Sunday Gospel Reflection, August 18, 2013: Set the world on fire...

I have come to set the world on fire... 

It isn’t always easy being a Christian in today’s modern world.

This week’s readings remind us of the struggles faced by the faithful as they strive to share God’s Word with the world.  The prophet Jeremiah is thrown into a cistern full of mud because the princes under King Zedekiah didn’t like the message Jeremiah had to share.  (He was telling the people that their city would be handed over to an aggressor and that many of them would die.  Who wants to hear that?)  Fortunately, the king relents and has the prophet pulled out of the nasty cistern, and Jeremiah goes on to continue speaking God’s Word to the king and his people.

In our Gospel from Luke, Jesus also makes it clear that speaking the Truth will not be easy.  Indeed, just as Jesus suffers – the baptism which [he] must accomplish is his death and rising – we, too, will know suffering because of our faith, difficulty that will afflict us even within our most intimate relationships:  a father will be divided against his son, and a son against his father…  This baptism is one which we, too, must embrace, the truth to which we must hold, as the Letter to the Hebrews reminds us:  let us… persevere in running the race that lies before us while keeping our eyes fixed on Jesus, Jesus, who is God’s Truth incarnate. 

The good news is, if we manage this, God will, as Psalm 40 proclaims, put a new song in [our] mouth, a hymn to our God, and that song will be the witness required of us:  Many shall look on in awe and trust in the Lord.  Then, too, Christ’s burning love – I have come to set the world on fire, Jesus says – will help us to share his passion for the Gospel, his zeal for the Word of God.  That Word may not be a message the world wants to hear… but it is one we are called to embrace, and to which we must give witness, no matter how challenging that job is today.  Indeed, it is the challenge that makes it all the more necessary.

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