This past Monday, we celebrated the memorial of Saint Dominic, who, as you may be able to deduce, was the founder of the Dominican order. There are many different depictions of him around, and yet, the elements around him remain the same. One of the elements that you may notice in these depictions, however, is not actually Dominic himself. You really have to look in each of these statues and paintings, and if you do, what you will find, usually on his right side, is a dog, holding a burning torch. While this might seem a bit odd, since you don’t see this particular image every day, and yet, each artist involved in producing these images has a particular emphasis in mind: they want to remind us of Dominic’s mission.
You see, so many saints, and even theologians to this day describe Dominic as a great preacher. It is said that he was such a great preacher that his words issued from the pulpit became like firey darts that seldom missed their target. He set people’s hearts ablaze with conviction! The best way that artists could find to describe this? A loyal pup, faithful to the master, who wanted to go forth and set the entire world ablaze by the truth and the conviction by which he preached!
It is a happy discovery, then, to find this very same imagery, passion, and zeal inside the context of today’s Gospel, especially as we hear about the Lord’s own desire for fire- and for the earth to be set ablaze! This isn’t necessarily an unfamiliar concept! Even in common expressions, we speak about individuals “being on fire” or even “being fired up.” However, is it enough to say that Jesus was simply “fired up” on that day? Or is there more? Perhaps, we hear about how Jesus Himself wishes to set the entire world ablaze it will cause us to think and consider ourselves: is there a similar fire that still exists today in each of us, or have the flames long since grown cold and threaten to extinguish with the slightest breeze?
To answer this question, we should start with the prophet Jeremiah. Jeremiah, as a prophet, often gets a bad wrap, especially within his time. He is not known for speaking a comforting message, but was frequently going about and telling about the destruction and disaster that were going to be visited upon the people at that time. Constantly, for days and days, and weeks and weeks, this was Jeremiah’s constant message. Understandably, after some time, the people became very weary of this message! What did they do? They took him and threw him into the mud of a cistern. They were truly exhausted of hearing this message!
Eventually, one of the kings servants notices exactly where Jeremiah is, and the plight he has suffered, and goes to reason with the king, that they have indeed done wrong to Jeremiah by throwing him into the cistern. So, the king speaks to his servants and tells them to go forward and pull Jeremiah from that cistern. Now, this is all from one side of the story, but what about Jeremiah’s own account of things? We will come back to that thought in just a few moments.
Next, we can go and investigate the Letter to the Hebrews, which serves as a continuation of the reading that we heard last week. Now, as you might recall, the reading from last week focused upon the idea of faith: what is it, and what do we define it as. Further, we were also given a certain image of what it looks like to be a person of faith, especially in the person of Abraham. This gives us a sort of continuation of the same vein of thought. The way that the author sees it, they have walked through the definition of faith, they have given an example, and now it is time for the audience to try it out. One might expect that there would be a certain progression of difficulty, and yet, there isn’t. In fact, it goes straight to the top, reminding the listener about the intensity of Jesus’s own encounters, and how one should be able to go through far less- because, as they say, the audience has not yet resisted to the point of shedding blood.
Finally, we come to the Gospel, and we are given a very short reflection at the beginning on the mission and the goal of Jesus: “I have come to set the earth on fire, and how I wish it were already blazing!” We may arrive at this idea of intensity whenever we hear how Jesus is seeking to spread that fire! Yet, there is more to the story. He continues- “Do you think I have come to establish peace on the earth?” Not peace- but rather division! While we might think this is rather odd in delivery, it is actually very fundamental, because it shows that Jesus isn’t like the false prophets- who often spoke of a false pacifism- but rather he is speaking moreso of something deeper. Something so deep that it surpasses friends, familial bonds, and even the goodness of peace, as desirable as it might seem?
That thing that is deeper? Conviction.
If we use that word “conviction” you can likely get at least a preliminary idea of what it is. Someone who is dedicated. Someone who is driven. Perhaps someone who is, in fact, “on fire.” However, if we have an individual who is “on fire” the next question that should follow in our thinking is “on fire, for what?” No one simply goes around impassioned about nothing, but if all is good and in order, likely that person will be on fire for a particular reason! They will be convicted of the truth and the goodness of something. Now, if we plug the Gospel into that, we should come back to Jesus’s own fire. He came to set the earth on fire. There are a couple of reasons that fire is used in the Gospels: it can be used to indicate divine wrath, or it can also highlight passion and the presence of the spirit. In this case, it is not about divine wrath, but it rather encourages focusing on the passion with which someone should preach the Gospel!
But there comes an important requirement with this: we have to be on fire for the faith first. In fact, there is no fire without that initial spark, or that first source of ignition. If we are not on fire with our faith, how in the world can we expect to set others ablaze, let alone the whole world! So the first thing that Jesus gives us to consider: we should be on fire with our faith! Second, if we take the letter to the Hebrews and consider what it tells us, it speaks about living out faith. Yet, it isn’t about just saying the word, but it is about truly possessing it in our heart of hearts. It isn’t about just having a title, but rather truly living something out. That is where we find that engagement. Hebrews is about truly seeking the fire and the animation to live out our faith. That isn’t just in moments where that might be easy, but especially in the moments where it will be difficult as well- even to the point of shedding our blood as an imitation of what Jesus has done.
Finally, we can conclude by looking at the example of Jeremiah. Jeremiah never had an easy way to go whenever he spoke the truth about what was going to happen. Even in the moments that he was speaking something good, the people were so upset with him that they couldn’t hear that goodness. We should return to this story, because we heard only the initial side of it at the beginning. How about Jeremiah’s side- how did things look for him at that time? The reality of his situation is that he likely felt he couldn’t get it right. He was actually speaking a good message at this point, and yet he still got thrown into a cistern. The important point here is not whether he was thrown into a cistern or not, but rather that he remained passionate about his mission and what God had him doing.
Brothers and sisters, we likely don’t have to look very far to see that the world is struggling with darkness, and it needs that fire that only Christ can provide. Often there are so many things that snare and entangle the feet of our brothers and sisters as they go along. Yet, the important reality is for us to be like what that dog by Saint Dominic’s side stood for- the blazing lamp of passion and conviction that we each should have, and should light the world by, not just when it feels good, but in every moment, that we are called to go forward and to preach that good news- for we are truly called to live out that mission and to preach well.
Jesus tells us: I have come to set fire on the earth. Let us take up that mission, and live out our conviction and so strengthen our faith to set, not only our hearts on fire, but the hearts of every person that we meet as well.
