Fire and Brimstone vs. Fire to Transform

Sermon
Luke 12:49-56
49 "I came to bring fire to the earth, and how I wish it were already kindled! 50 I have a baptism with which to be baptized, and what stress I am under until it is completed! 51 Do you think that I have come to bring peace to the earth? No, I tell you, but rather division! 52 From now on five in one household will be divided, three against two and two against three; 53 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." 54 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. 55 And when you see the south wind blowing, you say, "There will be scorching heat'; and it happens. 56 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?

Reflection: Fire and Brimstone vs. Fire to Transform
This scripture is disconcerting with its fire-loving, peace-rejecting Jesus. This Jesus is not the Jesus we see in stained glass windows toting cute little lambs on his shoulder. This Fire and Division Jesus is not the Jesus we see in those classic church prints of a smiling man with a bunch of sweet little ones. We would not put this Jesus in charge of Sunday School. Reading this text makes me nervous, and maybe it does that for you, too. Maybe you think to yourself, where is that whole prodigal son story with its nice God? These scriptures seem strange, perhaps out of character, and are easy to pass by for something else… anything else. But I find these hard spaces to be as instructive as they are challenging and worthy of the deep dive.

Perhaps this passage is so stressful because it is one of the occasions in which Jesus is stressed. Jesus names his destress, “what stress I am under,” and this language bares a resemblance to how we modern folks might think of holding tightly, holding together, squeezing. He is holding the tension of what is not yet and what is to come. Jesus names this further at the close of the section, “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.” Jesus speaks to people who know how to interpret the weather, they know how to engage the world around them because they understand the signs of the environment. Then he laments that they don’t understand the signs of the present time, the signs of God’s presence. In verse 56 he says, “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?”

This time is in the breaking of God’s presence, Jesus speaks from the start of God’s kingdom, the reign of God, or as Ada Maria Isasi-Diaz puts it, the Kin-dom of God. His ministry began with proclaiming it, he announces that it is within you, he names it has drawn near, he points to it, he teaches people to lean into it, helps people taste it, and when no one understands he tries it all again. His Mom sang about it in the Magnificat. It changes everything, lifts up the lowly, fills the hungry with good things, and unravels the systems that keep some wealthy and powerful at the expense of many.

This total transformation might be a part of why Jesus names the division experienced. Perhaps the Gospel of Luke’s author is more descriptive here than prophetic (at least prophetic in the sense of predicting the future because it’s already happening). Changing everything makes folks, particularly those benefiting from the system… well, at the very least uneasy at the family dinner table and probably absolutely opposed in every way possible. Change is hard, and this division or stress isn’t easy on any family. Maybe that’s why the Prince of Peace, who talks about bringing peace seven other times in this gospel, is naming division here.

This space of division can strike a nerve, perhaps it gave you pause and reminded you of some fire and brimstone, judgment-loving preacher… I don’t know… yelling at you from a street corner or pounding on a Bible. This passage is easy to deploy in that vein of thought, it has the main ingredient... fire. When we hear fire, we think of an angry, smote-y God. But just a few passages ago, two disciples asked Jesus if they could bring down fire on a community that didn’t receive them, sort of Sodom and Gomorrah-style, and he gave such a clear, “NO,” you can almost hear his hand hitting his forehead in dismay… if you listen between the lines. So when Jesus says, "I came to bring fire to the earth, and how I wish it were already kindled,” what kind of fire is he talking about?

Part of Jesus knowing how to interpret the signs of the present time came from understanding the wisdom of his tradition. Jesus, like us, inherited the stories of a bush burning but not consumed, Moses sees this fire, and it changes the direction of his life. The people of Israel, wandering in the wilderness, unsure, often willing to go back to the status quo of empire and enslavement, follow a pillar of fire to the land of promise. Fire guides them to a new life. Jesus inherits the prophets speaking of fire. Jeremiah speaks of God’s presence as a fire burning in his bones, and he is weary with holding it in. He must speak even as it makes folks angry with him (violently angry), it’s his call to remind the people who they are and how they are created to be a community of justice and compassion. Fire has a transformative power. "I came to bring fire to the earth, and how I wish it were already kindled!” Fire turns metal into tools that can till the soil. Fire turns dough into bread that can nourish the body, mind and spirit. "I came to bring fire to the earth, and how I wish it were already kindled!” Fire is transformative, it has a refining role and sometimes a clarifying/purifying function in the way people use it.

This gets to the challenge of this text. This work of bringing a fire was already promised in his baptism and we explore it vividly at Pentecost when the early followers of Jesus felt so alive with God’s presence they name it as tongues of fire dancing on a head. This fire is not about violent destruction, it transforms us. This fire does’t incinerate, it ignites. And ignited people do seemingly impossible work on their own growth, they change everything about their lives, like Moses did. Folks on fire take risks like Jeremiah did. And together, in community, folks that fan the spark of new life bring about peace through justice and compassion, not force and compliance. This fire refines us. May we have the courage to flan the sparks into flames and tend our fires. Amen.

© 2019 Rev. Debra McKnight, Urban Abbey