Jesus: A cause for division

It is the 20th Sunday in Ordinary Time and today’s gospel reading is a bit confusing for Catholics who have been taught about loving one another and Christian unity. You can read today’s gospel in Luke 12:49-53. It is a short Bible teaching, but it is necessary to know what our Lord wants to teach us all.

49 “I have come to bring fire on the earth, and how I wish it were already kindled! 50 But I have a baptism to undergo, and what constraint I am under until it is completed! 51 Do you think I came to bring peace on earth? No, I tell you, but division. 52 From now on there will be five in one family divided against each other, three against two and two against three. 53 They will be divided, father against son and son against father, mother against daughter and daughter against mother, mother-in-law against daughter-in-law and daughter-in-law against mother-in-law.”

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Bible scholars taught that the words of Jesus “Peace be with you” has been repeated in the Bible 365 times, in short, once for every day of the year. Yet suddenly, in today’s gospel, Jesus is presented by Luke, somewhat of a troublemaker, that he has not come for peace, but division. When he said “I have come to bring fire on the earth, and how I wish it were already kindled!” What did Jesus really mean? Fire, as we know, was used in destroying Sodom and Gomorrah, so will the Lord destroy us if we don’t listen to him?

Perhaps our Lord is teaching us about a divine fire, that God himself is fire! As we read in passages in the Old Testament, “And he shall pass over to his strong hold for fear, and his princes shall be afraid of the ensign, saith the Lord, whose fire is in Zion, and his furnace in Jerusalem. (Isaiah 31:9) The sinners in Zion are afraid; fearfulness hath surprised the hypocrites. Who among us shall dwell with the devouring fire? Who among us shall dwell with everlasting burnings? (Isaiah 33:14) For our God is a consuming fire. (Hebrews 12:29)”. What our Lord is saying is that he is God and as God, he wished his fire was already blazing within his disciples and people.

As we read deeply into this teaching, it brings me back to the history of Christianity itself…that indeed it has caused division among peoples. Remember that Judaism already existed long before our Lord Jesus was born, hence his coming into the Israel was something although prophesied, but feared when it becomes true. For instance, Herod Antipas wanted to know that a child born in Bethlehem would soon become the prophesied King of the Jews and ended up slaughtering the innocents because that baby was a threat to his rule.

Judaism already had its Sanhedrin ruled by Pharisees, priests, and scribes, yet when John the Baptist taught in the wilderness he attracted so many Jews who asked to be baptized. This alone teaches us that Judaism was threatened by John the Baptist and he was beheaded. And when Jesus knew this, he began his Galilean ministry and taught people about repentance and loving one another. These were teachings not against Judaism, but however it was being taught by our Lord who wasn’t a member of the Sanhedrin. That’s why when the Pharisees saw he was a threat to Judaism, they had him brought before Pilate and crucified on the cross.

But our Lord said to Peter, “Upon this Rock, I shall build my Church” and even after his death on the cross and ascension into heaven Christianity has grown in huge numbers despite being persecuted. In 313 A.D., Emperor Constantine issued the Edict of Milan making Christianity the official religion of the Roman Empire. But then in 1054, Christianity split into the Roman Catholic Church and the Greek Orthodox Church.

Then in the 15th Century the Roman Catholic Church broke up when Martin Luther issued the Edict of Worms and became the Protestant church. Thus today, there are 33,000 such Christian churches while there is only one Catholic Church founded by our Lord Jesus Christ. Indeed, today’s gospel teaches us that our Lord Jesus Christ was the cause of division. But the reality is that religion can cause a division thanks to humanity’s weakness, arrogance, greed, and lack of love for one another.