Something Messy Emerging

We wish it weren’t true! We would much prefer a gentle unifier; someone who makes everyone feel at ease, content – a conciliator. Jesus, please, tone it down a little!

In Luke 12:49-51, Jesus cries out, “I have come to set the earth on fire, and how I wish it were already blazing. There is a baptism which I need to undergo, and how great is my anguish until it is done. Do you imagine that I have come to establish peace in the world? Not at all, hear me say it, rather division is what follows in my wake.” Jesus, these are not the words we wanted to hear.

Jesus has taken the road to Jerusalem. His disciples are dreaming of conquest and glory, despite Jesus’ regular reminders of what is likely to be the reaction to his mission there. He now turns to images from the prophetic tradition to describe his experience and what awaits him: fire, baptism, division. He feels in his bones the tension and conflict of his impact on others and on the inevitable confrontation before him. Jesus, once again, invites his followers to see what he is seeing.

“I have come bringing fire!” For the prophets, fire was symbol of purification, of transformation. Jesus understood his mission from Abba-God as one that required the kind of radical change that fire generates. The way things had devolved could only lead to disaster, incredible suffering and misery. Business as usual can never save us. But not even his closest disciples were able to see this coming. 

Jesus had submitted his life to God’s Will and sensed that now he was entering into a new, critical phase (crisis = a defining event). This is the baptism he refers to.  He is about to be plunged (and all those who continue to follow him) into the crucial (literally = cross roads) moment that will define his life and ministry. Is this the baptism we are ready to endure?

All the true prophets had experienced opposition – frequently from the powers that be. The people divided in response to their preaching: acceptance of the message, or rejection. Jesus is only noting what was obvious when he said that division, not peace, resulted from his words and actions. He saw families split apart because of him, maybe even some of the families of his apostles.

All this was likely on his mind when he cried out these terribly anguished words. Hearing them, we are called to choose to follow him all the way, or to dismiss him and huddle with a familiar, risk-delaying life. It’s either hanging on to what we think we have or opting for the messy disruption of something new emerging – the Kingdom of God.