Sunday Meditation: Setting the World Ablaze

In the Twentieth Sunday of Ordinary Time, Year C, Jesus continues His sermon that has run in Chapter 12 of Luke’s Gospel with an enigmatic, if not paradoxical, statement.

 

Jesus said to his disciples:

"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!

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."  

~Lk 12:49-53

 

What fire is Jesus talking about?  What division will be brought about?  Fr. Geoffrey provides a great explanation for answers to both questions. 

 

I think the division Christ will bring is self explanatory.  Setting the world ablaze is more difficult.  Here is that that quote from Malachi 3:1-3

Now I am sending my messenger—he will prepare the way before me; And the lord whom you seek will come suddenly to his temple; The messenger of the covenant whom you desire—see, he is coming! says the LORD of hosts.  But who can endure the day of his coming?  Who can stand firm when he appears?  For he will be like a refiner’s fire, like fullers’ lye.  He will sit refining and purifying silver, and he will purify the Levites, Refining them like gold or silver, that they may bring offerings to the LORD in righteousness.

Purification!  Christ is the fulfillment of the purifying messenger God will send.

Cardinal Blasé Cupich has an interesting pastoral take on this passage, a prophetic gift of the spirit. 

This reminds me of the Protestant pastor and theologian, Dr. Walter Brueggemann, who wrote a work I admire that runs along these lines, The Prophetic Imagination.  I had a post on Dr. Brueggemann’s passing.  Cardinal Cupich’s point is that when we speak in our families with prophetic voice on hard issues, the division that comes with justice is likely.

 

 

Sunday Meditation: "I have come to set the earth on fire, and how I wish it were already blazing!”

 

 

Here is a new song by Ben Walther, “Ablaze,” inspired by the St. Catherine of Siena quote, “Be who God meant you to be, and you will set the world on fire.”

 

Oh I like that.  I was thinking of my beloved St. Catherine when I read Jesus’s statement in today’s Gospel.  Now if you want to hear Ben Walther speak about this song, he was interviewed by a wonderful Catholic song writer herself, Sarah Hart.  Check it out.  

 

Ablaze by Ben Walther

 

“By his grace we are conceived to be mercy, to be peace, to be light amidst the darkness. In his image we are made, to be brilliant, to be great, to present the world his likeness,

 

Let’s set the world on fire, let’s raise his banner higher. Let’s set a broken world ablaze. Oh. Let’s hear a generation proclaiming his salvation with every breath and endless praise; and set the world ablaze.

 

All aflame but not consumed, we are burning with the truth, for his presence makes us holy, fanning flickering to flame till his love is what remains; for to him belongs all glory.

 

Let’s set the world on fire, let’s raise his banner higher. Let’s set a broken world ablaze. Oh. Let’s hear a generation proclaiming his salvation with every breath and endless praise; and set the world ablaze.

 

Set the world ablaze.”

 

Anyone that honors St. Catherine of Siena, has a special place in my heart.  I will have to look for more of Ben Walther’s music.

 

In Memoriam: Dr. Walter Brueggemann

I was saddened to find out that last week on June 5^th Dr. Walter Brueggemann, the Protestant theologian, teacher, and scholar of the Old Testament passed away.  From the obituary titled, “Died: Walter Brueggemann, Scholar of Prophetic Imagination,” by Yonat Shimron of the Religious News Service in Christianity Today: 

 

Walter Brueggemann, one of the most widely respected Bible scholars of the past century, died on June 5 at his home in Michigan. He was 92.

 

The author of more than 100 books of theology and biblical criticism, Brueggemann was professor emeritus of Old Testament studies at Columbia Theological Seminary in Decatur, Georgia, until his retirement in 2003.

 

His specialty was the Hebrew Bible and especially the Hebrew prophets, and his books were aimed primarily at clergy and church leaders. But through sermons, Brueggemann’s concepts, have become familiar to many churchgoers.

I was introduced to Walter Brueggemann by a Protestant friend of mine where she suggested I read Brueggemann’s most well-known work, The Prophetic Imagination.  I did just that and was quite drawn in, and had intended to write a post on it.  I had started that post but had to set it aside.  The theme of my post was going to be a rebuttal to Dr. Brueggemann, a rebuttal not in any Catholic/Protestant disagreement but on his social reading of the Old Testament.  To put it succinctly, Brueggemann is on the socially liberal side of the church divide in a sort of 1970s sympathy with religious church activists.  In the Catholic world, Dorothy Day would be a similar figure, as would I think Pope Francis. 

To be sure, I am not critical of social activists who live out the Gospel.  The world needs more people like Walter Brueggemann and Dorothy Day fighting for the poor, the under privileged, and the alienated.  You can read my memorial poston the passing of Pope Francis where I highlighted just that about him.  My disagreement with Brueggemann was over how he shoe-horned Old Testament history to support his social activist philosophy.  It was more of a conservative/liberal disagreement than a denominational one.  I found Mr. Brueggemann actually to be quite sympathetic to things Catholic.  In The Prophetic Imagination Brueggemann lists among his historical “three towering prophetic figures,” Bartolomé de las Casas  (the other two being Dietrich Bonhoeffer and Martin Luther King, Jr.), the Catholic priest and Dominican friar who defend the natural rights of the Native Americans in the 16th century from the rapacious New World explorers.  He is sometimes looked at as the first social activist of the modern world.  That a Protestant would even have known of de las Casas was a bit surprising to me; that he would list him as one of his three all-time heroes in history is heartwarming.

I had started that post on Brueggemann’s The Prophetic Imagination almost two years ago but I had to set it aside.  First, who am I to rebut an Old Testament scholar, and one of Walter Brueggemann’s stature?  I had read the OT but could I bring up OT history to support my argument?  I had to re-read major parts of the OT to find supporting warrants for my claims.  So I have been reading major parts of the OT for past two years.  And not too long ago I had determined I was ready to go back to that essay and challenge Brueggemann.  So yesterday I did a search for Brueggemann to see if he had been active in any way only to find he had died last week.  Well, he lived a good long life.  May he rest in peace.  I am now more determined than ever to write that essay!  I must admit that in my re-reading of the OT with Dr. Brueggemann’s thoughts in mind, I have found him to be more correct than I thought.  So my essay will not be so much a rebuttal but a qualification.  Enough on that.  Let’s get to a memorial for Walter Brueggemann.

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Walter Brueggemann was born in Nebraska in 1933 to a pastor of the German Evangelical Synod of North America.  He went on to seminary himself and became a pastor himself (ordained in the United Church of Christ), and then a scholar and theologian.  Over his life, he was a renown teacher at Eden Theological Seminary and at Columbia Theological Seminary.  His Wikipedia entry says he wrote over 58 books (his obituary said over 100!) and hundreds of articles and commentary.  He was a giant in his field.  Since I am not really up on the nuances of Brueggemann’s thought I collected a number of short YouTube clips to capture his importance and give you a feel for the man.

This video recollection by this Jeremy Duncan at Commons Church summarizes the importance of Walter Brueggemann’s work.

 

I thought that he captured Brueggemann’s thought here very nicely.  You can see how a conservative might look askance at some of that but I think Brueggemann is more mainstream than appears. 

Here is an outline of his great work, The Prophetic Imagination.

 

Yes, you can see how this is solidly on the left side of politics, but I have to admit his connections with the Old Testament prophets are solid.  Wait for my essay qualifying his thesis!

There are so many YouTube video clips of Brueggemann for people to sample.  He became quite an internet celebrity in his old age.  Here is Brueggemann himself explaining how one should read the calls for vengeance in the psalms.  Notice his distinctive raspy voice and pizazz as an orator.

 

Isn’t that right!  His exegesis is traditional.  Perhaps his social implementation of the Gospel might be more radical, but so was Mother Teresa’s.  After watching a number of his interviews and video clips, Brueggemann began to feel grandfatherly to me.  Here he is delivering a sermon on Exodus but tying it into today’s society. 

 

That was really good.  Finally to end with just a single quote from The Prophetic Imagination, I pick this.

 

“It is the vocation of the prophet to keep alive the ministry of imagination, to keep on conjuring and proposing future alternatives to the single one the king wants to urge as the only thinkable one.”

Eternal rest onto you Walter Brueggemann, and may eternal light from the face of God shine upon you.