August 19, 2007
Sermon preached by Rev. Donald Ng at the First Chinese Baptist Church in San Francisco.
Last Sunday when we celebrated our 35th wedding anniversary, Lauren made one of my favorite desserts—vegan chocolate cake. She put candles on it for us to blow out. Fire is often used to celebrate a milestone.
Here in California, to control potentially more damaging forest fires, we have what conservationists call, “controlled burning” that thins out the trees so that our forests can be better maintained. We know that some of this “controlled” burning has occasionally gotten out of control and we end up with a horrific wildfire that we tried to prevent in the first place.
We use fire to cook our meals and boil hot water for coffee and tea. Next Sunday at the church picnic, there’ll be fire—barbecuing chicken and hot dogs for your lunch.
The book of Ecclesiastes lists fire with water, iron, salt, milk, honey, wine, and oil as a gift of God, that which contributes to human life and is a good thing.
I know that many of you have come to church seeking a place of comfort and quiet consolation. Your life is on fast-forward, awash in a wind-swept firestorm of change and busyness. I’ve talked to lots of people over the years who say that this is the major reason why they come to church—to center themselves, to touch base with that which is stable and dependable, to get grounded, to cool off.
Our church building located in San Francisco symbolizes that for us. When it may be in the upper 90s and 100s and unbearably hot in the South Bay or the East Bay, you come to church to cool off in the San Francisco fog. Our church building is bigger and heavier than any one of our houses. It’s pretty permanent—sitting here in the same location since 1908. The brick walls at the street level are as wide as 3 feet thick. The pews are bolted down to the floor.
Our church has a fire alarm system, fire extinguishers on every floor, and lighted fire exit signs on all entrances. I think this building is nearly fire proof. On even the hottest days of the year, usually in September, this building tends to be cool. It’s a good place to cool off, to cool down, or to chill out.
Church is where we come to tie things down, slow down, cool down, quiet down, settle down. And not to have a fire drill!
Bringing Fire
And then there’s Jesus. Jesus said, “I have come to send fire on the earth, fire! Do you think I’ve come to bring peace? No! Peace is boring! Strife, division! I’ve come to split up families, divide homes, turn father against son, mother against daughter.” Jesus wants to ignite a fire!
We don’t like to think of Jesus as the one who has come to bring a fire to the earth, or to divide families. We prefer a Jesus who holds children close to him and blesses them, who heals the sick and says, “your faith has made you well.” But in this passage, we come face to face with a fiery message that we wish we could put out.
To understand this passage, we have to look at Luke 12 as a whole. At the end of chapter 11, Jesus has left the Pharisees after giving them a list of “woes.” We know from the last verse of that chapter that the Pharisees and teachers of the law began to besiege him with questions. At the beginning of chapter 12, then, we can assume that his audience consists of his disciples, the crowd of thousands that had gathered, and these Pharisees and scribes.
Throughout the chapter, Jesus alternates between warnings and encouragements for those who gathered. On the one hand, they are not to worry about their lives. On the other hand, they are not to store up things for themselves. And especially, they are to be watchful and continue to be faithful. His language is urgent: “From everyone who has been given much, much will be demanded; and from the one who has been entrusted with much, much more will be asked” (12:48b).
Then Jesus focuses in on exactly why he has come to earth. Faith in Christ was not about cooling down or chilling out. It was about obedience to what Jesus Christ had been setting forth in his teachings, in how he lived, and in the fulfillment of the Old Testament scriptures. People had to decide if their faith was more important than anything else in their lives…including their families.
It is no accident that Jesus focuses in on the family unit; what is more important and constant in our lives than our biological relatives? I know this—I’ll be taking off to visit our son and his family this week in Boston because of how important they are to us. But Jesus is asking us–although you received life from your mother and father, are you willing to embrace the true life given to you through Jesus Christ? We have brothers and sisters who share some of our DNA, personality traits, physical features…but are we willing to put Jesus before even those closest to us?
Jesus came to bring fire to the earth. Are we ready to have a fire drill?
I confess I always feel a dread when we come to this text from Luke, and this Jesus who runs counter to so much that we’ve tried to make him. And in so much of my ministry, in my own discipleship, I have represented the pleasant soothing friend named Jesus. If anything, I would rather put out fires than to start them.
But as Jesus begins to smolder, flicker into a white-hot flame, well, I get nervous.
During the tumultuous 60s when our country was consumed by the riots of racial justice, I can still remember how an entire brick apartment building directly across from our house was burned down because of the anger and frustration of my African American neighbors. At the annual Baptist meeting for that year, Rev. Earl Lawson, one of my Baptist colleagues organized a new protest group named, “Fire!” which fanned flames under the delegates to this convention to get out of their comfortable, bolted down pews because there’s going to be a fire drill! The time was ripe to ignite a fire under all of our pews.
Biblical Fires
The children of Israel were freed from Egyptian slavery, in the wilderness. No sooner had they been made free than they said, “You know, at least as Pharaoh’s slaves, we had three meals a day.” God didn’t say, “I’ll let you slip back into slavery or I’ll slow things down and let you take up residence in the wilderness.” No, God said, “I’ll give you fire, a pillar of fire leading into the darkness, pulling you into my future.” Fire!
Jesus says, “I’m kindling the same exodus fire. I’m going to take you to places you’ve never been.”
Moses was hunkered down out in Midian. He had killed a man back in Egypt. He’s trying to blend in with the landscape, posing as a shepherd. A bush bursts into flame. Fire! There’s a voice, “I’m sending you to stand up to Pharaoh and the Empire. I’m sending you to speak for me to the king.”
Jesus says, “I’m consumed with that fire and I intend to ignite you.”
The disciples gathered after the death and resurrection of Jesus. Just following the order of worship, just going through the motions, pews bolted down, doors locked shut, preaching droning on, ushers helping people to get comfortable, then sometime between the prelude and the offering, the building began to rumble, the doors swung open, and somebody shouted, “Fire!”
We call that day Pentecost. There were “tongues of fire.” The church was born in the furnace of God’s fire. Jesus said, “I’m looking for a few folk who are combustible!”
As Hebrews puts it, “Our God is a consuming fire!”
Refiner’s Fire
Last week was our 36th annual Youth Camp that means that 9 generations of high school graduates have experienced our camp. I wholeheartedly believe that the vitality of our church can be credited to the main focus of Youth Camp. On Commitment Night, we clearly invite our youth to consider making a decision for Christ. Beginning with the chapel speaker to the guest speaker to the small groups, to the simulation game to cabin devotions to one-to-one meetings that campers have with their counselors and to the pastoral conversations, these are just some of the many ways that the youth are focusing their lives on making a decision for Jesus as their Lord and Savior.
Youth Camp is not “making it up as we go,” it’s about obedience to what Jesus Christ had been setting forth in his teachings, in how he lived, and in the meaning of his death, resurrection and restoration of our lives as well as the world. At camp, we pray that our youth would be transformed by God’s love and that they would have a life-long relationship with Jesus.
We live in a post-modern world where there’s tolerance for all kinds of new age sentiment and practices. There’s a fascination with other world religions, angels, crystals, tarot cards, fortune cookies and horoscopes. You enter any bookstore and you’ll find loads of information on diets, herbs, and other self-improvement programs to give your loyalty to. Yet when nothing is absolute then everything becomes absolute.
As followers of Jesus Christ, we affirm absolutely that Jesus is truth and what he said that is recorded in the Scriptures is true. We can’t say that Jesus is “the way, the truth and the life” and also say that other faiths are true too. If Jesus Christ is truth then the other claims of truth can’t be. There’s a need for a “refiner’s fire” that will separate those who believe in Jesus Christ from those who don’t.
Jesus is warning us that we can’t all “just be friends” when we don’t share in our conviction in him. Jesus promises us a time when God will make a determination about our destiny based upon two things—our faithfulness to his expectations and our discipleship with Jesus, our Messiah. Since all of us fall flat on our face in keeping those expectations, our only genuine hope rests in our willingness to be embraced by “the free gift of God”—the righteousness of God through the faith in Jesus Christ.
It’s like a few years ago when parenting theories call to never say “no” to your child, fearing that would stunt their creativity and growth. Unfortunately, many of those children turned out to be selfish bullies who could not successfully live with other children in school or play because they could not deal with not getting their own way all the time. Jesus tells us that we can’t “have it our way” or that we “make it up as we go” or that everything is true when he said, “I came to bring fire to the earth and how I wish it were already kindled!”
Cooling Off
When our church becomes the safe, inclusive place of middle-class refuge for secure stability, and things cool off, cool down, we are not the incendiary fellowship Jesus ignited us to be.
Fred Craddock once said, “Boredom is a preview of death, if not itself a form of death, and when trapped in prolonged boredom, even the most saintly of us will hope for, pray for some kind of relief.” Be honest. As Sunday worshipers, have you ever quietly cheered when a child baffles the pastor in a children’s story or the sound system picked up a police call or someone’s cell phone rings or a lion dance with the firecrackers going off?
Passengers on cruise ships, after nine beautiful sunsets and countless all-you-can-eat buffet meals, begin to ask the crew hopefully, “Do you think we’ll have a storm.”
A recent minister tells of his attending the Indianapolis 500. He confessed that after two hours of watching the same cars speed by again and again, the boredom burned him into a degenerate sinner. At first, he said, he simply entertained thoughts of “What if…” and his own imagination thrilled him.
But soon his boredom demanded more. A car caught on fire. Hurrah! Not until later did he remind himself that he, a Christian minister, had experienced no concern for the driver. But a burning car was not enough; something more dramatic was needed to effect life from the death of boredom. Voices within him, he admitted, began to call for a smash-up. The demon of boredom had totally transformed him.
I don’t wish for a real fire to consume our church building or that an earthquake would test our retrofit. But if we have cool down and cool off and we are suffering from the dreaded condition of boredom, we need a fire to be ignited under us. Boredom works against the faith by provoking status quo thoughts or lulling us to sleep or draping a flickering flame out with indifference.
Today, the Deacons and some church leaders will be spending the afternoon working together with the hope of eventually coming up with a long-range plan for our church. We don’t want to suffer boredom that snuffs out the fire of discipleship, ministry, witness and missions at our church. We want to become ignited, fired up, disruptive and disrupted, a purifying and warming blaze. It’s a glorious sight to behold.
Let’s have a fire drill because Jesus really did come to cast fire on the earth.
Let us pray.
Lord Jesus, ignite us, set us on fire, rekindle us, and enflame us in passionate love for you. Draw us out of the confines of our safe and predictable faith and out in the streets and highways of life for an adventure in discipleship. May we burn brightly for your love in this world that you so love. Amen.