Word of Fire
Jeremiah 23:23-29 and Luke 12:49-56
11th Sunday after Pentecost
August 17, 2025
Growing up, we were taught not to play with fire, although it certainly was fascinating to watch when a field was burned.
The fire would get rid of insects that invaded the plants, weeds that choked out crops, and it replenished the soil with nutrients to grow future crops.
Similarly, timber land is also burned to cleanse the property of the underbrush to further protect and strengthen the trees, again to yield a good stand of timber that will grow strong and sturdy.
Fire is also used to heat metals to mold them into usable products, like horseshoes that we watched being hammered out on the anvil in television westerns.
Fire is often associated with warmth, especially on those cold winter days when we want to start a fire in the fireplace or in the firepit to warm our cold bodies.
In today’s scripture, Jesus, however, is discussing with his disciples the fire of God’s judgment.
It almost seems that Jesus has gotten up on the wrong side of the bed, and is determined to stir division rather than the peace he has been offering. In fact, he stated he has come to bring division.
I wonder, were the disciples cutting their eyes to one another wondering who had awakened this stranger in the man they had come to know as the one bringing peace.
Who is this man talking about family division and mutual disagreements?
Who is this man who seems to have lost his patience to the point of calling his friends “hypocrites!”?
Jesus, though, seems to have lost patience with their inability to focus on the truth of the word of God that is before them. While they pretend to have religious beliefs and principles, they are not acting with what they are professing.
There are many commentaries with differing opinions as to what exactly made Jesus seem to lose his temper in the midst of this moment. After all, this is the same Jesus that has been witnessed healing the man possessed by demons and being the same man to stop and dine with Mary and Martha.
Perhaps we can better identify this Jesus in today’s scripture with the future Jesus that will overturn the tables of the money changers in the Temple of Jerusalem during the week of Passover, shortly before his crucifixon.
When we consider the story of Jesus overturning the tables, it was considered a cleansing of the Temple.
So as we draw back to the scene in today’s reading with Jesus saying that he came to bring fire to the earth, He is also talking about cleansing.
“I have a baptism with which to be baptized,” He states, which again refers to renewing ourselves, just like we recite every week during the Prayer of Confession as we listen to the waters of baptism calling us back to be renewed, to be refreshed, to be cleansed of our sin so that we might begin again living without the separation that we create between ourselves and our God.
I’m sure you have all experienced a time in your life, regardless of your age, when you were trying to get someone to understand something, and they just didn’t get it.
Maybe they pretended that they understood, but they didn’t change what they were doing, and kept on with their same habits as if no words had been spoken to them.
I’m sure we can all remember our frustration when we experienced a time like this when it was important to get our point across, and the person or persons were going through the motion of taking in the information, yet showed no real change in their actions or words.
Now imagine Jesus’ frustration when he knows what lies ahead in his journey, and the limited time he has to get these disciples to understand the urgency of what changes needed to be made in their lives to be able to truly see the Kingdom of God that would come.
Jesus takes the opportunity to jolt them back to attention. He tells them to get their act together so they can interpret what really matters, which is the present time. Look at the signs before you that are beyond this earth and sky.
History has a great way of repeating itself, and it is the Lord in Jeremiah exclaiming with frustration, “Is not my word like fire?” “Is my word not like a hammer that breaks a rock into pieces?”
In both of these illustrations, the Word of the Lord, whether given by God in the Old Testament, or in the New Testament by Jesus, the Son of God, it is powerful and transformative. The Word of the Lord is purifying, like a fire, and capable of consuming what is false and refining what is true.
God’s nature as the Holy Trinity is impactful and dynamic, and it can destroy and purify. It cleanses us so we don’t get weighed down with sin, rather we can be renewed again and again.
True change does not come without the power of God, and purification comes through the grace of God.
Jesus goes from the infant of peace that we meet at Christmas to being a disruptive, powerful and life-changing agent.
Jesus has a heart that is aflame, and a passion to love and save God’s people from evil. The present time for his disciples is urgent, and he needs them to take notice.
Jesus is calling for a fire to transform the human heart and intends to rid us of anything that has no value in our lives other than the unfailing treasures we talked about last week that lead to the Kingdom of God.
John the Baptist described the unquenchable fire that burns up the chaff. God’s Word sets fire to what is not good for us, this same chaff that separates us from God, so that we are renewed to the things that are good for us. For instance, His love, protection, and abundance.
Jesus came not to just die for the world but to change the world. He came to make hearts burn with the all-consuming fire of God’s love and zeal for justice. He wanted the disciples hearts to be aflame for themselves and others.
Jesus is the lion and the lamb, the roar and the whisper, the fire and the water of baptism.
Whether we roar like the lion or whisper like the lamb, may the Word of Fire illumine us today to serve as Jesus’ disciples so that the world continues to be transformed.