The 12th
Sunday in Ordinary Time: Pentecost XIII Year C 2013
I came to cast fire upon the
earth; and would that it were already kindled!
In the Gospel this Sunday Jesus teaches us about his
Cross and Resurrection by means of three disturbing and troubling images: Fire,
Baptism and Division
"Shouting fire in a
crowded theater" is a popular metaphor for speech or actions made for the purpose of
creating unnecessary panic. The phrase is taken from an opinion of Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.'s
opinion in a Supreme Court case, which held that
under the First Amendment to the United States Constitution
there are limits to free speech. You cannot shout ‘fire’ in a crowded theater,
when there is no fire.
But Jesus
shouts ‘fire’ because there is a fire, a fire which he is anxious to start.
a. In the Old Testament,
fire is a symbol of God’s presence. Moses at the burning bush is a familiar example.
As is the text: “The Lord our God is a consuming fire, a jealous God.”
In the New
Testament, “fire” became a symbol of God’s cleansing, purification or
transformation of a person by grace. The
best example, of course, is Pentecost, the descent of the Holy Spirit in
tongues of fire on the apostles and all of us know the effect of this great
event.
But
above all fire is the fire of love. If we speak of human passion as hot, as
heat, as burning, it is only because first Christians sang of divine love in
this way:
Thy blessèd unction from above
Is comfort, life, and fire of love.
Is comfort, life, and fire of love.
The Resurrection of Jesus is the Father catching
up the Sacrifice of the Son into the fire, the ardor, of his own love: love for
the Son and love for those for whom the Son died. So what Jesus is talking
about, when he shouts ‘fire’ is simply his Passion and Resurrection, this is
what he longed for.
Of course the human nature of Jesus recoiled
from the pain and distress of the Crucifixion, from facing its own destruction.
We see that in the Agony in the Garden. But more important was his longing to
carry out the Oblation on our behalf, to unite us again in newness of life with
the God who is our Source and Goal.
Today he says in advance of his crucifixion what
he will say then: “I thirst.” It is not only a physical thirst, as Julian of Norwich
says, but a ‘ghostly thirst’, that is a spiritual thirst for us and for our
salvation.
b. This is borne out by
what Jesus says next: “I have a baptism to be baptized with; and how I am
constrained until it is accomplished!”
Baptism
like fire is a complex image: destructive and productive, dangerous and
sustaining, death-dealing and life-giving. So when James and John ask that they
may sit
one
on the right and one on the left when Jesus enters into his glory, Jesus
replies:
“Are you able to drink the cup that I drink? or to be
baptized with the baptism that I am baptized with?’ Jesus tells them they will
be baptized by his baptism, the baptism of blood. As St. Paul asks “Do you not know that all of
us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death?” There is a close link between the catechumen
being “buried” in water and rising with Christ and Jesus being “baptized”,
immersed in his suffering and death on the way to resurrection.
The death and resurrection of Jesus is not just
something we observe from afar or something that Jesus does for us without us.
We are to share in the paschal mystery by taking up our cross and following
him. Not only must he go to Jerusalem, be handed over, be crucified and rise on
the third but we also must follow him and like Jesus and with him we are to be caught up
in the fire of the Father’s love.
c. Most
disquieting of all we are told by Jesus that he has come not bring peace but
division. This too is a direct reference to his death and resurrection. As Rene
Girard understands the nature of religious sacrifice: what happens is that the offering of a
scapegoat, the ritual death of one man, brings peace to the community by
uniting everyone against the victim. All against one.
This exactly what
happens in the case of the crucifixion of Jesus. “Herod and Pilate became
friends with each other that very day, for before this they had been at enmity
with each other” St. Luke’s gospel tells us. Jew and Roman, Pharisee and Sadducee,
High Priest and mob, even Peter sand
Pilate are united against Jesus.
Obviously there is a
kind of peace which is not peace. In fact the peace of Herod and Pilate does
not last and cannot last. The end result is the destruction of Jerusalem.
But meanwhile the
peace which Jesus brings comes quietly on Easter Evening in the upper room when
the first words which the Risen Lord speaks twice to his disciples is: “Peace
be with you.” Paradoxically it is peace which presupposes and demands division.
The Resurrection of Jesus challenges and disrupts the peace and unanimity of those who crucified the Lord. Now there is a minority report: Peter in the Act of the Apostles: “this Jesus, delivered up according to the definite plan and foreknowledge of God, you crucified and killed by the hands of lawless men. But God raised him up, having loosed the pangs of death, because it was not possible for him to be held by it”.
We are the bearers of
this minority report: Christ has died, Christ is risen, Christ will come again!
But we cannot just talk about it: we have to live it out as men for whom the
Father has a burning love, as cross-bearers following Jesus and as those who
know the peace which passeth all understanding.”
I came to cast fire upon the
earth; and would that it were already kindled!
Some of the ideas in this homily were taken from Fr.
Aidan Nichols O.P. “Peace on Earth?” http://torch.op.org/
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