When I introduced this series on “fire” a couple of weeks ago I did so in the context of being fired up for mission, and reaching out to the 15,000 people who live in the parish, most of whom don’t know Jesus. Firstly we thought about fanning our gifts into flame, and then we thought about the fire of God’s presence. This morning, though, we’re thinking about the fire of God’s judgement. To be honest, when I was first putting the sermon series together I almost didn’t include it, it didn’t seem very encouraging. But then I thought, no it’s there in the Bible, we have to grapple with it, we can’t just pick the bits that are comfortable.
So, let’s begin by looking at these few verses from the book of Leviticus. Last week Ellie spoke about Moses’ encounter with God at the burning bush. He’d been sent from there, into Egypt, to lead God’s people out of slavery. He had done this, and they are now out in the desert, camped at the bottom of Mount Sinai, and God is giving them commandments and laws which are going to shape them as a community of faith, a nation committed to God. These include instructions for worship, and how that is to be carried out. Worship that will be focussed on God, and which will set them apart from the pagan worship practices that they have left behind in Egypt, and the pagan worship that they will find in Canaan when they get there.
As part of all this, God calls Aaron and his sons to be priests, those who will lead the people in worship. They will be the chief worshippers, who will model these ways of worship for the people. In Leviticus chapter 8, Aaron and his sons are set aside, ordained, for this ministry. Then in chapter 9, they lead worship for the first time, worship that concludes with a blessing and then we read,
“Fire came out from the presence of the Lord and consumed the burnt offering. … When the people saw it, they shouted for joy and fell face down.”
It’s a real high point – the community worshipping together and experiencing the presence and power of God.
And then. And then we get to the reading that we heard this morning. Aaron’s two eldest sons do something that angers God. To our ears this sounds really strange.
Does it really matter that they used “unauthorised” fire to burn the incense? What does “unauthorised” mean anyway?
Actually, that question is core to understanding what is going on here. The translation “unauthorised” is a bit wishy washy. It’s not just that God hadn’t authorised it, but that it was against God’s command, it was contrary to what God had said. It is likely that they were introducing a practice from the old pagan worship that they had experienced in Egypt.
So, this was more than lighting the censor with the wrong kind of match. They were deliberately undermining the purposes of God, which were to do away with the old pagan worship, by bringing elements of those old ways into the new worshipping life of the community. They were misusing the leadership position that God had called them to, and were leading the people away from God’s way.
It was because of this serious sin that God’s fire came out from the presence of God for the second time in two verses, but this time it consumed those who had sinned.
As we read through the Old Testament we find many examples of fire being used to represent the judgment of God. But it’s not only in the Old Testament that we find this. The God of the Old Testament and the God of the New Testament are the same God, and God’s character does not change. We find the same images of fire representing the judgment of God in the New Testament. An early example of this is what we read in John the Baptiser’s teaching about the coming of Jesus.
He says that Jesus is coming with a winnowing fork and fire to burn up the chaff.
At harvest time the wheat would be brought into the farm yard and would be threshed to separate out the grain, which was wanted and stored, from the chaff that wasn’t. The winnowing fork would be used to gather up the chaff so that it could be burnt as it isn’t any use. It is a clear picture of judgement.
As we read on through the accounts of Jesus’ life this theme recurs in Jesus’ teaching. In fact, in all but one of the times that Jesus talks about fire in the gospels he is talking about judgement, about fire that consumes and destroys things that aren’t fruitful, that aren’t of God.
This week in Morning Prayer we have been reading our way through the beginning of the book of the prophet Amos. His ministry falls between the two times we’ve been considering today. Between Moses and Jesus. During the time of the kingdoms of Israel and Judah, whilst the people of God were settled in the Promised Land, and before they were defeated and taken into exile in Babylon.
The first chapter and a half are declarations of God’s judgement with fire on the surrounding nations who have been the enemies of God’s people. They have harried and invaded, persecuted and threatened God’s people. They are the long term, traditional enemies, who have committed atrocities against God’s people.
In these judgements there is comfort. There is a reassurance that God sees everything, and that there will be justice in situations where there seems to be no justice. That those who seem to be beyond being held to account on earth, will be held to account from the judgement seat of heaven. This is the judgement we welcome, the justice we want to see, the judgement that puts right the things we believe to be evil.
I can just imagine the people who first heard Amos sharing this message nodding along, nudging each other, and cheering as Amos proclaimed that their enemies would get their comeuppance.
But then Amos’ focus changes. He continues using the same phrases, the same language of the fire of judgement, but now he’s using them about Israel and Judah. He’s calling them out for their rejection of God, their pagan worship (sound familiar?), and their oppression of the poor and vulnerable.
I strongly suspect that at this point the nodding heads would have stopped, and the shaking heads would have started. He’s stopped talking about them and he’s started talking about us. We’re not nearly so comfortable with the challenge of the idea that God might judge “us” as we are with the comfort of the idea that God judges “them”.
Then, on Thursday morning in Morning Prayer we read from 1 Corinthians 3, in the New Testament again, where Paul writes about the fire of God’s judgement testing our work,
“If the work is burned up, the builder will suffer loss; the builder will be saved, but only as through fire.”
If I’d had any lingering doubts about including the fire of God’s judgement in our series on the fire of God, they were well and truly laid to rest by the frequency with which the theme appeared in our Morning Prayer readings leading up to this Sunday. But, what has this all got to do with mission, and the motivation for mission?
Firstly, our work will face God’s judgement. Our fruitfulness faces God’s judgement. This reality is not one of condemnation, but reflecting on it might be part of the Holy Spirit’s work of convicting us, of motivating us to change, to do things differently. To pray for others, to share our faith with others, to live as faithful witnesses and ambassadors of Jesus.
Secondly, there are real consequences for those who do not acknowledge Jesus as Lord. I don’t believe that people roast forever in hell, but I do believe that there are eternal consequences for those who reject Jesus. Jesus taught about the fire of Gehennna, which is not extinguished. My understanding of this is that the fire continues to burn, but that doesn’t mean that people burn in it forever.
As fuel is consumed in a fire, so those who die apart from Jesus are consumed by the fire of judgement. It’s still a dramatic and startling picture. How are we to understand it?
Those who have chosen to follow Jesus, the source of life and love, will be welcomed into that life and love for all eternity. Those who have chosen to reject Jesus, the source of life and love, will have that choice honoured, and will be separated from life – they will die, and that death will be permanent.
But, thirdly, there is good news. Jesus’ cross stands as a fire door between those who accept him and God’s judgement. We can be forgiven. In the past evangelists might have led with the bad news of judgement and then delivered the good news. We don’t do that as much any more. But we shouldn’t forget the truth of it. For those who are feeling ashamed, guilty, like they can’t escape their past, we don’t do any favours by denying the reality of the sin, but we have better news – that sin can be forgiven because Jesus died and rose again. For those who allow him to, Jesus will burn away our sin, so that there is not even a trace of it left, and surely that is the best news ever.
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