Doesn’t it sound strange that our Lord says such divisive things: “From now on a father will be divided against his son and a son against his father, a mother against her daughter and a daughter against her mother, a mother-in-law against her daughter-in-law and a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law. Do you think that I have come to establish peace on the earth? No, I tell you, but rather division. and how great is my anguish until it is accomplished!” Why does Jesus claim these terrible statements? What is the division that he is referring to?
There was so much suffering causeCd to people that followed Jesus. How can that be explained? Please remember that the gospels, like much of the bible, were written after the events happened. The books of the bible in some ways are explaining God at work in the midst of suffering, whether past, present and into the future. For example, a couple of weeks ago I mentioned that in the time of our gospel writers, Luke, Matthew, Mark and John there was much division and persecution for those who followed the Lord. Within Jewish families, daughters and sons were thrown out of their home and synagogue for following this sacrilegious rebel Jesus. Some who claimed the Lord publicly and worshipped him were being stoned by Jews and put to death. The New Testament writings tell of fratricidal strife that led to death caused by members of the same family; hatred within between Jews and Christians in the same family. In part, some of the converts challenged the 2,000-year-old religion of revelation to the Jews by claiming that Christ has founded “the New Israel.” Can you imagine the reaction of priests, village and family members over such statements? In the Acts of the Apostles we hear that Stephen and James, the brother of John the disciple, became victims of a Jerusalem mob and of King Herod Agrippa.
The blood of Christ flows through millennia. He endured threats against his life, the rejection by the elders, scribes, and Temple priests. That mission seems to end with his crucifixion and death, but that wasn’t an ending—it was the beginning.
The Jewish Christian apostles and disciples witnessed the Resurrected Lord. The miraculous experience defies their fear of death and they go out to tell the whole world. Interestingly the Lord defines his coming passion as a baptism that he will accept and that which will set a fire upon the earth.
The Apostles too—give their lives, their Baptism into fire joining the death of Christ in witness. Our faith and religion is also built on many early martyrs under the Roman emperors for refusing to worship Roman gods. However, for the Christians of that time, hope came in God’s Promise that Jesus would return. He returned in a way that was not quite what most thought. In 325 Emperor Constantine and his mother our patron, St. Helena, declared Christ the center of the Holy Roman Empire, he alone is God. That return of Christ inflamed all parts of the world with his message as the Church grew. In a sense our baptism joins us to dying and rising with Christ, with the saints and martyrs and apostles and disciples that gave their lives so we could live Christ today
We should not be surprised when our baptism into Christ can be divisive. I remember the first time I participated in the Walk for Life in San Francisco of course wearing my clerics as an external sign. Lined up along the sidewalks on both sides of Market Street were people booing and shouting out obscenities. As we walked by one group saw I was a priest and yelled out pedophile, fag, keep your church out of my body. Other times I experienced hatred wearing my clerics in public when I would ride the bus in Seattle to the hospital for pastoral training, or even going to a friend’s family for dinner and told that chastity and celibacy are unnatural and a waste that serves no purpose.
At times division can be the way of the cross BUT personal resurrection in confidence that we are living Him the right way. Perhaps we stand against the tide of individualism with our service and ministry in and from our faith in Christ into the world. WE stand for Respect Life, immigration reform, refuges that are discarded like refuse. Our faith speaks in defense of conservation of natural resources that are exploited and wasted, we openly raise our children with a belief in God, love of Jesus Christ, as we witness a moral life.
“Show me” is what Christ is saying to each of us in today’s powerful Gospel; show me the fire of your love for me by your witness by seeing families and all life as sacred as I do, He demands. Show me the fire of my love in you by your care for the less fortunate, by you making peace in families, by not hating members of another religion because of the heinous murderous crimes of a few.
There is no doubt that there is need more of us to be fired up with our love of Christ, to be proud of who we are in His Church and His call to a moral responsible life—with hope and joy.
May our hearts be inflamed with the desire to show the good news, to have zeal for our faith, love and celebrate who we are in the world and to do so this week on fire in Christ’s love in the joy of being Catholic Christians.