The Fire of Love
something about division
Sometimes we stumble over Jesus’ words.
The picture we have of Jesus is one of love, of gentleness, acceptance, and peace. But here comes Jesus, talking about fire and division. And not just divisions in society, but divisions within families.
In the U.S., family seems to be the most sacred thing in society. Let me rephrase that: nuclear families seem to be the most sacred thing in society. The idea of a mother (female), a father (male), and two point five children has gripped this nation’s social imagination. It is what we have built most of society and culture around. Anything else is deemed an aberration and a danger to the sanctity of marriage and the nuclear family.
But Jesus says he came to bring division, a division to that family unit we hold o so sacred.
This doesn’t seem like the meek and mild Jesus of Christmas. Nor does it feel like the victorious Lord of Easter. This seems so at odds with Jesus’ mission, nature, and character. How could the one of whom St. Paul wrote, “For in him all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell, and through him God was pleased to reconcile to himself all things, whether on earth or in heaven, by making peace through the blood of his cross.” (Col 1.19-20) come to bring about division?
Here’s the thing: Jesus did come to bring about peace through reconciliation of all things to God, and to each other by extension. But, the very event of that reconciliation is what will drive people apart in the here and now as we await the eschaton. In the passion of Christ, we see reconciliation achieved because it is God’s nature to reconcile.
It is in the suffering of God as seen in the garden of Gethsemane, the sham trial, and the execution of Jesus that we discover the radical nature of God. When faced with opposition, cruelty, torture, and oppression, Jesus remained true to who he is, and that who is love.
To say, “God is love” without looking to the cross as the singular, ultimate expression of that statement is to look away from God, to look away from the source of peace, and to choose idolatry of a god in our own making.
Peace happens through the cross, not despite or around it. Reconciliation, the establishment of peace, is cruciform. It looks like the cross because on the cross alone we see it play out.
And this is why it is a division that Jesus brings.
Jesus is the vision of peace that exists within the divine dance of the Trinity. Any other competing vision of peace will be faced with a crisis at the reality of the cross.
This is nothing new. People have been peddling false peace since humanity was born. In the days of Jeremiah, false prophets all around were telling of dreams and oracles that spoke comfort and peace to the people. It sounds good—comfort and peace in times of calamity. But the reality of the situation was different, and to turn a blind eye to that reality in favor of speaking what people want to hear is to betray the word of God, and to set yourself at odds with the divine.
In our day, we have Christian nationalists telling us that things are going well, great even. They are telling us that we are reclaiming Christian values in government and society. They make claims of prosperity and peace… but at whose expense? By claiming peace in the obvious times of suffering and oppression for the majority of people, they betray the fact that their peace is really just self-interest. As long as things are good for them, then everything is good and peace is achieved.
But if it’s not peace for all, it is peace for none.
This is the reality the cross brings into view. In Luke 12.49-56, Jesus states that he wishes the fire he came to bring to the earth was already kindled. The spark that kindled the blaze of Pentecost—the day everything changed—is the baptism he had to undergo, namely the passion. Jesus’ identifying with the suffering and downtrodden of the world, his becoming one of the suffering, is the ignition event of the fire of God, and that blaze has been burning ever since.
When we hold up our own claims to peace in the light of the blazing cross, we are left weighing our concepts of security, peace, comfort, and love against the very fire of God’s love manifest in action. The choice we are left with is to embrace the cruciform kingdom or to resist it in favor of our own small, narrow, intolerant, and unjust visions of peace.
As God’s blaze of love becomes visible in history—I would add here that it is only visible in history through the actions of God’s people—everything begins to be tested by the true reality of that love as made manifest on the cross.
See, Jesus’ identification with the marginalized, the outcast, the suffering, the oppressed is the very act that is love made manifest. Solidarity with the little ones is where we will find the love of God, because God desires that no one be left out, left un-reconciled, left marginalized. God desires all to be reconciled to Godself and each other—and creation—in Jesus.
The division Jesus came to bring, that division that will shatter our concepts of peace in a nuclear family—is division based upon what ideology we are putting in place of cruciform, kenotic love.
Jesus doesn’t come to bring a benign, shallow peace where everyone acquiesces to the powers that be and plays nice. The peace that Jesus brings is nothing short of justice rooted in the suffering of God. The division here reveals who still clings to the illusion of power, privilege, and prestige verses who is willing to submit to the fiery judgment of God’s refining fire of love, letting themselves be transformed through divine alchemy into people who do the work of justice, love, and peace.
We can see what happens politically, make predictions about the state of the nation and what is going to happen next, but can we refrain from the hypocrisy of ignoring the signs of God’s movements in the world? When Jesus came to his people, many if not most of them didn’t recognize the agent of God’s divine love and his actions. They were looking for a political savior, a military commander, someone to overthrow Rome with decisive action and violence, and to give power to Israel. But that’s not the vision of God’s love that Jesus came proclaiming.
As his baptism of suffering sparked the divine refining fire, households were divided.. but new communities were formed.
Maybe the structure of society shouldn’t be built around the nuclear family.
Maybe it should be grounded and founded in the beloved community that chooses each other because we seek to love our neighbor, not look out for our own interests and privilege.
Maybe we should seek to give up whatever power we think we have in this corrupt system of white-nationalism, capitalistic, patriarchy, letting the fire of God’s love refine us, burn away the oppression and chains we are all bound with, and instead bringing forth the golden truth of others-centered love that reaches from the margins to bring people away from the whore of Babylon and into the green pastures of peace.
I am in the process of becoming a community chaplin with The Order of St. Hildegard. This program is designed to help form people into spiritual leaders that lead from the margins and serve the margins. It’s for the people who don’t quite fit with the traditional church because of trauma, disability, or identity. If you, as my community, would like to help me fulfill the financial obligation this chaplaincy program has, you can give at the link below. Thank you for the myriad ways you support me.