Today’s readings: Jeremiah 38, 4-6.8-10; Hebrews 12, 1-4; Luke 12, 49-53.
Very often the Church is accused of being retrograde, out of touch and irrelevant in the way it reacts in the face of today’s demands and challenging times. To be honest, there are instances past and present, when that accusation is justified. The Church, after all, needs the wisdom to discern when to speak and when not to speak.
In the first reading, Jeremiah was accused of being disheartening in the way he spoke and of not keeping the welfare of the people at heart. He was silenced. In the gospel, Jesus speaks of bringing fire to the earth, and division instead of peace. “There is a baptism I must still receive,” he says, “and how great is my distress till it is over!”.
In his book Faith in the Public Square, Rowan Williams writes that religious commitment in general, and Christian faith in particular, are not a matter of vague philosophy but of unremitting challenge to what we think we know about human beings and their destiny.
There is no doubt that at all times and in all circumstances, as believers we are expected to be some kind of commentators on the public issues of the day. Running away is no answer, whatever the cost and the risk.
With hindsight we all know what Jesus meant when he spoke of the baptism he was to receive. This is also the baptism we all await and need. It is the baptism of fire we need to go through to be renewed, energised and more focussed on what difference faith can make in the world we inhabit.
No doubt Jeremiah lived in historical circumstances very different from ours. Yet taking a close look at him, it clicks that he does not seem to be a figure of the past at all. World politics in his time was in havoc, with Assyria and Egypt losing their imperial control and with Babylon advancing and becoming a serious threat for Judah.
Politics, at that time as it seems to be today, was impotent in the face of the impending dangers. On the part of God’s people and its leaders, a false make-believe official religion kept the people in denial. There were also false prophets and priests who made the people feel safe in a religion that was simply alienating.
It was all this that prompted Jeremiah to stand up and be counted among the prophets of truth. He took the temple to task, because God, he warned, no longer dwelt there. He denounced the falseness of official politics. For this he was accused of creating confusion and not keeping the people’s welfare at heart.
This is the baptism Jesus speaks about in the gospel. It is the baptism of anointing that ushers us from our comfort zones, be they religious or political, towards a sense of mission in the world. Both Jeremiah and Jesus sound very alarmist. Their talking disturbed the peace and upset the people and its institutions.
But they were the voices of the visionaries who saw in depth and created heavy contrast with the myopia of the political and religious leaders of their day. The more we read the prophets, the more we become nostalgic today of the Martin Luther Kings, the Nelson Mandelas, and the Mother Teresas we long to hear in today’s world scenarios. Even Pope Francis, in many respects and within the Church itself, emerges as a solitary voice, a voice in the desert longing, as Jesus, to bring fire to the earth which is becoming more and more unsustainable humanly and politically.
Living religiously, affirms Rowan Williams, is a way of conducting a bodily life. In our context today, we very often speak of an aggressive secularism that dominates the public spectrum. Yet we seem to be confused as to who we are and what exactly is demanded of us believers. Our society and way of life still have a facade of religiosity and we seem to be happy with that, considering how much we cherish it and we invest in it.
Yet we shun the baptism Jesus speaks of and which calls for the re-ignition of the blazing fire of the Spirit. The brand of Christianity we perpetuate does not seem to be that of Jeremiah, nor even that of Jesus. It prefers complacency to risk, it opts for the ostrich approach which Jeremiah denounced at the ultimate cost.