“I have come to cast fire upon the earth. How I wish it were already blazing”.
This line tells us so much about Jesus and about his
mission. Especially since the Second
Vatican Council there has been a tendency among Catholics to downplay the
fiercer, more challenging aspects of the Biblical message.
The God we meet in the Bible is kind, gentle, and compassionate,
but also fierce, demanding, sometimes frightening, and judgmental.
*Gasp* God is judgmental? Yes, He is!
Another way of saying that is that God makes
distinctions. We see that on every page
of the Bible starting with the first.
God distinguishes, he separates light from dark, land from water,
animals from humans. When God forms the nation of Israel, he judges them
different, he distinguishes them from the other nations, he says, I set you
apart from the other nations who do not know me. When he gives Moses the commandments he makes
known his judgment that there is a difference between good and evil, virtue and
vice, sin and holiness.
The prophets tell us over and over how God will judge the
nations. Jesus himself tells us that God
will judge us at the end of time, separating the sheep and the goats, the saved
from the damned. St. Paul echoes this same
sentiment that at the end of life, each one of us, no matter how virtuous or
how wicked, will stand before the judgment seat of God.
In our culture, there is nothing that is tolerated less than
appearing judgmental. Our culture says,
if it feels good do it, don’t worry about right or wrong.
But the God we meet in the Bible, both of the Old Testament
and New Testament, is a Judge, he is a demanding Father, not a permissive
grandfather, who lets the kids get away with murder.
“I have come to cast fire upon the earth,” Jesus says. It’s not so much that Jesus has come to light
a warm, cozy, fire to make us sleepy and comfortable and complacent, that’s
what television is for which numbs are brains and our hearts. Jesus uses the Greek word, balein, which
means to throw or to hurl. “I have come
to hurl fire down upon the earth”. In
the Old Testament we hear how God threw down fire upon Sodom and Gomorrah, how
God threw down fire to consume the enemies of Elijah. And Jesus is using the same imagery here. Kind of scary, like there are consequences to
our actions or something.
Yet we also know that Jesus shows us the face of mercy. Especially in Luke’s Gospel, we hear of so
many miraculous healings, the blind, the deaf, the mute, the leper, they are
cleansed. How can God be both fierce and
compassionate?
Because God is Love. Yes,
love comforts the afflicted, but love also afflicts the comfortable. Love helps someone who is struggling with
their faith, but love also challenges someone who has grown complacent. Love forgives someone who has made a mistake,
but it also seeks to correct them so they don’t make the mistake again.
Love is a parent who is able to say “no” to their children
when they want to eat sweets instead of their wholesome dinner. Love is a mother or father who says “no” when
their children want to dress inappropriately or skip mass. Love is a friend who helps us see the error
of our ways when we are being stubborn or irrational or self-centered.
Sometimes, oftentimes we find the medicine of the divine
physician bitter to the taste and hard to take.
Sometimes speaking the truth is unpopular. Sometimes standing up for the Christian faith
leads to division in our own families, even persecution.
One of the great stories from the early Church is the story
of Saint Perpetua. Perpetua lived in
Carthage, in North Africa, around the year 200, before the legalization of
Christianity. The Emperor Septimus Severus wished to cripple the growing
Christian religion, so he issued a decree that Christians were to be arrested
and killed unless they renounced their faith.
Perpetua was among the first group of Christians who were
arrested. She was separated from her
family, her husband and newborn baby son.
Her father, who was a pagan, visited her in prison. He pleaded with her, “renounce your faith,
save yourself.” “Father, do you see this
pitcher of water?” she said pointing to a pitcher of water on the prison floor. “Could it be called anything other than what
it is?” “No” he said. "Well, neither can I be called anything
other than what I am, a Christian."
One of Perpetua’s best friends came to her the day before
she was to appear before the Roman Judge.
Her friend pleaded with her, "Have pity on your father's gray head;
have pity on your infant son. Offer sacrifice to the emperor and you will be
spared.” Perpetua replied simply:
"I will not. I am a Christian”.
So, Perpetua, was sent to the stadium, along with Felicity
her servant and the other Christians who refused to deny their faith in Jesus
Christ, and they were slain by the sword.
For almost 2000 years we have honored them as Saint Perpetua and Saint
Felicity.
Whenever I hear the words of our Lord from today’s Gospel, “I
have come to set father against son and daughter against mother” I always think
of the martyrdom of Saint Perpetua.
Yet, even in our own day, being a faithful Christian is
counter-cultural.
I have a priest friend whose parents kicked him out of the
house when he said he was going into the seminary. “No son of mine will be a priest” they said. Yet, knowing that it caused division between
him and his mother and father, he could not ignore the call to the
priesthood. But in the course of his
studies, something wonderful happened. His
family came to accept his calling, his mother returned to the Church, his
unbaptized father was baptized because he saw that his son was willing to
suffer loss even of family for the faith.
I have another priest friend who received terrible pressure
from his own family when he would not attend his cousin’s wedding, a Catholic,
who was getting married outside of the Church.
Standing up for the faith, following the faith is not always
the popular thing to do. Jesus
acknowledges that it can even cause division in our own families.
Because of our fallen natures, sometimes God’s truth appears
harsh or fierce or judgmental, but just because the Gospel is unpopular, doesn’t
mean it’s wrong. Archbishop Fulton Sheen
said it well when he said, “Wrong is wrong, even if everybody is wrong. Right
is right, even if nobody is right.”
Why are Christians willing to face division, hostility,
persecution. Listen again to the words
of Paul to the Hebrews from our second reading: “Since we are surrounded by so
great a cloud of witnesses, let us rid ourselves of every burden and sin that
clings to us and persevere in running the race that lies before us while
keeping our eyes fixed on Jesus, the leader and perfecter of faith. For the
sake of the joy that lay before him he endured the cross, despising its shame, and
has taken his seat at the right of the throne of God.”
We run the race, we face mockery from our culture, hostility
from coworkers and even family, because the truth of Jesus Christ leads to the
joy of heaven.
“I have come to cast fire upon the earth” Jesus says,
because he wants to burn away all in us that keeps us from following him with
our whole hearts. May we allow him to
perfect our faith, to increase our conviction for working for the spread of
that holy fire, for the glory of God and salvation of souls.
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