August 19, 2001
Pentecost 11
Year C
Title: Standing In The Fire
Theme: To follow this Jesus of Nazareth means conflict—something
many of us have experienced in our own experience of following Jesus
and telling the truth. Sometimes following Jesus and living lives of
discipleship will cost us our dearest relationships, but what is left over
after standing in the fire is purest and truest parts of ourselves.
I was participating in one of the Circles last week, and we were each
asked to share a favorite Biblical passage and when it got around to me,
I shared Psalm 139 with the Circle—well, actually, it wasn’t all of Psalm
139: only up until verse 18. After verse 18, the writer of the Psalm gets
just a little bit vindictive and starts talking about hating God’s enemies
with a perfect hatred and then asks God to kill them all off. Psalm 139
becomes very uncomfortable at that point, especially when the first part
of the Psalm was all about God’s constant presence in our lives. It
becomes an uncomfortable moment when the writer starts wanting God
to kill off God’s enemies, or at least, it is to me. Well, here is another
uncomfortable moment in Scripture, a moment uttered by the Christ
himself, where he speaks of bringing conflict to the world and not peace;
a moment when he says he wished the world was already kindled with
fire; a moment when he says that the decision to follow him will rip
families apart; a moment when he asks them to pay attention the signs of
the times, and what is being hinted at everywhere in creation. Its an odd,
uncomfortable Scripture passage, primarily, I think, because most of us
have an image of Jesus that is cocooned in a sweetness and light—and
so when Jesus starts speaking like some fire-breathing tent revival
preacher, we become a little uncomfortable.
So, what is Jesus saying here? Why does he seem so angry, so full of a
frustration that seems to jump from the page? Why he does want the
earth to be a big fireball, roasted, even, nice and evenly? Well, I think
there a lot of ways to hear this passage—it’s a rough one, and it reflects
a lot of the frustration of the preceding chapters of the Gospel of Luke.
You see, the writer of this Gospel has Jesus constantly challenging his
listeners to be radical disciples, to count the cost of what it might mean to
be followers of this Jesus. And the primary theme you see over and over
again is the issue of material possessions—things—stuff—that seems
really hard to leave behind. Remember last week when Luke’s Jesus
tells us to sell everything we have and follow him, knowing that God will
surely provide all that we need? The Gospel of Luke is obsessed with
this theme of radical discipleship and the struggle with things that stop of
from fully giving ourselves over to this Jesus of Nazareth—and for Luke,
the greatest struggle that he has Jesus dealing with is material
possessions. And so this passage of fire and families being ripped apart
and paying attention to the call of discipleship that is right before us is, I
think, yet another reminder that discipleship, that following the Christ
might actually cost us something. For most of Luke, its about costing us
material things, but here Jesus challenges us to even consider that it
may cost us some of our dearest relationships, that following this Jesus
may be like standing in a fire, knowing that it burns, but knowing that
what it burns away will leave us purer and more focused and well-aware
of what it means to be a follower of truth itself, of this Jesus of Nazareth.
Fires have a way of clearing the thicket, cleansing the forest, even in
their fierce destruction and what’s left standing is what matters, at least
in the world of the spirit. To follow Jesus means the possibility of loss so
that one can gain, the possibility of the cross so that one can experience
resurrection, the possibility of letting go of old, precious dreams so that
you can experience and find who you were really called to be. What is
left standing after the fire has swept over us, after we figure out what it
means to follow this Christ, is our truest self, stripped bare and true. And
that bare and naked and true self is what Christ wants from us, free of
those things we think we must have to survive, free of the competing
material and emotional burdens that call us to be everything BUT
disciples of Jesus—a Jesus who asks for our lives if we are to follow him.
You know, many of know how the cleansing fire can cost us much, that
following Christ and being a person of truth can cost us our dear
relationships. For many of us, when we came out to our families or
friends as gay or lesbian, we knew pretty quickly that the truth is
something a lot of people don’t want to hear. And its ironic that for many
of us, its our own commitment to Christ and his truth that compelled us to
tell our parents or our friends the truth about sexual orientation in the
first place—to follow this Jesus means not living a lie, right? Recently, I
was involved in a Holy Union where the parents of one of the same-sex
couple are Christian fundamentalists, and they have reacted to the news
of the upcoming wedding in the worst way, to be honest. But the irony,
of course, is that it is their own nurturing of their son to be a Christian, to
be a follower of Jesus, that has caused him to tell them the truth about
his life and the man he loves and the home he wishes to make with his
partner. Being a disciple of Jesus, being people of truth, a people that
know that the truth really does set us free, may mean the fracturing of
our dearest relationships, it may mean the burning away of the
pretenses and the dismantling of the mutually upon agreed lies and
silences, so that what is left is the truth. And I don’t say that lightly…its
not something Jesus takes lightly in this passage, thus its not something
we should take lightly. Jesus is frustrated here because he really does
know that it will cost his disciples much to follow him, as much as it has
cost him to do God’s will—but he’s not going to let them—or us—get
away from the need to be fully his disciples. “Do you think I have come
to bring peace to the earth?” Jesus says to his disciples here, and I
must admit that I have always thought that he was…after all, he is the
Prince of Peace, right? But maybe peace doesn’t come without a terrible
price, a price experienced by his first disciples, a terrible price
experienced by the man who is struggling with his parents who never
wanted the truth, a terrible price experienced by us in our own attempts
to be disciples of Christ and to tell our own stories of truth and
faithfulness. If the truth sets us free, as Jesus teaches, then it is here
that Jesus reminds us that it will cost us something to be free.
But I’ve got to ask—and I know it’s an odd thing to ask from the pulpit,
but I want to ask the question that may be burning in the back of our
minds. Is following Jesus worth it? I mean, if standing in the fire is the
cost of discipleship—and I think its clear that he implies that his disciples
will go through the fire here, if I might have to give up relationships and
things—yes, things, even—to be a disciple, do I really want to be a
disciple of Jesus? Do I really want the truth, if its going to push me into a
fire where all the lies and pretenses and masks I have wrapped myself
literally melt away and what I am left with is something I don’t even
recognize, for better and for worse? Well, I can’t answer that question
for you—and I think that the decision of whether to stand in the fire is a
minute-by-minute, day-by-day decision—or at least it is for me. What
makes it worth the journey into the fire of discipleship, the reason why we
should follow the Christ into the mysterious fire when our instinct is to run
in the other direction, is the promise of being able to see the world and
ourselves more clearly. In our passage this evening, Jesus is frustrated
by his disciples lack of commitment and their lack of commitment has
made it impossible to see themselves and the world as vividly and
wondrously as God sees it. If we allow the fire to burn away the lies that
have sometimes become our twisted truth, then we can see the world
more clearly, we can see meaning all around us. Jesus says here, “You
know how to interpret the appearance of earth and sky, but why do you
not know how to interpret the present time?” The reward of letting go of
all the excuses not to be a people of truth is seeing much better, the
promise of having eyes that are truly open for the first time. Truth has a
way of bringing light into the world, even if it’s a difficult truth. At some
point, we have to choose to follow the Christ, and that may mean conflict,
and that mean stepping into the fire, but when we emerge from that fire,
the self we will see for the first time and the beauty and terrible wonder of
this world, will be well worth the difficult decision to be a disciple, to be a
follower of this Jesus of Nazareth.
But the decision is minute by minute, of course, whether or not we take a
chance on being burned by cost of discipleship. That is a decision we
must make for ourselves, right? I often wonder about my own journey
and the cost of discipleship, but I read something the other day that
reminded me of why I choose the fire, when the temptation is to seek the
safety of conformity. There is a saying in the Gospel of Thomas, which
is an early 2nd century group of sayings that were rightfully rejected by
the church as authentic sayings of Jesus, but one of the sayings in that
compilation hint at the fact that whoever wrote these sayings in Jesus’
name knew this passage from Luke that we heard today. The Gospel of
Thomas has Jesus saying these words: ”He is who is near me is near the
fire…” I think that is certainly true…and though being near the fire and in
the fire can be painful at times, the reward of seeing the world and
ourselves through the eyes of God are certainly worth it, I think. Amen
and amen.
