Sally A. Brown, Professor Emerita, Princeton Theological Seminary
Jesus’ themes in today’s reading, Luke 12: 49-56, signal a shift from a series of eschatologically-oriented admonitions and warnings to immediate concerns. Jesus addresses 1) the cleansing fire he shall bring to earth after he has undergone a dreaded “baptism;” 2) the conflict and division his message will surely precipitate; and 3) his exasperation that the crowds who throng to him remain oblivious to “the time”—that is, to signs that the world’s powers cannot save, and that spiritual awakening is crucial. Notably, the conflict surrounding Jesus has intensified. The Pharisees and legal experts, accused by Jesus of hypocrisy and forcing unnecessary burdens on the poor who seek the reign of God (Lk 11:37-52), are now hostile, ambushing and interrogating him in public (11: 53-54).
It is a shock to hear Jesus declare that he has come to bring “fire” to earth (v 49a). Didn’t he forbid his disciples to call down fire on inhospitable Samaritans (9:54-55), despite the fact that the revered prophet Elijah had done so? Ironically, Jesus’ mention of fire again brings Elijah to mind. In Elijah’s face-off with the court prophets of Baal on Mt Carmel (I Kings 18:22-39), God sends fire that consumes not only the sacrifice and altar, but also Elijah’s opponents! However, Jesus may be speaking metaphorically of the cleansing “fire” of his impending death, or the fire of the Spirit yet to come.
We are shocked again when Jesus—heralded at his birth with angelic songs of “peace on earth, good will toward all” (Luke 2:14)—announces that he has not come to bring “peace in the earth,” but conflict and division so fundamental that close family members will turn against one another. Luke’s community of faith was undoubtedly already experiencing precisely such conflict and division.
Finally, Jesus’ prediction of intra-family conflict is followed closely by an exasperated plea to his complacent listeners to pay attention to the signs of their time. The compromise struck between Jewish religious institutional leadership and the occupying Romans was brittle; yet the crowds who thronged to hear Jesus remained oblivious to the deep instability all around them. Indeed, Rome will burn Jerusalem only a few decades later. It is very likely that Luke wrote his gospel after that event had taken place. For Luke’s readers, then, Jesus’ ominous allusion to a coming reckoning would serve to validate, all the more, everything that Jesus has done and taught throughout Luke’s gospel.
Today, we look backward to the “baptism” of which Jesus’ spoke. Christians affirm the divine act of resurrection that validated Jesus’ identity, his mission, and his message to us. And yet, we may be like those admiring crowds, oblivious to the dangerous forces around us, and reluctant to actually follow Jesus. Reducing the meaning of Jesus’ death to a paid-up, sin-cancelling, “just-for-me” ticket to heaven makes a travesty of Jesus’ world-transforming, world-dividing redemptive work, which is ongoing, in and beyond the church. Redemption is not a bit of divine scrubbing-up, here and there, of stained human souls. Redemption is God’s radical remaking of the world. God’s reign inexorably disrupts any social order that privileges a few to amass ever more property, possessions, and power, meanwhile seizing control of information sources, lest they be exposed for who they are. God’s reign lifts up the poor, the discarded, and the homeless alien. If we experience no opposition to our faith, perhaps the connection between the faith we profess and the action that expresses it is overdue for examination. What must be consigned to the fire? For whom, and for what, will we pour out our lives?
Insights into Biblical Greek Grammar and Syntax 