Jesus spends much of the twelfth chapter of Luke reassuring and encouraging his followers in the face of possible catastrophic circumstance. "I tell you, my friends, do not fear those who kill the body, and after that can do nothing more" (v. 4). "Therefore, I tell you, do not worry about your life" (v. 22). "Do not be afraid, little flock, for it is your Father's good pleasure to give you the kingdom" (v. 32). The same chapter ends on a far less positive note. Rather than encouraging reassurance, Jesus says that his ministry will be very divisive. After spending 45 verses trying to quiet the anxiety of his followers, Jesus tells them that he came to bring fire to the earth. He insists that he will not bring peace. Instead, his ministry will divide families and pit individual members of households against one another. The ministry of our Lord is to rain fire from heaven!
I suspect his first century audience understood that imagery more readily than we do. We have only a passing acquaintance with the power of fire. We see flames in the fireplace. We worry about children holding candles on Christmas Eve. We read of an occasional forest fire and hear the siren of a racing fire truck. Our fire departments are so competent that an accidental fire death makes the national news.
Ancient people had a more intimate knowledge of fire. Their only nighttime illumination came from the flames of oil lamps. The smoke of the cooking fire on the kitchen floor constantly irritated and reddened their eyes. Everyone's fingers were callused from working household fires. Their arms and hands bore the scars from burns. Early in childhood they learned that food tasted better cooked, that flames tempered metal tools, and that the kiln's heat hardened pottery. People also knew firsthand the danger of uncontrolled fire. Homes regularly burned to the ground by an overturned lamp or a carelessly maintained kitchen fire. Well into the nineteenth century, devastating fires shaped communities. In fact, fire spurred on the next urban renewal. So, how was Jesus using the image of fire in this Gospel? This Gospel recalls an ancient belief of fire as the manifestation of God. Jesus is reminding us of the radical nature of His ministry and is demanding we step up to the plate.
I. Fire As the Manifestation of God
This intimate acquaintance with the power and the paradox of fire moved the ancients to think of fire as theophany -- that is, fire as a manifestation of God. When Moses was tending the flocks of his father-in-law on Mount Horeb, the Lord God spoke to him out of a burning bush. When the Hebrew people were wandering in the wilderness of the Sinai, the Lord God led them at night with a pillar of fire. On the day of Pentecost, the Holy Spirit, the very presence of God, appeared to the apostles in the upper room as tongues of fire. It did not puzzle his listeners when Jesus said that he was to bring fire on the earth. They believed Jesus to be God's representative, and it was an ancient idea for God's presence to be manifested by fire.
It would also not surprise them that Jesus spoke of God's presence being divisive. The ancients knew both fire and God as being purifying and punishing. They knew how to put metals to the flame to temper and to drive out impurities. The Old and New Testaments use fire as a metaphor to talk about how God punishes, purifies, and strengthens the world. Those folks believed that God worked through fire as well as various fire-like disasters. With a little poetic imagination, even modern folks like us can understand that God works with "fire."
Loren was only fourteen years old when he entered a life of petty crime. By the time he was seventeen he had become one of the regulars in the county juvenile justice system. At eighteen, the judge gave him a choice: enter the army or do hard time in a state penitentiary. He volunteered for the army and was sent to Vietnam. It was at the height of that bloody conflict. He was assigned to a "graves unit" where he worked to identify, tag, and then ship the bodies of young men killed in battle. The judge hoped military service would discipline him. It didn't. When he returned to his hometown, he was even more troubled. In Southeast Asia, he compounded his alcohol problem by taking illegal drugs. With this new addiction, his life of crime took a leap into an abyss. This one-time juvenile delinquent started doing armed robbery.
One night he and a friend held up a liquor store. The clerk managed to notify police and the car chase was on. Loren admits that he considered using the gun he had with him to shoot it out with police. A guardian angel must have whispered the right words in his ear that night. He and the friend decided to surrender.
The judge sentenced Loren to the state prison at Joliet. He had plenty of experience in county jail and the local juvenile detention center. He was tough. He thought he knew how to do hard time. It would not bother him, he thought. Unfortunately, he didn't know Joliet. His years there were experienced as being burned alive at the stake. Loren paid his debt to society and his first job as a free man was as the church custodian. The congregation frequently used that position as a ministry. Loren quickly proved that he had learned his lesson. His first day on the job he walked up two flights of steps to give a quarter to the church treasurer that he found in the coin return of the soda pop machine. He was indeed an honest man.
Loren was never shy about giving his testimonial. When he came home from Vietnam, he was angry and bitter. He didn't believe in anyone or anything. He knew he was traveling the road to self-destruction and that was fine with him. Loren had chosen the hard way to commit suicide. Then his life was turned around. It was no revival preacher who issued an altar call. There was no gentle voice of God urging him to come to Jesus. It was, however, no less the presence of God -- a theophany in fire. As Loren described it, "I was in Joliet only for three weeks when enough terrible things happened to me at the hands of other inmates that I said to myself, 'I will never, ever do anything that will get me into a place like this again.' " His life straightened out. He married and had a family. He established himself as a responsible citizen and then was able to go on and get a much better job than the one at the church. Criminal justice critics will tell you it doesn't happen nearly often enough. But with Loren, the fire that rained down on his life punished him for his foolish choices and then that fire began to purify him and make him a better man.
Those who heard Jesus say, "I came to bring fire to the earth," knew that is what he meant. Fire symbolized the presence of God. They believed God used the "fires" of life to punish and purify. That backgrounds this passage of scripture. That is not, however, the point Jesus is making. This is not a simple observation about how God can work through devastation to strengthen. In Luke 12:49-56, Jesus claims that the gospel is so radical that the world will experience it as fire raining from heaven. Those who follow his teachings, Jesus warns, will be considered revolutionaries. Jesus tells those of us who strive to follow him even today that when his message sinks into our hearts and minds, it can cause trouble in our families. If we choose to follow the Christ, we can get in trouble at work. This Gospel can have a negative impact on our friendships. If we take our faith seriously, we can plan on losing enemies because God commands we commit ourselves to turning enemies into friends. Adhering to this faith just might get us thrown in jail.
II. The Radical Gospel of Jesus Christ
For the most part, this radical edge of the Gospel of Jesus Christ has been lost. Most who now claim Christianity as their religion understand Christ as the Prince of Peace. That means believers can seek personal healing and forgiveness. It means our faith promises contentment and personal security in the here and now and entry to heaven at the moment of death. We refer to nice, kind, gentle people as "Christians."
We seem to have forgotten that the kingdom of God Jesus introduced was quite radical. If you remember, Jesus was crucified. The Romans did not give him an award for keeping Jewish citizens quiet and content. Most of his apostles met violent deaths at the hands of those who were outraged at the revolutionary changes they wanted to make both in society and in the lives of individuals. When Pliny was governor of a province in Asia Minor, he wrote a letter to the Roman emperor telling him that he didn't know what these Christians believed exactly but they were the most willful, obstinate, rebellious, disobedient people he had ever encountered. Therefore he had put some of them to death just on general principles.1
Seminary professor Stanley Hauerwas opens one of his classes by reading a letter from a parent to a government official. The parent complains that the family was paying for the very best education for their son. Then the young man got involved with a weird religious sect. The parent pleads with the government to do something about this group that was ruining his son's life.
Dr. Hauerwas ends by explaining that the parent is not complaining about the Moonies, the Hare Krishnas, or some other group. The professor had assembled snippets from different letters written to the Roman government in the third century about a weird religious group called the Church of Jesus Christ.2
III. Catching Fire for Christ
How that differs from the claims the church makes on people's lives today! Instead of high demands and radical changes, we think Christianity is to make us feel good about ourselves. Rather than an institution inciting revolutionary change, the community today wants the church to be a well-maintained, quiet presence that never threatens property values. Jesus said that he came to rain fire from heaven. But in the last couple thousand years we have managed to get the fire under control by reducing it to candles on the communion table.
Every once in a while, however, someone catches fire for God. Some people catch the vision that there is more to the good life than just acquiring more and more. Some realize that their Christian faith calls them to do something for others, rather than just feeling good about themselves. Sometimes people decide to go to seminary rather than law school. Some decide to pursue a Master of Divinity rather than a Master of Business Administration. Some people feel the heat of God's presence and are moved to extravagant generosity.
Some people catch on fire with the presence of God and do things that disrupt their family life -- just as Jesus predicted. Jim was a prominent businessman in town. He belonged to the church, but had never taken it very seriously. Some of his friends were active in a spiritual renewal movement and encouraged him to attend one of the weekend retreats. "You will really enjoy it," they promised.
Reluctantly, Jim went. He didn't really believe the church had anything to offer him. He went and listened carefully. He did not enjoy the weekend at all. In fact, it was a terrible experience for him and for his family. You see, Jim had been embezzling money from the company where he worked.
They talked a great deal about Jesus' teachings at that retreat. For Jim it was as if the Word of God was fire rained down from heaven. The Monday morning after the retreat he walked into the office of the owner of the company and confessed. He spent the next few years in prison. When he returned, he became one of the leaders of that spiritual renewal movement. Jim experienced the teachings of Jesus as disruptive. It was nothing less than a firestorm from heaven. That can happen.
This faith can change your life as well. Be open to that fire God rains down from heaven. Open your heart that God in Christ Jesus will strengthen and purify you. As hymn writer Adelaide Pollard puts it, "Have thine own way, Lord. Thou art the potter. I am the clay. Mold me and make me after thy will, while I am waiting, yielded and still."3
1. Pliny, Letters X, p. 96.
2. Pulpit Resources, Volume 23, No. 3, July-September, 1995, p. 34.
3. "Have Thine Own Way, Lord," Adelaide A. Pollard, 1902.