13 Pentecost Yr C Proper 15 August 14 2016

13 Pentecost Yr C Proper 15 August 14 2016 Audio

Fire is one of the most powerful forces of nature. Fire threatens people and property. Fire threatens forest and hillside. Fires are destructive, fire burns, fire kills. Fire is energy and force that consumes until it burns itself out. And yet fire is necessary for a forest to be reborn.

The fire that Jesus came to bring to the earth is a fire of transformation. It is a fire that does not destroy but that refines, renews and purifies. We know that not only does fire destroy, at the same time fire is the very thing that provides the energy for seed pods to open to create new life. You can see that so clearly in a place like Yellowstone National Park. The new growth that has resulted from fire is amazing. Wildflowers, trees, that would never have grown if it weren’t for fire. This is like the refining and purifying fire that Jesus brings. This is the fire that has the strength to create something new out of something old, something alive out of what seems dead. This is the fire that molds liquid into solid, and solid into liquid. This is the fire that transforms a lump of clay into a beautiful pot.

In JRR Tolkein’s story, The Lord of the Rings, the premise is that a ring that was forged from the fires of the earth holds unbearable power for the ringbearer. The bearer of the ring is always corruptible, and will, eventually, succumb to the power of the ring. The only way for the ring to give up its power is to be thrown back into the fire. The journey of the ring bearer and the fellowship is a journey of transformation and refinement. It is a journey away from individualism and concern only for oneself, toward unity of purpose and shedding of selfishness. On the way, the dwarfs, men, hobbits, and elves, are faced with their own mortality, their own limitations, and realize the journey is about much more than each of them individually, and is much more about who they are together. They were challenged to use their gifts in ways they never thought possible. When the mission was accomplished, something new had been created, out of the fire that refined, molded, melted, reshaped.

Fire transforms, fire refines, fire purifies. Fire is powerful. Jesus came to bring fire to the earth. Jesus came to transform and refine us. Nothing is the same after the fire. Nothing looks the same, nothing smells the same, everything is different. What was old has been reshaped, reformed. Jesus came so that nothing is the same as it was.

One of those things that is transformed is relationships. Remember that the gospel writer Luke claims that part of Jesus’ mission was and is to redefine kinship. Nothing is the same with Jesus and after Jesus, especially kin relationships. Nothing is the same, including the assumptions that have always been made about the natural order of family relationships. What I think Jesus is saying here, and it is probably one of the most difficult passages in the gospel to hear, is that kinship is not the most important relationship, but our relationship to God is our most important relationship, our primary relationship. This is not different from the message of Luke that we’ve been hearing for some weeks. Our relationship with God is our primary relationship. But this transformation of relationship causes fractures. When all the members of a family are not in relationship with God, family relationships are stressed, families can become broken.

In order to form a relationship, we must spend time in that relationship and pay attention to the other in the relationship. When we are in relationship with God, we must spend time with God in prayer, we must learn about God through reading scripture, and we Christians understand God who is one of us, Jesus Christ. We are an incarnational people. God is made known to us in the flesh, Jesus Christ. We say we know Jesus Christ through others, we say we know Jesus Christ through the breaking of the bread. So one way we are in relationship with God is to be in community, we participate in the body of Christ, we are made into the body of Christ.

Each one of us must be in relationship with God through prayer and learning, and all of us together as church must be in relationship with God through prayer and learning. That is part of what makes us a Christian community; and what results from prayer and learning in Christian community is that we may end up in different places, we may disagree. God created us all different, unique; we all have different lenses through which to see.

In a little book by the Rt. Rev. Neil Alexander, the bishop of the diocese of Atlanta, called This Far by Grace, Bishop Alexander makes an observation, he says,
“In the Anglican tradition, we got over the need to agree with one another centuries ago. One of the glories of our way of being faithful is to hold together, in creative tension, a cacophony of diverse voices, a rich continuum of temperaments, and almost as many ways of knowing as there are things to be known. It’s often tense, but never boring.”

I think this is the kind of fire of creativity that Jesus calls us to in this gospel passage. The fire that creates in each of us something new, something different, something that was only a seed pod before, but now can grow and flourish and be who and what it was meant to be. We are not created new to be the same; we are created new to be who we are called to be.

The fires of transformation and refinement are not about making us all the same. The fires of transformation and refinement are about making us unique and beautiful; the fires of transformation and refinement are about making us in God’s image. And in that uniqueness and in that beauty, all of us together come closer to being who God creates us to be. We are transformed into the people, not individual people, but a people, not just fathers and sons, not just mothers and daughters, but a people, from different tribes and different nations, which belong to God. We are transformed into a people who show forth their gifts. A people who love one another as we have first been loved. A people who offer dignity and respect to all. A people who together are better than they are apart. A people who are fed, who feed one another, and who go forth into the world giving thanks and praise to our God.