Jesus
said, “I have come to cast fire upon the earth; and would that it
were already kindled...”
I
want to suggest to you something that might seem strange: that our
Gospel reading today is all about Love. Now this may not have sprung
immediately to mind when you first read or heard it. For our Lord
speaks of casting fire on earth, of bringing division rather than
peace, and rather than being the cause of domestic bliss, He causes
division in the household. Now this is not usually what we think love
is about, of course. But nevertheless I say to you that Love is in
fact what the passage is about.
Now
I say this with complete confidence because I both believe that our
Lord did say this (and no
amount of modern biblical criticism has eroded my confidence in that)
AND I believe that every word our Lord proclaimed, taught and spoke
was born of divine Love, for Love and in Love. So even these words
that seem to contradict what we think
we know about love, are
actually about Love.
One of the problems that hinders
us is that what we think love is about, is actually a shadow of what
it actually is. We harbour the notion of a domesticated form of love,
that is comforting, pleasant, enjoyable and perhaps above all: nice!
To be a “loving” person is to be cuddly, inoffensive,
non-confrontational, always smiling, and who always, always, always
says nice things. To some this is the image of the quintessential
English parish – the classic domain of niceness. There our Lord is
always gentle Jesus, meek and mild. The parish church of nice is
where Reverend pleasant always speaks inoffensively and has a word to
comfort everyone no matter their circumstances. That nice church is
surely the Church our Lord came to found 2000 years ago? Or was it?
In truth divine Love is something
different to insipid niceness. Divine Love is zealous and passionate!
Divine Love does not compromise and does not fear what people will
say. Divine Love does not change its message to suite the
sensibilities of its audience, it speaks the truth, in season or out
of season. Divine Love challenges, confronts, causes offence to some
people, isn't always smiling but sometimes is angry, and is certainly
not necessarily comforting or easy.
The
prophets of the Old Testament knew this all too well. The true
prophets of Israel spoke the truth from God who is Love, and usually
they were not liked for it! Remember Elijah and the prophets of Baal?
At Elijah's prayer, literally fire came to the earth, the people
repented of their lack of faith and slaughtered the prophets of Baal
for their anti-God religion. Yet Elijah flees even into the desert
for his very life, petrified for he offended Jezebel the queen, who
herself spoke plenty of comforting words to her husband king Ahab,
and now wanted to do away with Elijah. Or we might think of poor
Jeremiah the prophet, who in the reading today was thrown into the
mire of the cistern for having spoken the truth. We might think of St
John the Baptist, who because he spoke out in support of marriage,
had his head removed for speaking the truth. We might think of the
Christian martyrs who in many different ways witnessed to the truth,
caused offence and lost their lives.
Our
brother Michael goes off to Rome soon, to the Venerable English
College, where many of its priests returned to the mission to England
and became martyrs. We of course do not wish martyrdom upon him, but
he and all of us must remember that if we follow Christ then we
cannot expect an easy ride. On the 14th
September we have the Ordinariate pilgrimage to St Cuthbert Mayne's
shrine, and we remember his witness and will ask for his prayers.
After being ordained an Anglican clergyman and getting an MA from
Oxford, why should he have 'gone to Rome'? After being received into
the Catholic Church, studying at Douai and receiving Holy Orders,
returned to the English mission and was executed for treason
for amongst other reasons for having celebrated mass in England.
The
truly loving words of Our Saviour in the Gospel today are beseeching
us to wake up from our slumber – to wake up to the true predicament
we and all mankind are in! And the true predicament we are in was
revealed when our Lord received, what He calls here, His “baptism”.
He is referring to His crucifixion. Our Lord's crucifixion reveals to
us our true predicament and it banishes any notion of the world being
about true Love. What we need to accept is the truth that when true
Love came into the world, what resulted was conflict and opposition.
Even when our Lord was born, in Bethlehem, the Holy Innocents were
slaughtered out of fear of His birth. Our Lord did nothing other than
proclaim the truth for our salvation, exorcise demons, heal the sick
and gather a group of disciples around Him. And He did it all for
Love of every human being. And how did people react? A tiny minority
responded and gave their lives to Him, followed Him, and many
suffered His fate. Many people initially liked what our Lord had to
say. We hear of great crowds of ordinary folk gathering to hear His
teaching, which, they said, was not like their usual teachers. Yet He
never compromised His message in order to gain popularity, for when
He challenged many fell away. For example, in Ch 6 of John's gospel
Jesus says solemnly: “Unless you eat the flesh of the Son of man
and drink his blood, you have no life in you... my flesh is food
indeed and my blood is drink indeed...”; we are then told many of
the disciples were offended by this and saying that it was a hard
saying, drew back and stopped following Him.
When
divine Love was incarnated in the world, there was massive conflict.
St John puts it very starkly in the opening chapter of his gospel:
The Light shines in the darkness... . Christ the incarnate Son
of God, who is divine Love in the flesh, is the Light shining in the
darkness. The world into which He came is dark because in it human
beings are sleep walking – in that sleep-walking, darkness reigns.
He came to save us, to bring us the Light, to speak the truth in
Love, to banish all darkness from our path. But if we answer His
call, and follow Him, we cannot expect an easy time of it! That is
the sobering reality that we must get straight in our minds.
This
is most especially true of those who answer a call to a vocation as a
priest or in the Religious life. If they answer that call they can
expect not comfort but conflict. In their generous response to the
call of God the Light shines in them, but it does shine in darkness.
The
words of the 'gospel of nice' that never offend, that are always
comforting, that are always easy to follow come not from the Son of
God, but the one who spoke to Eve in the Garden of Eden. The Serpent
spoke very nicely to Eve. He made it very easy. And we know too that
when temptation comes to us it is in that easy, comforting and nice
voice.
For
all of us who dare to follow our Lord today, who resist the voice
that speaks nice words to us of comfort, inoffensiveness and ease,
need to be prepared for a hard time of it. The Truth from Our Lord is
not welcome in our world today just as it wasn't welcome in
Jeremiah's time, and supremely in the time of the Incarnation. If we
experience no conflict then very likely we are not witnessing to the
Truth, not witnessing to our Lord. Whether it is about marriage,
abortion, or euthanasia; whether it is about religious freedom and
the right of Church schools to teach the faith unhindered; whether it
is speaking out about the violent, persecution of Christians
throughout the world especially in Muslim countries; or indeed even
within the Church herself, if we stand up for the Faith as always
taught and oppose liberalism (as Bl John Henry Newman did); then
there will be conflict, uncomfortableness, sometimes offence will be
taken, some people won't like us, and we definitely won't be regarded
as nice people. We are called to run the race with perseverance, and
look to our Lord Jesus Christ “who for the joy that was set before
Him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is seated at the
right hand of the throne of God.” That is what should be in our
sights!
So
as members of the household of God and followers of Jesus Christ, may
all those who have answered the call of God, be strengthened by the
Holy Spirit to not grow weary or faint-hearted when conflict comes,
to seek not rewards and comforts from the world, but be faithful to
Christ, be ambassadors of truth and persevere with grace.
IH
17th September 2013
