What difficult words for today! “Is
not my word like fire, says the Lord, and like a hammer that breaks a rock in
pieces?” (Jer. 23:29). . . “I came to bring fire to the earth!” (Luke 12:49).
Where are the words of comfort?. . .
God's word is like a hammer. . . Through
the mouths of the prophets, it hammered away at the proud, stubborn hearts and
stony foreheads of God's own people who, while maintaining the outward pomp of
liturgical service, refused to treat their poor sisters and brothers with
compassionate justice. . .
Today, the divine hammer continues
its eternal work. It levels our pride, destroys our selfishness, and smashes
our guilt. God's word, like a hammer, shatters the idols we have made as we
have fashioned God into our own image. God's word crashes, smashes, levels, and
pulverizes with the truth. Yes, it is often painful, but it necessary for new
life and the re-creation of our lives and our world. . .
God's word, like a hammer, builds a
new creation, a new family—not built on the idols of our high and haughty ways,
but upon love for God and for each other, love that transcends human boundaries
of family and friends. – John Paul Salay
Luke 12:49-56
Jesus uses two primary images to
describe what he is about: (1) fire is used both for judgment and purification
and (2) baptism that signifies Jesus' upcoming death. . .
Jesus makes clear that he has come
not to bring status quo peace that the people expected, but to require more. .
. This will cause the division of families as each person chooses whom to
follow.
Jesus concludes by chastising the
people because they are so clever in reading the weather signs. . . but they
are blind to the signs of what God is doing in the world through Jesus. . . The
people should be as wise before God as they are before the natural order. – Carrie
L. Lewis La Plante
Jeremiah 23:23-29
God makes clear that God is near to
the people, but bigger than they can imagine, both immanent and transcendent.
There is nowhere to hide from God, but God sees all that the people do. – Carrie
L. Lewis La Plante
Paul’s use of athletic imagery for the life of faith makes
the most sense, of course, to those who have actually endured the training to
run a marathon. Those of us who have not taken on such a mighty task appreciate
it from afar, but we have all known what it means to slog through to the end of
a project or even a day. Perseverance is both an attribute of maturity and the
path to maturity.
But we do not run alone. Jesus runs with us.
The word of God that came to
Jeremiah is harsh. The writer of Hebrews goes through a long and gruesome list
of the kinds of ordeals that our ancestors in the faith endured during their
religious journeys. The words of Jesus sound downright threatening when he
speaks of families and households being divided. Most of us know that believing
in God won't make our lives automatically easer. . .
What we are promised is that we
will never be alone. . . And that finally, when we make it to the end of our
marathon, we will be able to rest and rejoice, surrounded by a cloud of
witnesses, and welcomed by the never-ending love of God, who is carrying a sign
that says, “Hurray! I knew you could do it!” – Daphne Burt
John Paul Salay
is Loyola University’s Minister of Liturgy and the Rite of Christian Initiation
of Adults (RCIA).
Carrie L.
Lewis La Plante is pastor of Redeemer Lutheran Church (ELCA) in Indianola,
Iowa.
Daphne Burt
serves as the pastor at the Lutheran Church of the Good Shepherd (ELCA) in
Hamden, Connecticut.
Homily Service 40, no. 9 (2007): 32-41.
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