Fire is dangerous. We all learn this important lesson
early on in life. In my case I learned it with fear and trembling as a helpless
child having to witness the small town of Ipil being razed in fire. I saw this
awesome power of fire not only once. Ipil was set on fire again on mysteriously
the same date, May 11 of one of the ensuing years. And this was not it. On
April 4, 1995, as a grown-up, I survived the “Ipil Massacre” during which the
town was set ablaze once more by the Abu Sayaff terrorists and was reduced to
ashes.
It’s no small wonder that I and many others would have a
hard time dealing with Jesus of today’s gospel (Lk 12:49-53). Jesus announces his
mission of setting the earth on fire: “I
have come to set the earth on fire, and how I wish it were already blazing!”
(v. 49). What?! Is this really Jesus
speaking?
The Danger of Discipleship.
Our difficulty most probably stems from a sanitized image of Jesus. We have
gotten used to seeing Jesus as kind, meek, and merciful. We would imagine him
probably as gentle and soft-spoken. And we have come to love Jesus the nice
guy. What more, for many, they prefer to deal exclusively with the cute Santo
Niño
as he is absolutely adorable and fun to relate with. With this favorite but deficient
Christological view, we certainly cringe at the thought that Jesus and what He
stands for is actually dangerous. And unless we face the truth that Jesus’
mission is dangerous, we will never see the meaning of today’s gospel and we
will never know Jesus deeper and hence we will never become his true disciples.
While gentleness and compassion especially towards the
lowly and the suffering are truly Jesus’ qualities, He was nonetheless firm and
disturbing towards the self-righteous and the conceited. For the oppressors of
the little ones, Jesus was indeed dangerous. His eventual lot on the cross
speaks volume about how the world wished and plotted to put off the dangerous
fire of Jesus. Jesus’ friends and close followers had a real sense of the danger
of standing for Christ and his message.
But they embraced him with total dedication. John the Baptist lost his
head. Peter was crucified upside down. Most of the apostles and disciples were
persecuted and died as martyrs. Hundred other followers ended up as Nero’s
torches.
Today, we tend to turn a blind eye to this disconcerting aspect
of Christ and his message. We want a cozy type of discipleship. We want
security and comfort. We pray only for blessings. We don’t want a share of the
cross. The first homily of Pope Francis was more to the point as he warned his
audience: "When we walk without the Cross, when we build without the
Cross, and when we profess Christ without the Cross, we are not disciples of
the Lord. We are worldly; we are bishops, priests, cardinals, Popes, but not
disciples of the Lord.” Pope Francis surely inspires us. He is on fire.
Transformative
Christian Message. Fire is not only dangerous. It is also an awesome force
of transformation. Nothing that fire touches remains ever the same. Whatever is
set on fire is bound to change. Each time the town of Ipil was set on fire, the
town was never the same again. The old structures were consumed and turned into
ashes. But new and better structures arose later.
Jesus and his message are transformative. Jesus disturbs
and calls for change. When He declares how He wants to see the earth ablaze and
announces that He brings not peace but division, Jesus is saying: “Do not think
that I came to leave you in peace, no, I came to disturb, to upset and to
change things. The world will never be the same after I have thrown fire on it”
(John Fuellenbach, Throw Fire).
The dangerous fire of Jesus is meant to consume the world’s
old structures of sin dominated by evil, self-centeredness, pride, greed,
injustices, etc. And how we all should wish with Jesus that these were already
blazing so that transformation may come! How we all should wish that the new
structures of grace were put in place, that love reigns with justice and peace
for the people of God. How we all should feel the anguish of our Lord until the
reign of God takes hold of the entire world.
Spirituality of
Social Transformation. Are our hearts burning with the fire of Jesus? We
can only answer yes when we courageously embrace the danger of being a follower
and when we assume the same transformative vision of Jesus. Many a Christian
have grown cold and bored because they just want to stay in the safety of their
comfort zones concerned solely about the good of the self. Again Pope Francis warns the Church of this
same sickness and wishes her to risk:
“We need to come out of ourselves and head for the
periphery… It is true that going out onto the street implies the risk of
accidents happening… But if the Church stays wrapped up in itself, it will age…
and if I had to choose between a wounded Church that goes out onto the streets
and a sick withdrawn Church, I would definitely choose the first one.”
To have the fire of Jesus in our hearts is to be disturbed,
shaken, and awakened from the slumber of our passivity or even apathy in the
midst of the world’s sinfulness and neglect of the weak. Kindling the fire of
Jesus in our hearts is an invitation to a spirituality of social
transformation—a spirituality that brings the rich resources of our Christian
faith outside the confines of the beautiful adoration chapels onto the streets,
the slum, the malls, the halls of power, and everywhere. This spirituality is
dangerous and risky. But we have to embrace it, as did the close friends of
Jesus, if we were to be faithful to the Lord who wishes to set the earth on
fire and to see it blazing.
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