Proper 15 (20) – Year C
TENTH Sunday after Pentecost: August 17, 2025
Gospel Lectionary Text
Luke 12:49-56
12:49 "I came to bring fire to the earth, and how I wish it were already kindled!
12:50 I have a baptism with which to be baptized, and what stress I am under until it is completed!
12:51 Do you think that I have come to bring peace to the earth? No, I tell you, but rather division!
12:52 From now on five in one household will be divided, three against two and two against three;
12:53 they will be divided: father against son and son against father, mother against daughter and daughter against mother, mother-in-law against her daughter-in-law and daughter-in-law against mother-in-law."
12:54 He also said to the crowds, "When you see a cloud rising in the west, you immediately say, 'It is going to rain'; and so it happens.
12:55 And when you see the south wind blowing, you say, 'There will be scorching heat'; and it happens.
12:56 You hypocrites! You know how to interpret the appearance of earth and sky, but why do you not know how to interpret the present time?
Context
Welcome to the Tenth Sunday after Pentecost. Last week, Jesus said, “Do not be afraid.” This week, he talks about casting fire on the earth and bringing division. What happened? Did Jesus change his mind? Or are we being invited to change how we see?
If our image of God is violent, we might see this as a threat. But if we look with Easter eyes, something else comes into view. Jesus isn’t prescribing violence — just the reverse. He’s describing what happens when the light of truth breaks into the world — when love without scapegoating enters systems built on exclusion and blame. The result? Things fall apart. God’s love destabilizes these systems, shaking them to their core — from the temple courts all the way down to the family dinner table.
Fire, in this case, isn’t destructive. It’s clarifying. It burns away illusions. It reveals what has always been smoldering beneath the surface: false peace propped up by scapegoats, faux unity maintained through elimination. Jesus is naming what happens when grace confronts these dynamics.
This isn’t about choosing sides. It’s about choosing sight. “You know how to interpret the appearance of earth and sky,” Jesus says, “but why do you not know how to interpret the present time?” Can we see what’s really happening? The invitation is to face the discomfort that truth brings. Sometimes, love provokes conflict on the way to communion.
Question
This week's text reveals the shadow side of what happens when a true peacemaker shows up. All hell breaks loose. Not because that's what the peacemaker wants, but because that's what the possibility of true peace evokes. If so, what is the "fire" and the "division" that rises in us when confronted with true peace?
Reflections
Praying Eucharistically - Weekly Homily by James Alison:
Understanding the Bible anew through the Mimetic Theory of René Girard.
Poetry
This week, we invite you to read and reflect on the poem, “Knots,” by Joseph Stroud.
Today’s lectionary text is a famously “knotty” passage. What does Jesus mean, when he says he has come not to bring peace, but division? What does he mean when he prophesies the ways in which family will turn against family?
It’s passages like these that remind us how interpreting Scripture, a thing many of us were exposed to very young and so take for granted, is often a lifelong ordeal no matter how long we’ve been practicing. We feel like Stroud, still trying to tie his shoes after forty-five years. Maybe we too imagine a scowling Father over our shoulder: “Hypocrite! Why do you not know how to interpret the present time?”
We, too, are still working out how we are loved.
Knots
by Joseph Stroud
Trying to tie my shoes, clumsy, not able to work out
the logic of it, fumbling, as my father stands there,
his anger growing over a son who can’t even do
this simplest thing for the first time, can’t even manage
the knot to keep his shoes on-You think someone’s
going to tie your shoes for you the rest of your life?-
No, I answer, forty-five years later, tying my shoe,
hands trembling with this memory. My father
and all those years of childhood not being able to work out
how he loved me, a knot so tight it has taken all my life
to untie.
Prayer
This week, the call to prayer comes from the Street Psalms Centering Prayer:
Come, Holy Spirit, wild and free. Do as you please. Shine your light on me that I might see things as they are, not as I am. Free me to act in your name with courage, creativity, and compassion.
