Pyromaniacs

DAILY BYTE

Jesus’ Gospel is a challenging commitment - since it doesn’t make sense to the world’s power, and it can even pull apart the closest personal relationships in families, as the Gospel of Luke says. Even Jesus had to leave his family, and his commitment to the truth of God’s loving family cost him everything.

As we know, Jesus did hesitate, as he approached the cross, asking God to take the cup away from him. We also hesitate often in our commitment to following Christ, speaking the truth of the Gospel in the world. But, the fire that Jesus rains down in Luke is a fire of the spirit. It is a spirit of truth that rises up within us and helps us to press on when we’re weary and doubtful.

Not too long after the plane touched down in Johannesburg my first time in South Africa, I was in a kombi driving to Pretoria. It was pitch black outside, except for the fires blazing along the median strip between two sides of the highway. I and my friends looked at each other with wide eyes – it seemed like some sort of Armageddon. We were literally at the end of the earth. Our driver calmly said - oh, it happens all the time here - no need to worry... And so, my first view of South Africa was of a country in flames. And perhaps, that was appropriate. This country is in God’s flames. God wants to start a fire. He’s a bit of a pyromaniac – lighting fires that don’t just destroy, but they transform.

Fire makes you decisive - it makes you commit to one course of action or the other. When you light a match, you have three options. You can let it fizzle down so that it burns your fingers. You can put out the fire. Or, you can share it.

Healing in our lives comes through the confrontation and disruption of sharing the fiery passion of the Word of God in the Gospel. Jesus talks in Luke about having to go through a baptism. We begin baptism with water, but it continues through our lives as baptism by fire - a journey where our parents commit us and we commit ourselves to dying and then living every day as followers of Jesus through many fires. In these fires we die to our fear of speaking truthfully with one another and die to our fear of living united.

Now having been in South Africa much longer, I've gotten used to the fires, and I've learned that there is a debate about whether or not burning the brush is good for the earth. But, I confess, that whether it's good for the soil, or not, I love to see the bright green blades of grass poking up through the ashy blackness of the burn. Through fire, the earth is transformed from death to new life.

Jesus says in Luke (The Message): "I've come to change everything, turn everything rightside up…! Do you think I came to smooth things over and make everything nice? Not so. I've come to disrupt and confront!"

When we dare to disrupt and confront one another in our personal relationships, in our church, and in our world, the scripture calls us to do it through Christ, humbly and graciously, speaking not out of resentment or anger but out of a wise, prayerful discernment of truth.

This might mean division, but it is a division not of fear or power but of love and integrity. The prophet Jeremiah says "let the one who has my word speak my word faithfully." We have God's Word. If we speak it faithfully, through God's grace, all divisions can and will one day heal in greater wholeness for us, for the church, and for the world.

FOCUS READING

Luke 12:49-51 (The Message)

"I've come to start a fire on this earth—how I wish it were blazing right now! I've come to change everything, turn everything rightside up—how I long for it to be finished! Do you think I came to smooth things over and make everything nice? Not so. I've come to disrupt and confront!

PRAY AS YOU GO

Blazing God, you showed us what true commitment and fiery passion were in the person and life of Jesus Christ. Fill our lives with a fire for you. Strengthen us so that we can boldly but humbly share the truth of Gospel so that one day your dream for the world’s unity may be realized. Amen.