The Divine Arsonist
"I have come to set the world on fire"--Jesus
Today’s readings strike us as
particularly harsh, especially the passage from Luke’s gospel (paralleled in
Matthew) of family division and strife as a consequence of following Christ;
how can this be good news? The old phrase, “No cross, no crown” comes to mind.
Paul’s famous teaching about the
kerygma, or preaching, of the cross, proclaims “For the word of the
cross is to those who are perishing foolishness, but to us who are being saved
it is the power of God. . . . For since in the wisdom of God, the world through
its wisdom did not come to know God, God was well-pleased through the
foolishness of the message preached to save those who believe. For indeed Jews
ask for signs, and Greeks seek for wisdom; but we preach Christ
crucified, to Jews a stumbling block, and to Gentiles foolishness, but to those
who are the called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom
of God. Because the foolishness of God is wiser than men, and the weakness of
God is stronger than men. . . . God has chosen the foolish things of the world
to shame the wise, and God has chosen the weak things of the world to shame the
things which are strong . . .” (1 Corinthians 1:18, 21-25, 27).
Paul’s
observes that “those who are perishing” see the cross as foolishness. What a powerful observation! A sign of “perishing” is dismissing
the cross of Christ as foolish. This
superficial understanding can only be penetrated by faith because “the
foolishness of God is wiser than men.” Men
see the destructiveness of fire, God sees what survives the fire, and redeems
the ashes.
The “cloud of witness” of which Paul
writes in Hebrews, includes the great Fathers of our church who witness to this
“baptism of fire”. St.
Cyril of Alexandria refers to the “fire of baptism” as the Holy Spirit. St. Ambrose relates the image of
Pentecost, with the Holy Spirit appearing like flames above the apostles. Fire and water, two of the most basic
elements, combined in our baptism to signify both the physical purity and
spiritual purity of our initiation. Fire is also the sacrifice of martyrdom
which is the ultimate test of our love; are we willing to die for the gospel of
Christ? Are we willing to
lay down our lives in our service to Christ?
The wildfires that seem so destructive,
and indeed destroy many homes, also have a natural function of renewal. When fires clear the dead underbrush,
they can cleanse a forest and actually help it to thrive. When the fires are artificially
delayed by well-intentioned firefighting, the undergrowth accumulates such that
when there is a fire, say every fifty years, it burns so hotly that it has lost its benefit and
destroys the forest rather than help it to thrive. So it is in the spiritual life. When one’s focus is to avoid
suffering, to insulate one’s life from the “fire”, when great suffering comes, we are
ill-equipped to face it because we have not endured the suffering of lesser
trials and temptations. Our
faith must be nurtured in our daily lives of more endurable sufferings and
difficulties for the sake of our journey as ambassadors of God’s love to the
world. We must learn early to find our refuge in God’s love among the community
of the faithful
so that we can grow to find our refuge in God alone. Among all of this
suffering, we are being directed into the embrace of God’s love in the
crucified Christ, which delivers us to the resurrected life, the life of a forest
renewed after the fire, of hope rather than despair, of a fire-born faith that can
sustain the heat of loving our enemies and keeping the flame of faith alive in
our hearts.
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