At the end of today’s Gospel Jesus says, “You must be salted with fire.” What might that mean? Jesus is speaking to his disciples, his closest friends. He has just come back to Capernaum, which he called home during his years of ministry. While on his latest trip, he had been transfigured on the mountain, speaking with Moses and Elijah, hearing the voice of the Father say “I am well pleased with you.” He also had come to clearly understand that the Kingdom he was establishing would be gained by his own suffering and death.
On the way home he had tried to explain this to his disciples, but they did not understand. In fact, they had been arguing about who would be the greatest in the Kingdom. Jesus must have been both disappointed and worried at their response: disappointed because his disciples were not one with him in preparing for what would come; worried because their lack of understanding made them susceptible to temptation.
Tuesday’s Gospel told of how Jesus began this serious conversation with his disciples. He put a child in the middle of them and explained that being simple and childlike was a good thing. Today he continues to teach them.
Jesus knows they will need to understand about honor and glory in light of the crosses that will come for all of them. He wants them to think and act differently. He reassures them that they are important to the Kingdom. Indeed, anyone who even gives them a cup of water because they are his disciples will have a reward. Then he uses the same words we heard a couple of Sundays ago as part of the Sermon on the Mount to talk to them about who they are and how they must act.
Jesus refers back to the child and says, “Whoever causes one of these little ones who believe in me to sin, it would be better for him if a great millstone were put around his neck and he were thrown into the sea.”
The Greek word in Scripture that is translated for us in this passage as “to sin” is a word that means “to stumble.” The word for “little ones” means “one who is weak.” So the passage might read, “Whoever causes someone who is weak to stumble, it would be better for him if a great millstone were put around his neck and he were thrown into the sea.”
Think about the intensity of what you mean when you use language like that with your children (or your parents used it with you). Those are strong words. Jesus means business: don’t let your behavior cause someone else to fall!
Jesus gets tougher. He uses Sermon on the Mount language: “If your hand causes you to sin (stumble), cut it off….If your foot causes you to sin (stumble), cut it off….If your eye causes you to sin (stumble), pluck it out.” Again, think about how strong would be your meaning if you said something like that to your children.
I wonder if Jesus was already trying to prevent Peter’s denial and Judas’s betrayal. “Stop it!” he is saying. “Stop thinking in terms of ego, self, and pride. Cut it out! It will cause you to stumble.” Such attitudes don’t fit in the coming Kingdom which is gained by the innocent death of its leader.
In the first reading Sirach, sage of Jerusalem about 200 years before Jesus’ time, gives a similar warning about the presumption of pride: “Rely not on your wealth…rely not on your strength…of forgiveness be not overconfident…delay not your conversion to the Lord.” While you are taking care of yourself, time might run out. “For the Most High bides his time…for mercy and anger alike are with him…rely not on deceitful wealth, for it will be no help on the day of wrath.”
It is easy for us disciples (those who seek to follow Jesus today) to believe that since we are following Jesus, we are safe, not one of those people Sirach was describing. But we bring who we are to Jesus as we follow him. We bring our plans, our desires to be noticed and heard, our wounds and our needs. We get distracted from Jesus and Kingdom building by these prideful things we carry with us.
Perhaps, when they had argued, the disciples just thought they were having a strategic planning meeting! Their ideas of what the Kingdom would be blinded them to the truth Jesus was telling them and their need for discipline.
As I prayed with this, I thought of when I broke my ankle some years ago. As I carried out the trash one Wednesday morning, I stumbled on the threshold of my front door. My foot twisted under me, and I broke my ankle. I didn’t expect to fall that morning. I had passed over that threshold hundreds of times without a problem. I presumed it was safe. But that morning I was not paying attention to what I was doing at that moment, and so I stumbled on it and fell.
Things that seem safe can trip all of us. We can trip each other. We can stumble over our own feet. Then, because we are Jesus’ friends, he “salts us with fire.”
Commentaries give multiple meanings to that phrase. The meaning I take, as I imagine myself as one of the disciples sitting there, getting some serious correction from Jesus, is this: My discipleship requires that I live by those standards that Jesus set on the Sermon on the Mount. Whether it is pride, greed, fear, selfishness, anger, jealousy, or any other internal stumbling block that prevents me from seeing and living the Wisdom of the Mystery of Beatitude and Cross, I need to let Jesus’ correction lead me to cast it out.
When Jesus corrects me as I imagine he was correcting the disciples in today’s Gospel, it is Truth that is like a salt that burns. It feels like fire in my heart and soul. But that fire of correction is good. It helps me keep the savor of God in me. It functions like salt to also flavor and preserve my Christian life.
When I stumbled and fell out my front door sixteen years ago, it was the first time I had ever broken a bone. That broken bone hurt! It complicated and limited my life for some weeks. But then it healed.
I still am very careful going over that threshold when I cannot see my feet. I learned from my fall. Science tells me my bone healed stronger than before.
When Jesus corrects us with the salt of fire, it helps us see and be willing to cast out what needs to be cast out. Then the salt of fire, because it is tied to God’s truth and his love, helps us learn from our falls. We heal stronger than before.
Next week Lent begins. This week I am thinking about what I will do for Lent. I am inclined to get creative with projects and penances. Usually, about 3-4 weeks into Lent, I see what God wanted me to see…and cast out. He salts me with fire. Then the real work of Lent begins. My efforts are just my way to enter into that process–my willingness to let God salt me with fire.
This meditation today prompts me to think that maybe this week I should just go ahead and ask God, “Salt me now with fire. Show me what you want to cast out. Then help me do it.”
Prayer:
Salt me now with fire, Lord. Show me what you want to cast out. Then help me do it. Amen.
