Scripture:
Jeremiah 38:4-6, 8-10
Hebrews 12:1-4
Luke 12:49-53
Reflection:
“This is the Sunday of division and disturbance…of violence and outrage.” The late Passionist scripture scholar, Carroll Stuhlmueller, wrote that about today’s gospel and it would be hard to disagree. It is one of the most unnerving passages in the gospels because the Jesus we encounter this Sunday vehemently contradicts the kind of Jesus we find most attractive—a Jesus who is agreeable, congenial, and reassuring; a Jesus who unfailingly comforts and consoles, gratifies and pleases; and surely a Jesus who wouldn’t dare ask too much of us.
Today we meet a Jesus who stirs things up, who rattles, provokes, disturbs, and perhaps even frightens us. After all, “I have come to set the earth on fire, and how I wish it were already blazing!” is hardly a serene proclamation. Jesus’ promise of a ferocious conflagration is a violent image of all-consuming destruction and devastation; a terrifying transformation that suggests all the evil born from sin leaves the world so utterly at odds with the ways of God that nothing less than a total re-creation will suffice.
And when Jesus declares, “Do you think that I have come to establish peace on the earth?”, he leaves no doubt that if we live by the gospel, if we take his teaching to heart and strive to conform every dimension of our lives to it, we will find ourselves surrounded by enemies (like Jeremiah who was thrown into the cistern); indeed, animosity and division will penetrate into even the dearest and most intimate relationships of our lives.
To cast our lot with Jesus is to stand apart from all that opposes and undermines his mission of inaugurating the reign of God. There is no neutral zone, no safe place, no losing ourselves in the crowd. “I have come to set the earth on fire!” It may not be what we want to hear, but we can’t say we were never warned.
Paul J. Wadell is Professor Emeritus of Theology & Religious Studies at St. Norbert College in De Pere, Wisconsin, and a member of the Passionist Family of Holy Cross Province.