Fire that does not destroy
SERMON, St. Andrew's Presbyterian Church, August 19, 2001
Marie-Louise Ternier-Gommers

Jeremiah 23:23-28, Psalm 82, Hebrews 11:29-12:2, Luke 12:49-56

Well, it has been a hot summer, hasn't it?
Hot and dry - prime conditions for forest fires.
The other day I heard on the news that a whole crew
of fire fighters from Prince Albert left for B.C.
To fight the big fire near Penticton.
It's a little out of place, don't you think,
that just when we see the destructive powers of fire,
the Scriptures today speak to us about the Word of God
being a fire: God says in Jeremiah:
"Is not my word like fire,
and like a hammer that breaks a rock in pieces?"
How do we respond to a God of whom the psalmist says in Psalm 82
"Rise up, O God, judge the earth;
for all the nations belong to you."
And if that is not enough, we have Jesus saying:
"I came to bring fire to the earth,
and how I wish it were already kindled!"
These words do feel out of place,
and not just because we have a bad taste in our mouth
about fire.
These words are also out of place
because they kind of ruin a nice season:
a nice season of summer holidays, barbecues,
family gatherings, travel and relaxing.
The reading about the lilies of the field and the birds of the air
would have been more suited to our mood.
But no, Jesus kind of hits us on the head
with this sledgehammer of God,
that hammer that breaks rocks into pieces.

A rude awakening, all these words
about Jesus bringing fire, division and strife.
Are you sure we should continue this worship
in praise and thanksgiving
if we get served such disturbing words?

Actually it is a shock that we are surprised by these words at all.
In our comfortable pews Sunday after Sunday
we easily forget the demands of the Gospel,
demands that are to burn like fire.
We can forget that God's love itself is
the FIRE of life.
Fire is a long-standing symbol in the church for new life in Christ.Fire is the life-giving activity of the Holy Spirit:
God was in the fire when Moses saw the burning bush,
tongues of fire rested on the disciples at Pentecost.
Just as the destructive power of fire shows no mercy,
the life-giving power of God's fire is equally an all or nothing deal.
And both Jesus and Jeremiah knew what it is like
to have God's passion burn like a fire in your chest,
setting your whole being ablaze.

If anyone was a reluctant prophet, it was Jeremiah.
He forever dragged his feet,
even complained to God about being seduced by God.
Jeremiah tried to get rid of the fire
of God's Spirit within him.
Not that he feared God's fire would destroy him,
just like a forest fire does.
No, Jeremiah dragged his feet because he knew
how unpopular God's prophetic words would make him.
So despised was God's news coming through Jeremiah,
that he was threatened with death more than once.
If God's fire in his heart did not destroy him,
the people he was called to address certainly wanted to destroy him.
It is not that God wishes to sow division, strife and conflict.
Rather, God's fire is literally an all or nothing deal,
and most of us cannot handle that kind of radical living.
That was true in Jeremiah's time, in Jesus' time, and in our time.
Despite all the whining and complaining to God,
Jeremiah let God's fire shine through him in such a way
that the people around him would rather destroy him
than listen to God - you know, shoot the messenger.
Jesus infuriated the establishment of his time
because of his radical, all-inclusivelove and compassion.

That's the all or nothing deal --
no room for lukewarm, Sunday-only faith here.
The Psalm has God urge us:
"Give justice to the weak and the orphan;
maintain the right of the lowly and the destitute.
Rescue the weak and the needy;
deliver them from the hand of the wicked."
If there are any poor and hungry and rejected ones among us,
we are not being true to our calling to follow Jesus.
And that is still not a popular thing to say, even in church circles.

Like the people in Jeremiah's time and in Jesus' time,
we too have great difficulty
with that much loving in our lives,
even though we were claimed for this Love in our Baptism.
When we claim our life to be on fire with God,
we will be disturbed and persecuted.
Even our own blood family, and our own church family,
can turn against us.

I had a brush with the kind of fire Jesus talks about
when I was a teenager.
At that time, I did not connect my experience to the Gospel.
As a teenager, I was both critical of and attracted to religion:
I wanted something out of it but was not sure how to plug into it.
Until I got involved in a campaign to raise awareness
about leprosy victims in Africa
I was on fire to help.
I wanted to offer a financial contribution of my own.
Since my personal resources were limited,
I thought I had found the ideal "sacrifice:"
I would forego my 16th birthday party
and donate the money allocated for the party
to the leprosy fund instead.
When I made the suggestion to my parents,
I was unprepared for their response:
I was told that the money was not mine to dispose of.
If I did not want a party that was my decision,
but my parents kept the power to decide where the money went.
What did I think we were,
some charity outfit?...

My parents' response confused me.
They had raised us as faithful Catholics.
Now I wanted to do something inspired by my compassion for others,
and I was accused of being too idealistic.

My parents were good people, and they still are.
They loved us children,
and they worked very hard to care for us.
What I did not understand at the time was
that they were raised in a passive and duty-bound church.
They never learnt to take their faith with them
when they left church on Sunday morning.
No one ever showed them how to let the power of Jesus
set them on fire in the daily acts of love
for those who needed it most.

This incident around the birthday party
was the first of a number of faith-driven decisions in my life,
choices which deeply divided me from my parents.
It took a long time to accept the hurt this caused,
and to understand, from a faith perspective,
the reasons for the divisions.
I now recognize this division as the kind
Jesus talks about today.
And it happens all the time to those
who make radical commitments to love.
I remember Pauline Vanier, Jean Vanier's mother.
She used to recall how she thought her son
had gone out of his mind
when he left a successful career in the navy to move in
with two handicapped fellows in a forgotten village in France.
Today we know Jean Vanier's work across the world
as the l'Arche communities.
I think of a friend elsewhere in the province:
she is so keen to awaken her fellow parishioners to a deeper faith
by introducing the parish to a Bible study --
only to have her enthusiasm viewed with suspicion and distrust.
It is very hard to get knocked down by the very people
To whom we feel closest --
and that because of the fire of God burning in our heart.

It is not that God desires to cause us grief and conflict
with those close to us.
After all, Jesus is and always will be,
the Prince of Peace.
But the peace Jesus gives is not an absence of conflict.

Quite the contrary, as we hear today.
The peace of God is like a sword
that divides families, and even churches.
The division is caused by the refusal of us all at any given time
to embrace that costly commitment to discipleship.
The strife comes because of our refusal,
not because of God's vindictive wishes.
Jesus knows what that human refusal did
to prophets gone before him, like Jeremiah.
Jesus knows that such human refusal to fullness of life
would deal him a similar lot.
And sometimes it seems that in 2000 years of Christianity,
our human refusal still condemns Jesus to death,
without having to point fingers at those outside the church.

"I came to bring fire to the earth,
and how I wish it were already kindled!"
Can you imagine the yearly Christmas pageant?
Instead of singing "Peace on earth, good will to men,"
we hear Jesus' voice thundering:

"I come bringing not peace, but a sword and fire,"
Instead of a choir of angels,
we hear a drum rolling louder and louder.
I bet we'd all duck for cover.

"I came to bring fire to the earth,
and how I wish it were already kindled!"
Even though Jesus is weary of the baptism awaiting him,
a baptism which is his death,
and even though he knows full well
that we keep refusing God's fire of love,
he nevertheless continues to beckon us into this fire.

For the passion of God is a fire that does not destroy.
The passion of God is a fire that brings life in overflowing measure.
To let God's fire run through every vein of our being,
we are to be committed totally.
God's fire purifies, warms, cleanses, and sets us ablaze.
Jesus shows us what that blazing fire of love looks like.
That is why we are encouraged by the words in Hebrews
to always consider Jesus so that we may not grow weary or lose heart.
Jesus, "for the sake of the joy set before him,
disregarded the shame of the cross."
We are called to disregard the shame of our sin
while our eyes of faith are fixed on the One who persevered
and showed us the way into God's own heart.
There comes a time in our journey with God that we are asked
to take stands that can cost us our lives.

Bonhoeffer was one of those contemporary Christians
who persevered to the point of shedding his own blood.
He was a Lutheran pastor in Germany during the Second World War.
He publicly denounced Hitler,
and harshly criticized Hitler's treatment of the Jews.
Because of his outspoken faith Bonhoeffer was imprisoned
in a concentration camp himself.
All the while, in and out of prison,
Bonhoeffer wrote and wrote:
sermons, reflections, books.
He was killed just days before the camp
was liberated by the Allied Forces.

His writings were smuggled out of prison
and circulated in the churches.
His autobiography is aptly called The Cost of Discipleship.
Speaking on the fire of Christ as burning in the church, he said:
"The church cannot tolerate setting limits to love and service.
For wherever there is human need and suffering,
there is Christ.
It is thus that the church truly invades the life of the world."

Christ cannot tolerate lukewarm faith.
The world cannot benefit from lukewarm faith.
We pray that we may receive that fire of Christ in our hearts,
and allow it to set us ablaze with limitless and passionate love.
It is through the fire of love in our hearts
that Christ truly invades the life of the world.
It is for this fire that we give thanks and praise.

AMEN

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