NOTES for Luk 12:51-52

"I came to cast fire on the earth, and how I wish it were already kindled!" These words from today's Gospel reading can be very hard to understand and accept for people accustomed to finding in their religiosity only comfort in life's sorrows, peace, and rest. But the world of church hymns pleasant to the heart, the world of vigil lamps, candles, and icons, is not the whole of faith. Faith is continuous struggle, an unending battle against sin.

We often get used to the fact that sin is present in our lives and stop noticing it. But there is also a special state, when the heart burns. Then every sin, even the smallest, touches the soul like a burned wound. It is the state when grace descends and you stand like Moses at the burning bush, and the Spirit of God scorches your face. It is the state when there is so much warmth in you that you simply cannot help sharing it. It is the state when not a single minute can be empty, because then the fire begins to consume you yourself. Do you remember the wonderful meeting on the road to Emmaus? "And they said to one another, Did not our heart burn within us while He spoke to us on the road and while He explained the Scriptures to us?" (Luke 24:32). This is the kind of fire the Lord is speaking to us about.

For us, as for the disciples of Jesus who heard the terrible words of today's reading, it is hard to accept such a prospect. They were waiting for a Messiah who would come as a liberator and bring triumph to Israel. The Romans would fall, Israel would be free, and the world at last would be wonderful and good. But Jesus, by His perfection, by the fact that He is the Truth, became a stumbling stone for everyone and for each person. His very presence becomes a cause of division. No one remains on the sidelines; everyone has to decide Who has come.

But even if one accepts Jesus as the Messiah, the division does not end there. Children and parents, brothers and sisters - all of us stand on different sides of Him; all of us see different things and try to consider what we ourselves have seen as the most important thing. Some see wrath, some mercy, some love, some light. Each considers it necessary to secure the primacy of his own view of God. This is how our damaged humanity shows itself when it comes into contact with His perfection. The apostles faced this, and it continues to this day. On the other hand, we have already been warned of the danger. And the one who is warned is armed: he can keep himself from becoming a conduit of division.

The coming of the Kingdom of God is a mystery perhaps no less profound than the mystery of the Kingdom itself. The Lord therefore calls His disciples to keep watch and not to miss or sleep through the coming of the Kingdom into their lives. This is probably about more than constant readiness for death or for Christ’s second coming. Christ also enters human life when a person least suspects it: at any moment, we may find ourselves facing a choice vital to our life or a decisive encounter. Woe to the person who fails to notice Christ at the moment when that person is called to take part in bringing about God’s Kingdom. It is not that God will take offense and punish that person, but that, by passing by this Kingdom, the person will pass by the most important event and the most important encounter of their life. Therefore, as the final Encounter approaches, the Lord calls people not to miss His presence already here, on the way toward the triumph of God’s Kingdom.

Today's reading touches on another theme, one very important for understanding what life in the Kingdom is. But the meaning of what Jesus says becomes clear only in the context of the situation of that transitional era which began with the coming of the Savior and in which we live. It could be called the era of the advancing Kingdom, and it will be completed by Jesus' return. But since we do not know the exact timing of this return, readiness is required always, every day and every hour.

In fact, this is the meaning of the parables Jesus tells (vv. 36-48). When the Gospel speaks about the nearness of the Kingdom, what is meant is not the date of Christ's second coming, but the fact that the Kingdom has already entered the world, that its presence for us today is no longer future but present; and if we notice nothing of the sort, it is only because we do not want to notice. Of course, sometimes for those to whom God entrusts ministries connected with the Kingdom, the apparent remoteness of the time when the process will be completed has a relaxing effect, like the effect produced on the unrestrained servant in the parable by the thought that the master was far away (v. 45).

It is not surprising that those who knew everything and, despite everything, allowed themselves to relax are called to a more serious account than those who knew less (vv. 47-48). What is interesting is something else. In the world there are those who know more and those who know less, but, as one can see, there are none who know nothing. It is no accident that Jesus compares the signs of the advancing Kingdom to the signs by which people in those days recognized a coming change in the weather: they were just as obvious and just as understandable to everyone, so that it was simply impossible not to notice them at all and understand nothing (vv. 54-57).

That is why the coming of the Kingdom divides people, and the division, as one can see, does not run along any national, class, or religious border, but across all borders, separating those who accept the Kingdom from those who reject it, people sometimes living not only in one country and one city, but even in one house (vv. 51-53). And this happens not because God needs divisions, but because the Kingdom is an absolute reality; it is impossible to enter it partly or halfway, and even entering it "almost completely" will not work: one enters the Kingdom either to the end and without looking back, or one does not enter at all. That is why in the Church, according to the word of the Apostle Paul, there can be "neither Greek nor Jew": if the Church remains the Kingdom and does not turn into a religious organization, one among many, then only one division remains relevant for it: between those who accept the Kingdom and those who reject it. All other divisions are conditional and relative; this one is absolute, as absolute as the division between eternal life and eternal death can be.