Proper 15C                R Lundquist                           8/19/07

Luke 12:49-56                http://bible.oremus.org/?ql=54496283

John the Baptizer told those who came to him at the Jordan River:  “I baptize you with water, but the One who comes after me will baptize you with fire & Spirit.”…  In today’s Gospel it feels like we’ve come full circle, to completion.  No peace, but division.  Families split.  And fire.  “I’ve come to start a fire,” said Jesus.

            Fire.  We know what a danger fire poses here in Colorado, how terribly destructive it can be in these mountain forests.  It frightens & fascinates us. Fire creates & destroys.  We can consider the atomic power of the furnace of stars and of our own sun.  And we cannot help but think as well of the furnaces of Auschwitz and the terrible energy of thermonuclear weapons.  It is fire that transforms flour, salt and water into bread in the oven.  And we are transformed into the Body of Christ by this fire and spirit of our baptism.

            In biblical usage fire most often stands for Divine action on earth, often a purifying judgment.  God is referred to as the “devouring fire” (Deut 4:24) and the “consuming fire” ( Heb 12:29).  Fire has power to extinguish evil.  And God appears as unquenchable fire to Moses in the desert, in the form of the bush that burns but is not consumed.

“I’ve come to bring fire…”  This is not Prince of Peace, but a harsh and uncompromising angry young man.  “You hypocrites!  You frauds!” he cries out.  How do we make sense of the Jesus we see this morning?

1)       “I’ve come to disrupt & confront.”

 Jesus talks to disciples about family.  “Leave the dead to bury the dead,” he says to the reluctant follower in Matthew’s Gospel. (Mt 8:22)  “Who are my mother & brothers?” he asks while teaching.  (Mk 9:34)  And what about the 5^th commandment:  Honor your father and your mother?  It seems that with Jesus even sacred family relationships will be jeopardized...

            There are no “please & thank you” family values here – If you follow Jesus you will face family divisions.  For example, not too long ago in Maryland a Jewish woman became a Christian – and her family held a funeral soon afterwards.  This is what Jesus is talking about:  when you’re transformed by the Spirit, you begin to see the world with God’s eyes.  Fellow sinners become offspring of God, made in the Divine image.  Everyone become a sister or brother of Jesus in God’s family.  And that brings conflict, because the point of reference changes – dramatically.

            Brother Lawrence was a deacon of the Church in Rome during the time of Emperor Valerian.  The Emperor, eager to claim Christian wealth for himself, called Lawrence before him and demanded, “Bring to me the treasures of the Church!”  The deacon left the Emperor’s presence, but didn’t head for a vault or a bank.  He went into the city and gathered together the poor, the diseased, the widow and the orphaned.  He returned to Valerian and said to him:  “Behold.  These are the treasures of the Church.”

Even before there was a  “Focus on the Family,” the Jews did.  The family was primary, above clan and tribe, in ways we probably cannot understand in our own time..  Family was essential – and this is both a blessing and a curse.  I’m reminded of a story for a collection of Jewish humor: a mother was taking her two young sons for a walk when someone asked her how old they were.  She replied, “Well, the doctor is 3, and the lawyer is 2.”  In family we are confronted with expectations and demands as well as safety and nurture.   Jesus confronts family loyalty and expectations  as they pull us away from God.  It is through your Baptism into the “Mind of Christ” that you are drawn into the larger Family, and this is what can put you in tension with the world and with your own clan, your own family.  It’s said that blood thicker than water.  Is it stronger than the Gospel?

2)  Baptism – fire & spirit.

This is a dangerous time to be a Christian.  Do you realize that there were more than 2.6 million martyrs in 20^th century, more than all the other centuries combined?  Hundreds of thousands of lives of people who died because they were Christian.  In Africa, the Middle East, and Asia.  Anglican priests slain in Africa.  Archbishop Oscar Romero, assassinated while celebrating Mass in El Salvador.  Martin Luther King, Jr., show down in Memphis.  4 nuns slain in Central America.  Even today Korean missionaries are being held hostage in Iran.  And it is still against the law in India to evangelize or to become a Christian.  There is so much we take for granted, cocooned in our rights and privileges and blessings.  We have forgotten that following Jesus is dangerous, sometimes fatal, in most of the world.

“How can you interpret the weather but not the present time?”  Jesus’ hearers were farmers and shepherds, they had to know how to read the weather.  They paid close attention to the planting, growing, and harvesting seasons.  What about the times?  The God-season?  It’s not about counting the days to the Rapture; it’s about “tuning in,” adjusting to the God-radio.  Every day we read and hear about war, famine, climate change, and terror in our world.  Are you still waiting for details?  Are you looking for to film at eleven?  One mystic advised, “Seek God like a man with burning hair seeks water.”  It is that urgent, that vital, that important.  Do you not know how to interpret the present time?

3) “Bring peace?  No, I bring division.” 

            Jesus sounds like a revolutionary, an anarchist.  But he’s different – he takes the division into himself rather than thrusting it onto the world.  He offers himself to be broken, divided, instead of the world.  In a few moments I will invite you into that myster:

“Alleluia!  Christ our Passover is sacrificed for us.”

The bread is broken – just as the Body of Christ is broken on the cross.

                        The breaking of the bread is always Good Friday, the moment of crucifixion…

But bread must be broken to be shared, that we all may be fed.  And in the sharing we arrive at Easter, when the Risen Christ is made alive in each of us. 

The Reality is – we are divided amongst ourselves.  We are broken.

            AND we are reunited with Christ and each other in baptism.

Baptism – seeing the world w/ new eyes, God’s eyes.  THAT’s the fire, the blazing passion of Jesus:  to change everything.  To cast down the mighty & raise up the lowly (in the prophecy made by Mary about her then-unborn son, in the hymn we call the Magnificat)  It’s not a gentle process or an easy task.  It’s terrifying, intense – and absolutely necessary.

            Let us pray, in words of St John of Damascus:

“ To me who am but black cold charcoal

Grant, O Lord, that by the fire of Pentecost,

I may be set ablaze.                  Amen.”