The Gospel of the Day – 2016.08.14
The Encounter
Jesus
said to his disciples: ‘I have come to bring fire to the earth, and how I wish
it were blazing already! There is a baptism I must still receive, and how great
is my distress till it is over!
‘Do you suppose that I am here to bring peace
on earth? No, I tell you, but rather division. For from now on a household of
five will be divided: three against two and two against three; the father
divided against the son, son against father, mother against daughter, daughter
against mother, mother-in-law against daughter-in-law, daughter-in-law against
mother-in-law.’
(NJB)
Purification
by Fire
This is a cryptic
passage. It is fraught with tension. it engenders worry in the reader. There is
fire.
In scripture fire is not
a symbol of destruction of destruction, punishment, or judgement that leads to
damnation. This is true, even of those few passages that are commonly
interpreted as such, such as the lake of fire in the Book of Revelation.
Fire is a symbol
referring to our encounter with God. With the person of God; God, who is the
creator of the universe.
Fire is a vehicle of
refinement, of transformation, of purification. In this passage the blazing
fire that Jesus wishes would engulf the world; that fire is the fire of baptism,
it is the grace of the Holy Spirit, a baptism which he sees coming to him, and
through his teaching to the rest of the entire world (or so he hoped).
Jesus’ death, his trials,
his suffering did not transform the world. It did light the way. Many were
called to follow the way, many are called in every generation. The more radical
our response is to that call, the more clearly we are divided from our old way
of life. Conflict often ensues, between a person and their loved ones, when one
member of a community hears the call of the Spirit and move toward, while
others are remain caught up in the distractions of the world. We are witnessing
something of this today in regards to Pope, Saint Francis, “The Good,” Pope Francis
is moving the church forward as the Spirit wills, and he is meeting strong
resistance from the conservative powers within it.
Anytime the demands of
truth and righteousness put us at odds with our conventions, mores and customs
we face this opposition. Perseverance in the face of that opposition is what
Jesus is speaking to when he speaks of the consuming power of the holy flame.
20th
Sunday in Ordinary Time
