TWENTIETH SUNDAY IN ORDINARY TIME – YEAR C
Commentary of Fr. Fernando Armellini
A good Sunday to all.
I believe the last scene of the parable we heard in the gospel last Sunday is well-impressed in our minds. The scene of the master threatening the servant who has not fulfilled his duty with severe punishments will receive many beatings. We noticed that the original Greek text does not say harsh punishments, but 'διχοτομήσει' - 'dikotomesei' = shall be cut in two. This is a crude image suggested by the punishments inflicted at that time.
The truth of the parable is severe; it is the invitation to consider that our life will be evaluated by the Lord, and at the end, it will be cut into two parts: the one that we have behaved according to the gospel and the one in which we have allowed ourselves to be seduced by worldliness. In the gospel of Matthew, this separation is presented with an image that is more familiar to us: the separation between sheep and goats.
Let us keep in mind that it is not the separation between good people and bad people, but it is the life of each one that will be cut into two parts: that of the times we have lived for love, therefore, when we behaved like lambs, feeding the hungry, giving drinks to the thirsty, clothing the naked; and the times when we have closed our heart to our brothers and sisters when we have behaved like goats. This truth must be borne in mind so that we do not find ourselves at the end with the dramatic surprise of perhaps seeing a large part of our existence erased from God's history.
I recalled the conclusion of last week's Gospel passage to introduce today's passage in which we will hear Jesus speaking again about division, but not the one that will take place at the end, but the one he is trying to do today in the world with the radical proposals of his gospel. He does not come to leave us alone in our life.
Let us listen to what he says he has come to bring:
"At that time, Jesus said, ‘I have come to set the earth on fire, and how I wish it were already blazing! There is a baptism with which I must be baptized, and how great is my anguish until it is accomplished!’”
In the passage we have just heard, Jesus employed two images: that of fire and that of baptism. The first alludes to the mission he received from the Father to bring fire to the earth. The second, baptism, we shall see that it indicates the price he will have to pay to fulfill this mission. He will pay with his life for his choice to start a new world with his fire. Fire has always awakened deep emotions in people. We experience it too; for example, on a day when, away from home, we stand in front of the fire with a book in our hands, it is difficult to concentrate on reading because the fire constantly attracts our attention.
We find this image of fire in legends, in the myths of all peoples. We remember Prometheus, who steals the fire from the gods; this indicates that since time immemorial, people have perceived the presence of something celestial, of something divine in the fire, and it is not surprising that this image is also often used in the Bible. To understand the words of Jesus, we must go back to the Old Testament, where the word ‘fire’ in Hebrew is אֵשׁ = 'esh.' In Hebrew, we hear the noise of the flame in this word: 'Esh.' It appears in the Bible about 400 times.
Above all, fire in the Bible is an image of the divine. In the book of Job, the lightning is called the 'fire of God’ in the first chapter because it comes down from heaven. The pillar of fire that accompanies the people of Israel in the wilderness is the presence of God indicated by this fire. Also, the flame that appears in the darkness of the night when God makes a covenant with Abraham passes as a flame of fire through the midst of the divided animals. Also, in the book of Exodus, God descends as fire upon Sinai when Moses goes up the mountain. But the most famous narrative, as we remember, is that of the bush that burns and is not consumed. The book of Deuteronomy, in chapter 4, says that 'God is a devouring fire.'
And also, to speak of the presence of the divine in people, the image of fire is used. If God is fire, the divine in man is presented with the same image. Thus, Jeremiah feels the word of God burning within him that he then has to announce to the people and says, 'It is a burning fire that inflames my bones.' He strives to contain it, but he fails. Thus, fire is the first image we find in the Old Testament.
Fire is the symbol of the divine, but it is not only used for baking bread or giving heat but also burns and becomes a symbol of purification; it burns all that disturbs and is false. In the Bible, fire is used as an image of God's intervention to eliminate all evil. An example is that of Sodom and Gomorrah, incinerated by fire from heaven. God's intervention against the moral corruption in the world is the fire that purifies.
These images we find later in the New Testament. First in the Baptist. Before Jesus' public life begins, the Baptist announces: 'He will baptize them in the Holy Spirit and fire.' He has the pitchfork to cleanse his threshing floor; he will reap the wheat in his barn but burn the chaff with unquenchable fire. It is a fire, therefore, which Jesus will bring and which will be purified from evil. Now we are ready to understand what Jesus means when he affirms that he has come to bring fire to the earth and “how I wish it were already blazing!”
What fire is this? There is a fire that Jesus does not want to hear about; it is the fire that burns and punishes those who reject him. We remember his rebuke to the two sons of Zebedee who tried to burn the Samaritans. Jesus ardently longs his fire to set the world on fire, but it cannot be the fire that incinerates evil people; it cannot be the fire of hell, of which he never spoke. His fire is of another kind. Jesus did not come into the world to burn up evildoers. Some think that the way to purify the world of evil is to burn the evildoers, but if we burn those who do evil, no one will be left. The fire with which Jesus purifies the world from evil is another.
He also speaks of fire when he says that the weeds are gathered and then burned in the fire. God will send his angels, who will pick the scandals of his kingdom and cast them into the fiery furnace. What are these weeds that are burned? Again, it is not the people, but the weeds present in each person; not the weed in the singular, the gospel speaks in the plural; many weeds inevitably grow along with the good wheat. In some, there is present much good wheat and few weeds; in others, on the other hand, the grain is scarce, and the weeds are many.
If we want to have some indication about these weeds, we need only go and reread the works of the flesh that Paul presents in the letter to the Galatians in chapter five; he mentions licentiousness, impurity, sorcery, enmity, strife, discord, jealousy, disputes... These are the weeds that prevent the good grain from growing. They will inevitably grow together; this is our condition, but the good news is that these weeds will be burned by the fire brought into the world by Jesus. It is good news; it is gospel. It wouldn't be good news if the bad people were burned; that's blasphemy.
Jesus also employs the image of the fire with the branches. It is not the bad people who are cut off to burn them; they are that unproductive part present in each of us, unproductive because they are not animated by the sap, which is the Spirit of Jesus. His fire is his Spirit. What is burned are the branches of our lives that produce time wasted in pettiness, futility, ostentation of ourselves, or even a life of sin. When the fire brought into the world by Jesus enters our lives, all this part is burned away, leaving space only for the branches that produce love.
The fire—to use Paul's image—when it enters the person destroys the 'old man.' In the letter to the Ephesians, the author says that it is time to abandon the behavior of a time, the old man who corrupts himself by following deceitful passions; when the fire of Jesus comes, it burns up the old man and brings forth the new man. In the letter to the Colossians, he says, 'Do not lie to one another; put off the old man of your deeds and put on the new man which is Christ.'
The second image is that of baptism. The evangelist says that Jesus is in anguish until this baptism is fulfilled. The verb used by the evangelist is 'συνέχομαι' - 'sinéjomai'; it does not mean to be in anguish but to be overpowered by a strong desire for this baptism to be fulfilled. This image of baptism is linked to that of fire. Jesus affirms that to kindle this fire, he must be baptized. Baptized means immersed. Immersed where? In the waters of death. His adversaries have prepared the water of this baptism to extinguish this fire forever, the fire of his word, love, and Spirit. Instead, this water has achieved the opposite effect. So, coming out of these dark waters on Easter day, Jesus initiated the new man, moved by his fire, the fire of his Spirit.
So, now we can make sense of Jesus' exclamation, "How I wish it were already blazing!" It indicates his ardent desire to see the weeds present in the world and the heart of every person destroyed as soon as possible. The fire of which Jesus speaks was kindled at the Passover, and Luke presents this fire that descends from heaven and renews the face of the earth. At Pentecost, this fire rests upon all those who have given their adherence to Christ. We would now expect Jesus to describe this new world as the fulfillment of the Old Testament prophecies: that the wolf shall dwell with the lamb, and the panther shall lie down with the kid, the calf and the lion shall graze together, the bow of war shall be broken, peace shall be proclaimed to the people, let him be the prince of peace, and that his reign of peace shall have no end.
These are the prophecies that we would expect Jesus to tell us that are now coming true; instead, let us listen to what he announces to us:
“Do you think that I have come to establish peace on the earth? No, I tell you, but rather division. From now on, a household of five will be divided, three against two and two against three; 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.”
The evangelist Luke told us that, at the time of the birth of Jesus in Bethlehem, the angels announced ‘peace to people beloved by the Lord.' In the letter to the Ephesians, it is said that Jesus is our peace; here, instead of peace, Jesus speaks of divisions and conflicts caused by his coming, and to describe them, he resorts to a well-known text of the prophet Micah, who, to present with an image of the society in which he lives and which is shaken from its foundations, he says: 'In this society, the son insults the father, the daughter turns against the mother, the daughter-in-law against the mother-in-law, and the enemies of man are those who are in his own house.' Jesus takes up this image to announce that the old world he wants to question does not resign to disappear and is opposed to the newness of the gospel: the old and the new conflict.
In the image used by Jesus, the old man is represented by the father, mother, and mother-in-law, indicating fidelity to the tradition, 'that it has always been done this way.' On the other hand, the new is represented by the new generation: the son, the daughter, and the daughter-in-law. From the beginning of his gospel, Luke spoke of an inevitable division that Jesus would cause in the world.
Old Simeon takes the infant Jesus in his arms and then turns to Mary and says, 'He is here for the fall and the resurrection of many in Israel and as a sign of contradiction; and you, a sword shall pierce your soul.' It is the famous prophecy of the sword, which has received many interpretations but undoubtedly the announcement of a very painful division, a division that, as we know, took place within the people of Israel because some accepted Christ, and others rejected him. Let us think of the scribes, the priests of the temple, especially Annas and Caiaphas, who saw all the religious practice that was so economically convenient for them thrown aside.
However, I believe that this prophecy of Simeon is directed directly to the person of Mary; she had been educated from an early age according to the tradition of her parents, and together with Joseph, she was a faithful observer of the traditions of her people. She also found it very difficult to understand and accept the newness of the gospel announced by her son. In chapter 3, the evangelist Mark mentions that, at a certain moment of the public life of Jesus, troubling news arrived in Nazareth because Jesus had entered into conflict with the spiritual leaders of the people of Israel who began to consider him a heretic. The situation became dangerous, so all the members of the family, including Mary, thought of going to look for him to bring him back home, and they said that he had gone mad. It was hard for them to accept the newness of the gospel; even Mary understood everything only after the Passover.
Observe how the separation of Jesus from his mother is represented in the picture I have placed in the background. A painful separation occurred when he decided to leave Nazareth to begin his public life, not in Nazareth but in Capernaum. When Luke wrote the gospel passage we have just heard, he focused on the situation in his communities, where this division often occurred painfully and dramatically, sometimes within the same families. Think of what happened when a Jew became a Christian; His family disowned him, with all the consequences, including losing the inheritance. Let us also consider today the difficulty encountered by a Muslim who decides to become a Christian. Here is the division.
Let us verify how this division is produced today, caused by the encounter with the gospel.
The first conflict that everyone experiences for himself is the true gospel; when it does not stop at hearsay but reaches the heart, it no longer leaves one quiet; it creates restlessness, it provokes an inner agitation because it makes you notice the selfishness that you try to camouflage, to justify; your laziness, your pride, ruins your way of administering your possessions, showing you that, in fact you are a Christian in name, but you handle money exactly like the pagans.
The gospel casts aside your quiet life that fits all situations and illuminates all the dark sides of your life; in short, the gospel will no longer leave you alone. If you do not feel this conflict within you, you have not yet understood what Jesus proposes to you with his gospel.
The second conflict: the gospel upsets not only our inner self but also the whole of the old society, which is based on competition, on climbing higher and higher to dominate, to impose oneself, and to accumulate goods. The gospel is a flaming torch that wants to reduce into a great bonfire all unjust structures; it wants to do away with all inhuman conditions, discrimination, and corruption, and those who feel threatened by this fire do not remain passive but try to hinder it by any means. Weapons manufacturers, for example, will be significantly disturbed by the gospel and oppose the true gospel. Those with goods to protect and buildings to guard do not look kindly upon incendiaries in circulation.
A third division that must be considered occurs within the Christian community, confronted with the authentic gospel. Some are more sensitive than others and will grasp the novelty first and adhere to it; they do not accept the continued preaching of false images of God and the perpetuation of religious traditions and practices that obscure the gospel's message. And unsurprisingly, conflicts arise with those linked to the past.
Some divisions are healthy and necessary to remain faithful to the gospel, even if painful. A new world must be born; like all birth, it comes with pain. Jesus concludes his discourse by inviting us to beware of the signs of the new world being born. Let us listen:
"He also said to the crowds, ‘When you see a cloud rising in the west, you say immediately that it is going to rain—and so it does; and when you notice that the wind is blowing from the south, you say that it is going to be hot—and so it is. You hypocrites! You know how to interpret the appearance of the earth and the sky; why do you not know how to interpret the present time? “Why do you not judge for yourselves what is right? If you are to go with your opponent before a magistrate, try to settle the matter on the way; otherwise, your opponent will turn you over to the judge, and the judge hand you over to the constable, and the constable throw you into prison. I say to you, you will not be released until you have paid the last penny.’”
Now, Jesus turns to the crowd and observes that they are very adept at weather forecasting; if they notice a cloud or the south wind blows, they can tell if the next day will be fine weather or rain. He rebukes these multitudes for not knowing how to discern the present time not realizing that there are signs that indicate the birth of a new era. There are unmistakable signs: where the gospel reaches, demons disappear; there are prodigious signs that we can also verify: where the gospel comes and is accepted, disagreements are recomposed, wars cease, peace and harmony reign, the attention to the needs of the brothers and sisters, the search for justice, life and not death is built.
This call is also valid for us today. We are attentive to the signs that interest us, those of the economy, finances, fashions, and opportunities, which is not bad. Let us try to maintain the same capacity of judgment when it comes to events that affect the most important choices of our lives.
To judge the time correctly and to do the right thing, Jesus concludes his discourse with a simile, which is not read in the passage in the liturgy of this Sunday. Still, we must present it because it is the logical conclusion of Jesus's whole discourse. Jesus says that when you are on a journey with your adversary because you have to appear before a judge, try to agree on the way with this adversary to not come to an end and to be condemned by him before the judge.
The question is, in this context, who is the adversary with which we must agree? Let's think about it: if I have decided to take revenge for a wrong done to me, I want to make him pay; there is the adversary who tells me not to do it, which opposes my choice and prevents me from taking revenge. This adversary is the gospel. If I could accumulate goods by resorting to some cunning, there is an adversary who opposes me, who slaps me on my hands that I am about to reach out to take that money; it is the gospel. If I have decided on an extramarital affair, there is an adversary that tells me not to do it. This adversary is the gospel, and Jesus tells us to tune in with the gospel; tune in with the gospel because otherwise, when you are in front of the judge, this gospel will accuse you, and it will be too late because the mistakes you have done you can't be remedied; it is part of your life that was erased.
You will not be condemned, but the gospel will tell you that you have made mistakes and missed opportunities for love.
I wish you all a good Sunday and a good week.
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