TWENTIETH SUNDAY IN ORDINARY TIME
I Have Come to Bring Fire
Today the Lord confronts us with the question: How fiery is your love? How fervent is your faith? Can our faith accept contradiction and ridicule without reducing us to silence? Perhaps we are resigned to the evil in us and in the world and do not stand up for what is right and good. If we love the Lord, and people, enough we do not tolerate an easy peace that puts our conscience to sleep. In this Eucharist we pray to the Lord for the fire of his Spirit.
First Reading: Jeremiah 38:4-6,8-10
These officials told the king, “Please, kill this man. He’s got to go! He’s ruining the resolve of the soldiers who are still left in the city, as well as the people themselves, by spreading these words. This man isn’t looking after the good of this people. He’s trying to ruin us!”
King Zedekiah caved in: “If you say so. Go ahead, handle it your way. You’re too much for me.”
So they took Jeremiah and threw him into the cistern of Malkijah the king’s son that was in the courtyard of the palace guard. They lowered him down with ropes. There wasn’t any water in the cistern, only mud. Jeremiah sank into the mud.
While the king was holding court in the Benjamin Gate, Ebed-melek went immediately from the palace to the king and said, “My master, O king—these men are committing a great crime in what they’re doing, throwing Jeremiah the prophet into the cistern and leaving him there to starve. He’s as good as dead. There isn’t a scrap of bread left in the city.”
So the king ordered Ebed-melek the Ethiopian, “Get three men and pull Jeremiah the prophet out of the cistern before he dies.”
Second Reading: Hebrews 12:1-4
Do you see what this means—all these pioneers who blazed the way, all these veterans cheering us on? It means we’d better get on with it. Strip down, start running—and never quit! No extra spiritual fat, no parasitic sins. Keep your eyes on Jesus, who both began and finished this race we’re in. Study how he did it. Because he never lost sight of where he was headed—that exhilarating finish in and with God—he could put up with anything along the way: Cross, shame, whatever. And now he’s there, in the place of honor, right alongside God. When you find yourselves flagging in your faith, go over that story again, item by item, that long litany of hostility he plowed through. That will shoot adrenaline into your souls!
In this all-out match against sin, others have suffered far worse than you, to say nothing of what Jesus went through—all that bloodshed!
Gospel: Luke 12:49-53
Jesus said to his disciples, “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! From now on, when you find five in a house, it will be—
Three against two,
and two against three;
Father against son,
and son against father;
Mother against daughter,
and daughter against mother;
Mother-in-law against bride,
and bride against mother-in-law.”
Prayer
God our Father,
by his life and death your Son showed us
the stony road that leads us to life and love.
Let the fire of his Spirit burn in us,
that we may reject easy compromises with evil,
with guilty, uncommitted peace,
and silent complicity in iniquity.
Make us honest and straightforward like Jesus,
so that with him we may put your will and love
above everything else.
We ask this through Christ our Lord. Amen.
Reflection:
Luke 12:49-57
Fire, baptism and division
The Gospel for this Sunday is part of Jesus’ teachings to the disciples during his journey to Jerusalem, where death on the cross awaits him. Jesus explains the purpose of his mission through three images: fire, baptism and division. What is the fire that he came to bring on earth? What is the baptism that he must receive? Why does the Lord say, he comes not to bring peace but division?
After the flood in the book of Genesis, God makes a promise: “Never again will all life be cut off by the waters of a flood, and never again will there be a flood to destroy the earth” (Gen 9:11). Therefore, the Israelites came to the conviction that, to cleanse the world of iniquity, God would no longer use water, but fire.
The fire of God is not intended to destroy or torture those who committed mistakes. Instead, God wants to destroy evil and purify us from sin through the fire of his Word and the Holy Spirit. This fire lit by Jesus is his Word that saves, cleanses, and heals. It is his Spirit, on the day of Pentecost, descended like tongues of fire on the disciples (Acts 2:3-11) and changed their lives forever.
“How I wish it were already kindled!” It expresses Jesus’ burning desire to see the world’s weeds burned in the fires of his Word and Spirit.
The images of baptism and fire are interrelated. To unleash the fire of the Spirit, Jesus says, he must first go through a baptism. This baptism refers to Jesus’ immersion in the waters of death. He will indeed be overwhelmed by the waves of humiliation, suffering, and death, but these will not extinguish the fire of his Word, love, and Spirit.
The books of the prophets have introduced the Messiah to be “the prince of peace”; during his reign, “peace will have no end” (Is 9:5-6). At his birth, in Bethlehem, the angels sing about “Peace on earth!” (Lk 2:14). But now, Jesus says he has come to bring divisions. Jesus was only quoting a passage from the prophet Micah (Mic 7:6) to explain the divisions between young and old generations and among the family members.
The Words of Jesus is the fire that wants to destroy all the unjust structures, inhuman situations, discrimination, greed for money and the frenzy of power. Many reject the words of Jesus because they feel threatened by this “fire.” They react violently because the Word of God disagrees with their projects of selfishness. At this point, divisions and conflicts arise.
Today the Lord confronts us with the question: How fiery is your love? How fervent is your faith? Can our faith accept contradiction and ridicule without reducing us to silence?