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This Sundays reading is one that is tricky to understand, even for me- a Christians who preaches peace and love finds it difficult to understand. Jesus said this week in the Gospel of Luke, "I have come to bring fire to the Earth.. Do you suppose that I am here to bring peace on Earth? No, rather devision" (Luke 12:49-52).
I remember first reading this passage when I wasn't a Christian. I remember I typed up "violent Gospel verses" on the internet because I was trying to beat a Christian in my grade for believing in Jesus. AHHHH times have changed haven't they!
But even when I became a Christian and people uttered this verse , I didn't know how to rebuttal their argument. Which sent me into a spiral of academically reading of the Gospel-which isn't a bad thing! But what it did to me was made me study the bible just to rebuttal arguments, not to look into myself.
So today, let's look at this Gospel deeply, and how we can look into ourselves not looking at this academically. This Gospel message was to me a warning, a prophecy even a look into the human condition. To be honest, reflecting on this, I love this passage! Because Jesus is being real with us, having a serious look at ourselves and what we do. We always here an optimistic Jesus, but in this we see a real human Jesus. What Jesus is saying here is that we want devision, we want power and it is extremely hard to be in peace, but we are divided over the very way of peace. We have seen this throughout church history: Christians vs Jewish people, Catholics vs Protestants, and now Believers vs non-believers.
Jesus knew that his presence would divide people, but is this what Jesus wanted? Absolutely not!! Jesus wanted us to converse with people, to go into life with an open mind and an open heart. To love thy neighbour, not to bring a war against them.
When we take the sacrament of the Eucharist, we are stating that we are the Body of Christ through Jesus. I have times sometimes drawn a difference between progressives and conservatives Catholics, but that is causing the devision in which Jesus spoke of. Why can't I just accept and walk on a journey with them because we are both part of the Body of Christ.
In the world we see soo much devision. We see racism, classism, debates against climate change and literally riots on the news. Soo much devision, but it isn't too late! If we accept the fact that Jesus is sadly right that he brings devision-which I believe he sadly uttered. I believe that Jesus has hope for us, hope that we can come together as brothers and sisters and become the actual body of Christ, we can live in world of the Gospel. A world of peace, love and hope!