“I have come to set the earth on fire, and how I wish it were already blazing!” These are the words of Jesus in our Gospel this weekend. How should we understand this?
First, we know that the metaphor of fire is meant to talk about purification. When we want to purify, that is, to separate two elements from each other, we use fire or heat. We put utensils in hot water to separate the germs from it. We put a slab of meat in a slow cooker to make the meat fall off from the bone. The image of fire, then, points to the process of purification or the separation of the pure from the impure.
No wonder, Jesus talks about division. “From now on, a household of five will be divided, three against two and two against three.” Our commitment to Christ will reveal the pure from the impure, from the faithful to the unfaithful. Look at the pressing issues of our time – abortion, migration, racism, and war among others. Some will remain faithful to the teachings of Jesus, some will listen to the world or to themselves. But blessed are those who listen and do the will of the Lord.
Secondly, we know that the image of fire points to the inconveniences of life. No wonder, Jesus talks about anguish. “There is a baptism with which I must be baptized, and how great is my anguish until it is accomplished.” He knows that as he sets the earth on fire, he will carry that same fire, and he himself will experience the inconvenience it brings. But we find a true witnessing in Jesus. He remained faithful even in the middle of it. Blessed are those who remain charitable, kind, forgiving, and faithful to the Lord, even in the midst of life’s inconveniences.
Finally, we remember the words of the two disciples on the road to Emmaus. Jesus joins them in their walk, and after he had explained the events they had witnessed in Jerusalem, they said to each other, “Were not our hearts burning [within us] while he spoke to us on the way and opened the scriptures to us?” (Lk. 24, 32) The fire that Jesus wants to set in us is not the fire that destroys but builds. When our hearts burn with passion and love for God, we become courageous to speak the truth and to be Christ’s modern-day disciples.
Jeremiah and Ebed-melech, in our first reading, are two individuals on fire for the truth. Jeremiah spoke the truth by asking King Zedekiah to surrender to the Babylonian empire to save his people from death. He sounded unpatriotic and even seditious but he knew it was the truth. Ebed-melech also spoke the truth when he pointed out that the king was faulty in putting Jeremiah to a cistern to die. Two individuals whose hearts are burning in their love for God that they are willing to risk their lives for the sake of the truth.
In our recent times, we have witnessed so many more – Oscar Romero, Teresa of Calcutta, Dorothy Day, John Paul II, and Maximilian Kolbe, to name a few. Should we not be the same? Is the fire that Jesus has set in your hearts already blazing? Jesus wishes that your answer is a resounding “yes!”