If Jesus had lived in St. Louis these past two weeks, would he really have said: “I have come to set the earth on FIRE?”  or better yet, What is the price of fire?

It has been the hottest few days in St. Louis in the past 25-30 years.  We hit three record highs this past week.  Yet, now that the heat has ‘broken’ at least for a while, it is amazing how easily my body ‘forgets’ the experience of heat.  I can sort of remember what it was to walk outside and be instantly HOT, feel my lungs struggle against the hot, hot air, and yet, now it seems kind of like a dream in a way.  It is as if our bodies do not have a memory for physical pain.  Oh, sure, we remember emotional pain like a sword, but physical pain – is more like an ephemeral chimera – a ghost that kind of nags, but really doesn’t do much…

Into that experience, I heard the words of Jesus.  “I have come to set the earth on FIRE, and how I wish it were already blazing!”  These are not words he would have spoken into the 105 degree heat!  Or would he?  Because more than anyone else, Jesus knew the price of fire.  He knew the anguish he was facing, the baptism he was to receive – and yet he chose to pay the price of the fire he wished to set.

You see, fire always has a price.  Ask any kid who has burned themselves with matches – it leave a scar on the body.  Ask anyone who has had a fire in the house – the smoke damage, the byproduct of fire exacts a heavy toll.  Ask any forest where a careless cigarette ember or a poorly put out fire was fanned by the winds into a blaze – there is a price to fire. 

That is what Jesus was trying to warn his disciples about – the price of fire.  If they would be his followers – there would be a cost they would have to pay.  Anyone who is serious about following Jesus knows that.  We try to push it aside, cover it up with fancy words or the consoling passages of the gentle Jesus – but every time we come into a chapel and see a cross – we are reminded of the price of fire.  The price of fire always leads to sacrificial love.  The price of fire always is sacrificial love.

Yet, Jesus would have us know that there is a price to not being on fire as well.  Without fire, there is no passion.  Nothing to mark your being in the world but your birth certificate and your tombstone.  Without the fire of commitment, we are blown willy nilly at the whim of everyone else BUT OURSELVES.  Without fire, you spend your entire life living someone else’s dream.  That is the cost of not being on fire. 

For those of you who read the Harry Potter books, that was the choice that Harry had at the end, wasn’t it?  His was the freedom to walk into the fire or the freedom to just move on.  All through the seven books, he was faced over and over again with that choice – walking through the fire or avoiding it.  Though I won’t give away the ending – it is also OUR CHOICE as committed Christians.  When you truly believe, when you truly understand what Jesus was about, and it is kind of hard not to every time you see the cross, every time you come to this table and receive his body broken and his blood poured out for you, you know that YOU have a choice as well – to pay the price of fire in your life and decisions or to walk away, unchanged, unfazed by the love that calls you to join it…

“I have come to set the earth on FIRE and how I wish the blaze was ignited.”   You know a little bit of it already – if you had to explain to your roommate where you were going at 8:15 this evening…  You know it if you’ve ever made a choice to go on a service trip, or are contemplating a year of service – there’s a price for the fire that burns within.  And there is a price for it not burning.  And the eternal question, like the eternal flame is “What will you choose – the price of fire or the price of not being on fire?