morning, is very near by, who is not far off.
What does it mean for us, that God is close at hand in this way?
Remember that one of the virtuous jobs of a forest fire is to clear underbrush to make room for new growth. What is it that the fire of God might clear from our lives or from our communities or from our world, in order to make space for something new to grow? If we look at history as an example, the fires of justice have cleared the way for equality of all people…for the end of slavery…for rights for women, rights that have allowed us to elect the first female presiding bishop in the ELCA, and most recently for the rights of the LGTBQ community…rights that allowed us to elect an openly gay, partnered clergy person as a synodical bishop in California.
These times in history have been divisive and they have been difficult on many levels. They have brought about the division that Jesus speaks of in the Gospel reading today, dividing households. And this is a painful reality. It makes us reach for gentle, baby Jesus in the manger over against this fire bringing, justice making, family and church dividing Jesus. But every time we reach for the Jesus who sits with us in our comfort level with us, Jesus’ words admonish us from today’s Gospel reading again. You hyypocrites! You know how to interpret the appearance of earth and sky, but why do you not know how to interpret the present time?
We say that Scripture is a living word. A living word. It does not remain static, it lives…changing and challenging us in each new day. And for those of us who wish that things could just remain the way they were….Jesus brings fire. Refining fire, necessary for making space for this new thing.
New things are not always easy things. It means we have to adjust our way of being, our old habits, perhaps, or our long held prejudices. It means we need to reconsider old points of view. But here’s another thing about fire. Fire gives light. Light to see by and light to be led by. So if God comes to us as the fire of Christ, God comes to us as the light of the world. And God shines light on our paths. Psalm 119 reminds us that the word of God is a lamp on our feet and a light on our paths.
When we baptize someone, we use generous amounts of water and we hear the Word of God. We anoint them with oil and remind them that they are God’s own forever. And then we take fire from the paschal candle and we light their baptismal candle.
May the fire of God, the fire Jesus brought to earth, the fire of justice and peace….may that fire burn brightly within us, igniting us to service and spreading light upon our paths.
Thanks be to God. Amen.
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