Short Prayers? What about God, the consuming fire? What about the divine spark?
Our God is a consuming fire. Hebrews 12:29
Since 2017 northern California has been burned annually by giant forest and grass fires, some lasting four or five months. In some cases entire neighborhoods and even cities have been engulfed. The forest fire I report here was a very small one. It took place in Yosemite in 1988, if I recall correctly.
A Forest Fire in the High Sierras
We had planned on just stopping at Stanford Lake for a quarter hour to drop our backpacks and grab a swig from our canteens. Fourteen hikers in the wilderness of the high Sierras can get tired and thirsty.
David was the first to see the smoke and called our attention to it. Perhaps a half acre of the forest was succumbing to the spreading campfire left by the previous night’s campers. At first there was scurrying about to assess the situation. After initial confusion, the latrine trowels and cooking pots were brought. A human chain began sending water in the pots ranging from two gallons to two quarts from the lakeside, a distance of seventy-five yards, to the fire site.
In the middle of the smoldering and sometimes flaming mulch jumped Audrey, age nineteen, to pour water. She was followed by Amy and Biz, both fourteen. The smoke was thick so all donned bandannas to protect their breathing. Soon Doug and Judy and some of the other grownups, looking like masked outlaws, were ready to work in the smoke and soot as well.
Audrey barked orders, helpful orders. She told one to dowse here, another to shovel there. When she appeared bossy, she apologized and gave reasons for her instructions.
The hikers forming the chain links in the water brigade ran their segments for the first hour. Then tiring, they walked hurriedly for the next hour and a half. No one rested until the ashes were dowsed, the tree trunks wetted, and a moat was dug around the perimeter. The fire was out. We rested. We ate lunch and departed Stanford Lake three and a half hours behind schedule.
A Camp Fire in the High Sierras
That evening at another fire, the controlled fire in our camp that provides the focus for group devotions, we talked about the day. The surprising sense of teamwork in an emergency was acknowledged. Also recognized was that despite her youth, Audrey had showed marvelous leadership. “Well,“ said Audrey, “one thing about a backpack: it’s a chance for each of us to develop our inner strengths. I found strengths today I didn’t know I had.”
Does each of us have a divine spark?
The ancient Gnostics and today’s New Agers say that in each of us there is a spark of God’s spirit. They went on to say we should fan that spark into a divine flame. Now, whether that spark within us is divine, I doubt. Nevertheless, the Gnostics have given us a helpful image. God has placed within each one of us an ember of potential strength. There is much more to each of us than our surface behavior reveals. There is more than even we ourselves are aware. Occasionally that ember suddenly begins to glow brightly, and strength that seems to come from beyond arises within us. This isn’t God. It’s us. But it certainly is a gift of God.
There’s a God-given power at rest within our soul. Can we make it kinetic? Yes, says Pope Francis. “Build on high ideals, on the big things. We Christians are not chosen by the Lord for small little things, always go above and beyond, to the big things.” To this, Anchoress Catherine Scalia adds: “you will set the world on fire.”
SHORT PRAYER
God of fire and God of strength, give us confidence in knowing that you have placed strength within us; and enable us to draw upon that strength when it is called for. Amen.
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Ted Peters is a Lutheran pastor and emeritus seminary professor. He is author of Short Prayers and The Cosmic Self. His one volume systematic theology is now in its 3rd edition, God—The World’s Future (Fortress 2015). He has undertaken a thorough examination of the sin-and-grace dialectic in two works, Sin: Radical Evil in Soul and Society (Eerdmans 1994) and Sin Boldly! (Fortress 2015). Watch for his forthcoming, The Voice of Public Christian Theology (ATF 2022). See his website: TedsTimelyTake.com.
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