Standing in a grove of Douglas fir trees in Southern Oregon, an elder told me how pine cones open up during a wildfire, releasing the seeds of promise in the strangest of times. Without fire, it won’t happen. The heat that’s generated from a passing fire is the only thing that will do. Once the fire burns through those resins that hold them together, the cones open and the seeds fall out. The forest renews and the marks of the fire are a reminder to trust it. A diamond of a paradox.
To his friends’ ears, the young rabbi pulls the emotional fire alarm, saying that he will have to die in order to bring about new life.* Like a lit stick of dynamite, a human inferno, he tells of the sacrifice that will soon be his. And if they follow him, theirs. They stared at him, a burning bush of bewilderment. So hot that his closest friend tried to calm him down, to set him straight. That friend is put in his place, reminded that the same fate will befall him if he follows this wildfire of God.
Jesus didn’t ask them to believe in him. He asked them to believe him…and to demonstrate that belief in practice, in how they lived their lives. And that is where the burning begins. A refining fire that will open the seeds of any soul.
Christianity should be the tiniest religion. To ask of you your life, is neither attractive nor appealing. If it would’ve stayed a movement, rather than becoming a religion that would marry empire, I believe it might have carried this weight. The movement was subversive, dangerous, and free. And still it burns with that alchemical fire. If you follow, and surrender your life, you will open up, spilling your seeds of new growth into a world so hungry for it.
