What do you get fired up about?  Jesus said to his Disciples; "I came to bring a fire to the earth - not peace, but rather division!"

This is a pretty radical speech for someone billed as the “Prince of Peace!”  Now for some of us, that part about fighting with your mother-in-law may seem perfectly normal, but I hope for most of us, the prospect of being divided in our families and friends, one against the other, is pretty upsetting.

Imagine if we acted this out, right here!  Let’s get a few families down here to the front of the church and let them go at it!  Get a few good punch ups going!  I’ll bet we’d get on the news pretty quick, the fire-filled fightin’ church, but it’s not really what we think Jesus wants!

Jesus is not describing what he wants to happen, but instead what he knew would happen, because of the weakness of our human nature.  Jesus has been encouraging his Disciples to change the way that they think and the way they act and to get excited about it!  It is our human nature to resist such teachings.  We want to do things our way, the comfortable way, not God’s way!  And yet when we disagree with someone we are all too often ready to fight, and sometimes, we really don’t even think about what we are fighting for!

Jesus said how he wished this fire was kindled in us already, even though it meant he must go through a baptism, a trial which would mean his death!  He even said he is in stress until it is accomplished. 

Most of us spend a good chunk of our lives trying to avoid stress! We don’t want to get involved!  Our ordinary lives are busy enough!  The greek word for stress in the original scripture is “soon-ekh-o”, which has another meaning  -  to be compelled to do something or even devoted to do something!

Jesus was in stress, he was full of fire, he was devoted to the sacrifice he was about to make!  He wants us to feel that devotion, that fire, in our hearts!

Jesus foresaw the conflicts that would arise as a result of his ministry.  He knew that families would be pitted one against the other.  It must have broken his heart, to know that because some people followed him, others would reject those people and even persecute them to death.

If you speak up for peace in a time of conflict, be prepared to suffer.  Look at what happened to Jeremiah! He was advising the king and all the people of Jerusalem to give up, not to fight the Chaldeans, but to surrender as God told them to do.  They rejected him; they even tried to kill him.

If we speak up for peace today, to take our forces out of Afghanistan and Iraq, to give up, we risk being called unpatriotic, impractical, weak!  We risk getting into the very fights among ourselves that Jesus predicted would happen.  Instead of listening to God, and going to these places unarmed and in peace, ready to and share as we are called to do as Christians, we go as armies to enforce our own way.

Our great pope, John Paul II once said quite clearly that as followers of Christ, we cannot support modern warfare to preserve our culture of death, and he went so far as to say that it is impossible to achieve unity and peace until we let the weapons fall from our hands!

King Zedekiah didn’t want to hear it!  Our politicians today don’t want to hear it!  It is a lot easier to get votes by promoting a false safety than a willing sacrifice!  Many of us don’t want to hear it!  To offer unarmed friendship and aid could even result in sacrifice and even loss of life for many involved, just as Jesus lost his life.

I don't want to die.  However, I do want to follow Jesus as the early Christians did.  They waited and prayed with faith and hope for centuries.  Many died for their faith.  All of society was against them, and yet the kingdom of God has spread across the entire world.

Being crucified was the worst shame possible at the time of Jesus.  But Jesus embraced it, he died rather than lead an army against the Romans. 

In today's world, we can look at India, which will soon be celebrating 60 years of independence.  India had been under a foreign power, and many factions in India had fought for independence for years.  But finally it took one man, who refused to fight, Mahatma Ghandi, to lead his country to independence through peace.

We need to reach out to others in peace, even when they reject us.  As Jesus’ disciples, we are called to think differently and to act differently and to be devoted, even when it brings us into conflict with those close to us.

Peace is just one example of Christianity in action.  We need to each ask ourselves a question.  What am I feeling compelled to do, where do I feel stress, what cause am I devoted to?  I remember a man who said, “Many times I have had that feeling come over me that lets me believe that I can change the world and that anything is possible, but then I just sit down and have a nice cup of tea and wait until  the feeling goes away again!”

So what are you devoted to?  There are many worthwhile targets for our Christian zeal and I can’t tell you which one is the most important for you, but the chances are good that the one that you think of the most is the one where your action, your sacrifice will have the greatest impact!  That spark inside each one of us is planted by the Holy Spirit to burst into a flame, not to be smothered by the cares of the world, not to be drowned by a cup of tea or a shot of whisky, or not to be ignored over the worry that we might cause some trouble.

Honestly, what do we fight about in our families today?  What to watch on television, do I have to my homework, whose turn is it to do the laundry?  Little things, unimportant things, and yet we will face unpleasantness to resolve these issues!  Why then, when we feel that urge to speak up about something really important, we hold it back because we don’t want to cause trouble.

Don’t they say, “Never discuss religion or politics!”  Why?  Because you might actually kindle that flame that Jesus speaks about!  The hard part is staying strong in our support of what’s right, even to sacrificing our goods or our reputation or even our lives to support it without resorting to violence in turn.

The last words of today's letter to the Hebrews say, “In your struggle against Sin you have not yet resisted to the point of shedding your blood.”  And there it is!  We admire those who have shed their blood for Jesus.  Are we devoted enough to what we believe to be ready to imitate them?

Come to receive Jesus in the Eucharist, let him strengthen you to act on that fire that is waiting to be kindled in each one of us, no matter what the baptism or trials that we are called to face!

- Deacon Steve