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I am come to send fire on the earth… Luke 12:49

I cited this verse in my response to a question on Nerdchurch forum on Discord: If you build yourself as an rpg character, what is your class and alignment? My build is: LG cleric of Jesus–with the fire domain, because fireball! I stand by my answer, but I want to explain why for me it’s not only a fun idea but also resonates with some serious issues. 

In-game, casters aren’t always responsible with fireballs. We may overlook flammable objects (including party members) in the area of effect. Or, if your games are played with a controller instead of a fistful of dice, ask yourself if you’re always responsible with a grenade launcher. That’s what I thought.

Jesus, being Jesus, has access to the fire domain. But he is not careless about any aspect of his power. 

Back in Luke 9:51-56, James and John had asked Jesus about commanding fire from heaven to consume a Samaritan village. (Jesus vetoed this.) But the crowd in Luke chapter 12 wouldn’t know about that incident, and Jesus doesn’t bring it up. 

We can understand the “fire” that Jesus came to send on the earth as the intense presence and power of God, spreading from Jesus and confronting and transforming everything it touches. The fire of God hits hard. God’s grace can make it possible to catch his fire, without being consumed–like the burning bush Moses sees in Exodus 3. But to be accurate, in 22 out of 26 sayings about God’s fire in the gospels, the fire does damage. It destroys. Surviving contact with the fire of God, being transformed and reforged by it, is exceptional. It’s a miracle.

In this phase of Jesus’ ministry, his preaching about the kingdom always has an edge to it. Religious and civic authorities have decided that Jesus is more scary than useful. They have plans to deal with him. Opposition is building. The events leading up to Jesus’ trial and crucifixion are already in motion. And for Jesus’ followers, persecution is coming. 

Suppose ye that I am come to give peace on earth? I tell you, Nay; but rather division. Luke 12:51

Jesus’ enemies misunderstood him. They did, and they still do. Jesus did not come to condemn or destroy anyone. But he did come to send fire on the earth. People are not wrong to see Jesus as a threat to the powers they serve, or the followings they subscribe to. They are not wrong to see that identifying with Jesus and his cause will change every relationship they have.

Jesus is a divisive figure. He says so himself. Can you hear the irony in his question–what, did you think I came to bring peace on earth? As much as he would like to bring peace, realistically as he preaches to his disciples and the crowd that day, he feels the tension of being both accepted and rejected. Jesus brings out all kinds of reactions in people. 

I’m not as perceptive as Jesus, but when I wear my Nerdchurch shirt with the message, JESUS LOVES NERDS, I can pick up on the mixed reactions people have to Jesus, his infinite love for nerds, and to some extent the guy who’s wearing the shirt. I look forward to what it will be like when a party of us show up where our fellow nerds gather, in Nerdchurch gear, curious characters who are overtly nerd-positive and Jesus-positive. I imagine that feeling awesome! Yet, realistically, reactions will be mixed and we need to be prepared for that. 

I am come to send fire on the earth; and what will I, if it be already kindled? Luke 12:49

How does Jesus feel, personally, about bringing fire and division, by being who he is? That’s what he’s asking himself, out loud, surrounded by his disciples and a crowd so dense people are stepping on each other. I came, I let people hear me and see me and touch me and experience who I am. I lit the fire, and it’s already spreading. Now what? 

I appreciate Jesus for asking a very personal question openly, and also for not supplying an immediate answer. (Even though it means this verse doesn’t get preached much.) Jesus is not glib about sending fire on the earth. He knows that people will lose relationships, jobs, homes, their image of themselves, even their lives, for saying yes to him and the kingdom of God. 

I don’t think that is cheap to him, at all. Jesus knows that he is seriously disrupting our world. It needs disrupting. He personally understands the pain of being misunderstood, stigmatized, plotted against. He knows that if he keeps going, he will face betrayal, abandonment, and death. And he keeps going.

Now the question comes to you and me. What will I?  

[Master Hand] looked down at the pebble again. “A rock is a good thing, too, you know,” he said, speaking less gravely. “If the Isles of Earthsea were all made of diamond, we’d lead a hard life here. Enjoy illusions, lad, and let the rocks be rocks.” He smiled, but Ged left dissatisfied. (Ursula Le Guin, A Wizard of Earthsea)

But we have this treasure in earthen vessels, that the excellency of the power may be of God, and not of us. 2 Corinthians 4:7

Ged (better known as Sparrowhawk, because a wizard doesn’t throw around his true name) and the Corinthians don’t know about each other, but they have a lot in common: gifted yet immature, they lack perspective and balance. And they tend to misunderstand and mistrust their mentors. What’s wrong with transmuting rocks into jewels? If you can do amazing things, why not make it pay? What’s the point of doing magic or miracles, if not to get ahead?

For we commend not ourselves again unto you, but give you occasion to glory on our behalf, that ye may have somewhat to answer them which glory in appearance, and not in heart. 2 Corinthians 5:12

The church at Corinth frustrated Paul, as he must have frustrated them! He counterbalances their energy. They want to be capable and impressive; he shares personal struggles and infirmities, and situations he does not control. They want to appear smart and powerful; he acknowledges foolishness and weakness. They want to be vested with authority; Paul wears the mantle of apostle ironically, if not lightly. They want to be changed into diamonds; he lets rocks be rocks.

Most gladly therefore will I rather glory in my infirmities, that the power of Christ may rest upon me. 2 Corinthians 12:9

Paul isn’t just trolling the Corinthians. He has intentionally cultivated an appreciation–even a celebration–of his limitations, as a necessary complement to channeling the power of God.

I’m a basic-level student of church history. Others here will have gone deeper into it than I have, and could make a case in more detail. But the big picture is clear enough. When Christians (individually or collectively) max out our social, economic and political power, we trade away spiritual and moral power, and the understanding of how God’s true power operates through us. As the church becomes richer, miracles become rarer. As our doctrinal systems become more sophisticated, there are more parts of the Bible we don’t know what to do with. 
One of my hopes for nerdchurch is that we can be an exception, even an unwinding, of the tendency to trade humility and limitations for influence and impressiveness, to claim to know all the answers at the price of forgetting important questions.

When Jesus chose Simon, he didn’t call him Diamond Simon, as catchy as that would have been. He just called him Rock.
💎🪨

If the rich man would pay the poor man to die for him, the poor man could make a living.

Do you love paradoxes? Even a paradox that depends on wordplay can stick like a burr in a wool sock. And a good conceptual paradox hits like ma la numbing hot spice delivered right to the brain. Sublime. Maybe that feeling is good for us. If you love it, you know you do.

If we believe not, yet [God] abideth faithful: he cannot deny himself. 2 Timothy 2:13

Whether in philosophical or biblical theology, there are discussions around things that God (or a Godlike being) can’t do. This includes not just snarky examples like, “Make a rock so heavy he can’t lift it,” but significant statements about God’s character, and what we can expect from God.

Broadly speaking, God as described in the Bible is a maximally competent being, but there are explicit statements about things God cannot do. And one thing God cannot do is to deny himself. Before going further into what that means, let’s bring in another scripture:

And [Jesus] said to them all, If any man will come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross daily, and follow me. Luke 9:23

The same thing God cannot do, is what Jesus says anyone who will come after him must do. What God will never do is what you or I or any person must do, according to Jesus, if we want to go after him. We deny ourselves. We say no to, negate, contradict ourselves. We resign and walk away from ourselves. We disown ourselves. We disavow being identified with or even knowing ourselves. We falsify ourselves and do something totally out of character for ourselves. We get over ourselves.

Then, once that’s done, we can proceed to follow Jesus. It’s a first step, and arguably a step to take daily if we want to keep going on the same path that Jesus is on.

Alice laughed. “There’s no use trying,” she said. “One can’t believe impossible things.”
“I daresay you haven’t had much practice,’ said the Queen. “When I was your age, I always did it for half-an-hour a day. Why, sometimes I’ve believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast.”

What Jesus says in Luke 9:23 (compare Matthew 16:24 and Mark 8:34) opened up for me in a really exciting way only when I stopped hearing it as a morbid religious commandment to be miserable, and started hearing it as an invitation to a deliciously paradoxical way of living a different life. But watch that first step. It’s a doozy.

Most of the time spent wrestling with technologies that don’t quite work yet is just not worth it for end users, however much fun it is for nerds. [Douglas Adams (2005) via azquotes.com] 

When I tell people I’m with Nerdchurch, maybe a seventh of the time someone asks what a nerd is. 

How would you explain it? 

Douglas Adams left us with a trove of insights, including the observation quoted above. If you enjoy wrestling, tinkering, hacking, kludging, improvising, noodling, working-around, cajoling or jailbreaking a technology to do something that most people would never have the patience to try to make it do… you just might be a nerd. 

If this is you, you already know. You may not have patience for every task in life, but if a technology and a certain result interest you, you will leave convenience and any definition of reasonable effort by the wayside in order to make it do what you want, or strike out swinging.

In 9th grade, I spent hours writing BASICA code to get the IBM PCs at the school computer lab to play Christmas carols. This entailed calculating and entering frequency and duration values for every note, which was tedious in the extreme. I didn’t mind. Of course BASICA ‘music’ using the PC-XT’s audio capabilities was monophonic. But it was possible to code separately for melody and harmony parts to run on multiple computers–which involved recruiting other humans to launch in sync, approximately. “O Come, All Ye Faithful” filled the room on those tinny built-in speakers. It was so cool. I still can’t get the smile off my face remembering it. 

Yes, I may have been a nerd. Even though I never solved a Rubik’s cube without taking it apart. Mock who will. 

Then said he unto them, Therefore every scribe which is instructed unto the kingdom of heaven is like unto a man that is an householder, which bringeth forth out of his treasure things new and old. (Matthew 13:52)

I admit, you have to stretch the concept and maybe squint to see nerds in the New Testament. But I see nerds in this verse. Almost every mention of scribes in the four gospels depicts them as critics or opponents of Jesus and his disciples. But in this microparable from Jesus, he says that when a scribe is instructed unto the kingdom of heaven, something so cool happens. The kingdom-instructed scribe becomes like a householder bringing out treasures, new and old. New things that have not become mass-marketable. Old things that are widely seen as obsolete, but embody ingenuity and often a quality that the newer models lack. (Vinyl has been outselling CDs for a couple of years now.) If you’re a nerd, some of your greatest treasures might not make sense to the Muggles. You value them anyway. 

There’s more to Nerdchurch than nerds wanting to bless other nerds. That’s enough of a reason, but there’s more to it. There’s a special potential that Jesus sees in people whose brains work a little differently, whose interests become rabbit holes or wormholes into new and old discoveries that can be made to work with tenacity and engagement and love. To them, it’s worth it. It’s fun.

Welcome to Nerdchurch.

🤓⛪👯

I am a brother to dragons, and a companion to owls. (Job 30:29)

It can be spectacular fun to be a nerd. It can also be intensely lonely.

You can understand how nerds exploring the Bible get drawn to the book of Job. 

It’s dense, mysterious, like picking up a thread on bronze age reddit: Job posts his pain, his passion, his confusion, his tough questions. Then the thread lights up with smug replies from people who don’t let their ignorance hold them back from providing ‘answers.’ 🙄 As the book progresses, their comments grow more confident and elaborate, as Job gets more frustrated:

How hast thou helped him that is without power? How savest thou the arm that hath no strength? How hast thou counselled him that hath no wisdom? And how hast thou plentifully declared the thing as it is? To whom hast thou uttered words? And whose spirit came from thee? (Job 26:2-4) 

Job’s religious friends may mean well, but as far as Job is concerned, they aren’t helping. He’s looking to them for help, support, guidance, or insight. Sifting through their eloquent comments, he finds nothing to sustain him, or offer him hope. 

It’s like they don’t know or care who he is. They have become spiritual strangers. 

By choice or necessity, Job has a new team and they’re not Eliphaz, Bildad, Zophar and Elihu. For family Job has dragons, and for companionship he has owls. He recognizes in himself something in common with them. Creatures rarely or barely glimpsed. The creepy, kooky, mysterious and spooky–even the altogether ooky. He gets them, and maybe, they get him. 

It might be overreaching to imagine Job feeling any immediate comfort from the dragons and owls. He might be saying, ‘with friends like these…’ But the fact remains, Job is not alone. If he’s out of the Players’ Handbook, at least he’s in the Monster Manual.

The pain of tough questions, isolation, and even alienation can bring a new quality of companionship, when we find it. It’s why we need to make Nerdchurch happen.

Dragonkin and owlfolk, we see you. We celebrate you. 🐲🦉🥳

Welcome to Nerdchurch.

🤓⛪👯

The beast of the field shall honor me, the dragons and the owls: because I give waters in the wilderness, and rivers in the desert, to give drink to my people, my chosen. (Isaiah 43:20) 

Dragons and owls also appear together in the scroll of Isaiah the prophet, where the LORD provides waters in the wilderness for his people. Thousands of returning exiles would need a miracle to make their way home again. The dragons and the owls will bear witness as God cares for his people even in a desolate place.

Job went into dragon and owl territory as a solitary wanderer, and you may resonate with his intense loneliness. Or you might also be aware of others who have been exiled along with you. I know I’m not the only one who was pulled (or pushed) away from the holy places. There have to be thousands of us. Maybe millions. Meeting our needs and satisfying our thirst would be a huge project, even if we weren’t in a desert. 

By providing for what his exiled people need, God will prove to them, to the dragons and owls, and to whomever else is watching that exile is not rejection. It’s natural for exiles to feel like no one cares much about them. But the truth is, God does care. 

I will say to the north, Give up; and to the south, Keep not back: bring my sons from far, and my daughters from the ends of the earth; even every one that is called by my name: for I have created him for my glory, I have formed him; yea, I have made him. (Isaiah 43:6-7)

Not only their circumstances, but also their religious programming–if they remembered it–would suggest to the exiles that God most likely did not want them back. Yet Isaiah hears God calling each one home with urgency, calling them his kids. Every_one. Read the spacing for emphasis. “Everyone” can sound breezy and generic, but God really loves every one. Every one is a person God made for his glory. We can imagine a God who loves everyone! 🙂™ not necessarily bothered if some nonconformists get lost along the way. But the Holy One calls for every one and prepares a way for every one. 

Wherefore receive ye one another, as Christ also received us to the glory of God. (Romans 15:7)

Many communities with a Christian brand, for a long time, have done business as if the more people they exclude or leave behind, the more they reflect the glory of God. But what if God created, formed, and made every person for his glory? What if he calls and cares for every one? Then there are a lot of exiles in the wilderness who could use a drink of water, and a way home. The dragons and owls are watching. 🐲🦉👀

Receive one another, as Christ also received us to the glory of God. 

Welcome to Nerdchurch. 

🤓⛪👯