In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
“I came to cast fire on the earth; and would that it were already kindled!”
Our Lord begins today’s gospel reading with a difficult saying. “I came to cast fire on the earth.” And, as though to reinforce the point, he follows it up with yet another difficult saying: “Do you think that I have come to give peace on earth? No, I tell you, but rather division.”
These sayings rank up there among those we are least open to hearing. We like to think of the Lord as the “Prince of Peace.” And indeed it IS much easier to think of Jesus as the harbinger of the social ethics of the 1960’s. We want him to be all about love, and peace, and equality. In this country, among the more affluent and educated, Jesus and his teachings are associated vaguely with sandals and rainbows and a kind of charming rusticity that conciliates our desire for a world where people can muster enough indifference to leave one another alone.
But: “I came to cast fire upon the earth; and would that it were already kindled! …. Do you think that I have come to give peace on earth? No, I tell you, but rather division.”
These sayings should wake us up a little bit. We SHOULD be unsettled by them. In Matthew the Lord is even more emphatic: “Do not think that I have come to bring peace on earth;” he says: “I have not come to bring peace but a sword.” And John the Baptist, prophesying about the coming Messiah, said “Even now the axe is laid to the root of the trees.” And again, in St. John’s gospel, the Lord says “For judgment I came into this world, that those who do not see may see, and that those who see may become blind.”
What is the Lord talking about? What are all the axes and swords and fire and judgment and division that he seems to be saying are some essential part of his purpose in coming into the world? The answer, I believe, is this: Christ came into the world to establish a radical society wherein GOD REIGNS IN THE HEARTS OF MEN. Jesus said: “I have come down from heaven, not to do my own will, but the will of him who sent me.” And this, as we saw last week, is constitutive of his proclamation of the KINGDOM… the REIGN of God. And it is THIS that causes division, because when the Lord calls us into the Kingdom, he is calling us into this radical new society where God’s will is done… he’s calling us OUT OF our home culture where anything but God reigns supreme. This is a violent process that meets with resistance, both within our hearts, as well as resistance from those around us who are still firmly entrenched in telluric culture. Being a disciple of the Lord means embracing a WHOLE NEW WAY OF THINKING, a radical re-ordering of priorities and commitments.
And so “henceforth in one house there will be five divided, three against two and two against three” and “a man’s foes will be those of his own household” (Mat. 10.34).
God is not a fairy godmother. He can’t just plink us instantaneously into the Kingdom, into accord with his will. Rather: he CALLS US OUT. And as you begin to answer his call, the GRUNT WORK OF SALVATION begins: the axe gets laid to the root – and as you begin to acquire ears capable of REALLY hearing the Word of God, you find his Word “sharper than any two-edged sword,” you find it piercing to the division of soul and spirit, [and] joints and marrow,” you find it discerning your thoughts and the intentions of your heart. You will sit down to read the Scriptures and you will find the Scriptures reading you. And its painful. Its convicting. It burns.
But as those things attaching you to the world and the flesh are cut away and burnt, you feel yourself growing lighter, and the forces at war within your soul inclining you first earthward and then toward heaven pass a kind of equilibrium. You begin to catch fleeting glimpses of uncreated light, and to taste the infinite sweetness of the Lord, you feel yourself beginning to rise.
This is the PROCESS of salvation. Some people think that you can just be zapped by God and be done with it. [“Are you saved?”] They’re wrong. Salvation is a lifelong race that must be run. Its a war that must be waged. St. Paul said “Salvation is NEARER to us now than when we first believed” [Rom. 13.11], for the same reason that “salvation is far from the wicked” [Psalm 119.155] who “do not seek” the statutes of God, who have no interest in allowing God to reign in their hearts.
This process of salvation is precisely what is described in today’s reading from Hebrews: “Therefore… let us also lay aside every weight, and sin which clings so closely, and let us RUN with PERSEVERANCE the race that is set before us, looking to Jesus the pioneer and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God. Consider him who endured from sinners such hostility against himself, so that you may not grow weary or fainthearted. In our STRUGGLE against sin you have not yet resisted to the point of SHEDDING YOUR BLOOD…. It is for DISCIPLINE that you have to endure. [For] God is treating you AS SONS…”
But if its so difficult and painful, what’s the point? I thought living the Gospel was supposed to make things BETTER, not more difficult!
God desires to reign in our hearts because he desires to share himself with us, because he knows that HE is the object of our most profound longings. We all want to be happy. We all want to be at peace. But we seek happiness and peace in the acquisition of STUFF, or in the gratification of sensual desire, or in disordered relationships – and ANY human relationship is disordered if it is not engaged within the context of God’s sovereignty. I’m not just talking about sexual relationships, or even primarily about sexual relationships, but economic relationships, the relationship between parents and children, how you treat the girl behind the cash register at Starbucks. We seek fulfillment and happiness and peace in a MILLION ways from these sources: the acquisition of STUFF, the gratification of carnal desires, and in disordered relationships with other people. But we won’t find fulfillment there. We won’t find happiness, we’ll never be at peace.
God knows that HE is our ONLY ultimate satisfaction. It is a misplaced desire for HIM that leads us wandering through life looking for peace and happiness and fulfillment in a million ways from the things and the people around us… anywhere but in God. But God knows you, and he knows me. God said “BEFORE I formed you in the womb, I knew you” [Jer. 1.5]. He knows us better than we know ourselves, because he MADE us… and he knows that he alone can satisfy the unquenched thirst at the bottom of every human life. And so he calls us out of our firm situatedness in the world. And getting unstuck can be a very painful process. He knocks at the door of our heart, and if we open to him, he begins to come in, and to displace those things we never thought we could live without – until one day we find ourselves feeding only on Him… the existential hunger that would have killed us is satisfied, the darkness has given way to the light, and God is all in all. This is the great vision of the Kingdom from the Apocalypse of St. John: “And [that] city has no need of sun or moon to shine upon it, for the glory of God is its light, and its lamp is the Lamb.” “For the Lamb in the midst of the throne will be their shepherd, and he will guide them to springs of living water; and God will wipe away every tear from their eyes.”
Let us pray.
Lord renew in each of our hearts the process of Salvation. Open our hearts to you. Draw us gently to your presence. Correct us not in your anger, but let us know the saving power of your love and mercy. Give to each of our hearts a thirst for you, and fill us with your own Spirit.
In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
“I came to cast fire on the earth; and would that it were already kindled!”
Our Lord begins today’s gospel reading with a difficult saying. “I came to cast fire on the earth.” And, as though to reinforce the point, he follows it up with yet another difficult saying: “Do you think that I have come to give peace on earth? No, I tell you, but rather division.”
These sayings rank up there among those we are least open to hearing. We like to think of the Lord as the “Prince of Peace.” And indeed it IS much easier to think of Jesus as the harbinger of the social ethics of the 1960’s. We want him to be all about love, and peace, and equality. In this country, among the more affluent and educated, Jesus and his teachings are associated vaguely with sandals and rainbows and a kind of charming rusticity that conciliates our desire for a world where people can muster enough indifference to leave one another alone.
But: “I came to cast fire upon the earth; and would that it were already kindled! …. Do you think that I have come to give peace on earth? No, I tell you, but rather division.”
These sayings should wake us up a little bit. We SHOULD be unsettled by them. In Matthew the Lord is even more emphatic: “Do not think that I have come to bring peace on earth;” he says: “I have not come to bring peace but a sword.” And John the Baptist, prophesying about the coming Messiah, said “Even now the axe is laid to the root of the trees.” And again, in St. John’s gospel, the Lord says “For judgment I came into this world, that those who do not see may see, and that those who see may become blind.”
What is the Lord talking about? What are all the axes and swords and fire and judgment and division that he seems to be saying are some essential part of his purpose in coming into the world? The answer, I believe, is this: Christ came into the world to establish a radical society wherein GOD REIGNS IN THE HEARTS OF MEN. Jesus said: “I have come down from heaven, not to do my own will, but the will of him who sent me.” And this, as we saw last week, is constitutive of his proclamation of the KINGDOM… the REIGN of God. And it is THIS that causes division, because when the Lord calls us into the Kingdom, he is calling us into this radical new society where God’s will is done… he’s calling us OUT OF our home culture where anything but God reigns supreme. This is a violent process that meets with resistance, both within our hearts, as well as resistance from those around us who are still firmly entrenched in telluric culture. Being a disciple of the Lord means embracing a WHOLE NEW WAY OF THINKING, a radical re-ordering of priorities and commitments.
And so “henceforth in one house there will be five divided, three against two and two against three” and “a man’s foes will be those of his own household” (Mat. 10.34).
God is not a fairy godmother. He can’t just plink us instantaneously into the Kingdom, into accord with his will. Rather: he CALLS US OUT. And as you begin to answer his call, the GRUNT WORK OF SALVATION begins: the axe gets laid to the root – and as you begin to acquire ears capable of REALLY hearing the Word of God, you find his Word “sharper than any two-edged sword,” you find it piercing to the division of soul and spirit, [and] joints and marrow,” you find it discerning your thoughts and the intentions of your heart. You will sit down to read the Scriptures and you will find the Scriptures reading you. And its painful. Its convicting. It burns.
But as those things attaching you to the world and the flesh are cut away and burnt, you feel yourself growing lighter, and the forces at war within your soul inclining you first earthward and then toward heaven pass a kind of equilibrium. You begin to catch fleeting glimpses of uncreated light, and to taste the infinite sweetness of the Lord, you feel yourself beginning to rise.
This is the PROCESS of salvation. Some people think that you can just be zapped by God and be done with it. [“Are you saved?”] They’re wrong. Salvation is a lifelong race that must be run. Its a war that must be waged. St. Paul said “Salvation is NEARER to us now than when we first believed” [Rom. 13.11], for the same reason that “salvation is far from the wicked” [Psalm 119.155] who “do not seek” the statutes of God, who have no interest in allowing God to reign in their hearts.
This process of salvation is precisely what is described in today’s reading from Hebrews: “Therefore… let us also lay aside every weight, and sin which clings so closely, and let us RUN with PERSEVERANCE the race that is set before us, looking to Jesus the pioneer and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God. Consider him who endured from sinners such hostility against himself, so that you may not grow weary or fainthearted. In our STRUGGLE against sin you have not yet resisted to the point of SHEDDING YOUR BLOOD…. It is for DISCIPLINE that you have to endure. [For] God is treating you AS SONS…”
But if its so difficult and painful, what’s the point? I thought living the Gospel was supposed to make things BETTER, not more difficult!
God desires to reign in our hearts because he desires to share himself with us, because he knows that HE is the object of our most profound longings. We all want to be happy. We all want to be at peace. But we seek happiness and peace in the acquisition of STUFF, or in the gratification of sensual desire, or in disordered relationships – and ANY human relationship is disordered if it is not engaged within the context of God’s sovereignty. I’m not just talking about sexual relationships, or even primarily about sexual relationships, but economic relationships, the relationship between parents and children, how you treat the girl behind the cash register at Starbucks. We seek fulfillment and happiness and peace in a MILLION ways from these sources: the acquisition of STUFF, the gratification of carnal desires, and in disordered relationships with other people. But we won’t find fulfillment there. We won’t find happiness, we’ll never be at peace.
God knows that HE is our ONLY ultimate satisfaction. It is a misplaced desire for HIM that leads us wandering through life looking for peace and happiness and fulfillment in a million ways from the things and the people around us… anywhere but in God. But God knows you, and he knows me. God said “BEFORE I formed you in the womb, I knew you” [Jer. 1.5]. He knows us better than we know ourselves, because he MADE us… and he knows that he alone can satisfy the unquenched thirst at the bottom of every human life. And so he calls us out of our firm situatedness in the world. And getting unstuck can be a very painful process. He knocks at the door of our heart, and if we open to him, he begins to come in, and to displace those things we never thought we could live without – until one day we find ourselves feeding only on Him… the existential hunger that would have killed us is satisfied, the darkness has given way to the light, and God is all in all. This is the great vision of the Kingdom from the Apocalypse of St. John: “And [that] city has no need of sun or moon to shine upon it, for the glory of God is its light, and its lamp is the Lamb.” “For the Lamb in the midst of the throne will be their shepherd, and he will guide them to springs of living water; and God will wipe away every tear from their eyes.”
Let us pray.
Lord renew in each of our hearts the process of Salvation. Open our hearts to you. Draw us gently to your presence. Correct us not in your anger, but let us know the saving power of your love and mercy. Give to each of our hearts a thirst for you, and fill us with your own Spirit.
In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
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