We love to imagine God the cosmic gardener. Nurturing and tending. Encouraging life and growth. Endless creative energy, spent in positive pursuits.

This is the God we want, and Isaiah encourages that image. But in this case, the ‘garden’ is not cooperating. God has kept covenant – God’s end of the bargain has been honoured, and yet…

What more was there to do for my vineyard
that I have not done in it?
When I expected it to yield grapes,
why did it yield wild grapes?

“Judge between me and my vineyard” says the prophet on God’s behalf.

Whose fault is it? Who is to blame?

This of course is prelude to punishment – a signal to expect misery. The vineyard has brought on its own destruction, and there seems no mercy in it.

That’s okay -you say. We know what the Old Testament can be like. Let’s hear from Jesus. Jesus makes everything better…right?

Until today.

Division. Fire. Us against them. Not exactly the words of comfort we long for.

You are right to be curious. What’s going on here?

You should be familiar with my ‘prophet speech’ by now. Actions. Consequences. One comes from the other. And God – whose representatives have long been given the work of calling attention to the distance between our beliefs and our behaviours – is presented as the force behind any corrective events.

But Jesus? Jesus the peacemaker? Jesus the source of life and love? Why is Jesus talking like this? Surely, he should be opening his arms and offering forgiveness and bringing unity and light and all that other stuff…

This is one of those parts of the Gospels that people would turn into prediction.

“Look how believers are persecuted!” they shout. “Bring the fire, Jesus – bring the judgement. Make the world clean and ‘new again.”

Yes – look. Look deeply into those places where persecution and division are happening, and let me know how often a twisted, misrepresentation of a faith tradition is really at the centre of it. I’ll wait.

The idea that our current affairs are a reflection of these seven verses of ancient remembering is simplistic and misleading – just like the notion of prophets as predictors, we can’t just put Jesus in the middle of our modern problems and say, “He was right!”

But we can wrestle with this idea that Jesus sets before us. The idea that to follow him is to follow a difficult path – a counter-cultural path. The division Jesus talks about rears its head whenever we dare to ask questions…questions like “why are so many people suffering?” or “Why – in a prosperous nation – is poverty such a problem?”

Division – even in and among people of faith – is instantly apparent.

Jesus does not deny the challenges that accompany all life. Instead, he reminds us  that a life of faith does not eliminate those challenges.

The division will be sharper (even within families) between those who hold ‘ordinary ideas about social welfare or the role of government in business’ and those who imagine that we inhabit a world where there is enough – and to spare – to satisfy the needs of every creature.

Division among those who want an equal sharing of resources versus those who are convinced that capitalism should reward some at the expense of the rest? Of course!

Division between those who accept that a just and caring society needs laws (and their enforcement) as opposed to people who constantly demand ‘freedom’ to do whatever they damn well please? Naturally.

The vision that Jesus models – for a society modelled on God’s lovingkindness and compassionate justice – is ALWAYS going to generate conflict and division. Capitalism works reasonably well – but it comes with costs that once may have been hidden, and now are bursting into view. Costs for the climate – for the economy – and for a society built around a competitive, win-lose model of business. Competition for profit, for market, for resources and for a finite consumer budget drives predatory practices and leaves deep (and often permanent) scars.

Jesus talks tough because, like the prophets of ancient Judah and Israel, he understands the consequences of our continued misbehaviour. He even accuses us of being ignorant of the signs of those consequences.

Some are still skeptical of climate change – in spite of record drought (even here) and furious fires raging in at least eight provinces (and countless other places around the world.)

The economy is booming (according to some) but the benefits seem to touch only the fortunate few. Sales in mega-yachts are at an all-time high, and so is food bank use.

Politicians would enlist people of faith to their cause by using apocalyptic language about crime and liberty. And as people of faith, we are pulled in two directions. The language sounds appealing – we’ve been reading our Bibles, after all. But the division comes when the solution is proposed. The ‘solution’ for the economy is to limit the job stealers by turning away (or, as in the United States, arresting without cause) those who don’t belong here. Drugs and crime all rate our attention, but again the potential solutions cause division. Compassionate care is one option. Firm and fierce application of ‘the law’ is another. The homeless can be chased away or welcomed in – each method has its challenges, but to be sure, the situation causes division.

Those who give lip service to their faith will say that the best answer is to incentivize good behaviour (and punish any deviation from the letter of the law.) They will even claim that their ideas are the right side of Jesus’ promised division! Hard-line enforcement and societal uniformity sound like an answer to prayer, or the fulfilment of prophecy.

Those who would follow Jesus will, like Jesus, long for the cleansing fire of grace to purify the global manipulation of mercy and justice. Christ’s compassion inspires solutions and that don’t sit well with ‘pulled-up-by-the-bootstraps’ capitalists. The rules Jesus asks us to play by are not winner take all. Those rules are not even ‘everyone can be a winner.’ The kingdom Jesus offers – the fire He wishes were blazing – is a kingdom of compassion and equity; a fire of truth and justice. A pattern of behaviour that, rather than rewarding competition, nurtures community.

And that is a fire that we should welcome in our midst.