Hope is a fire
Matthew 3: 1-12
New Ark United Church of Christ, Newark, DE
November 30, 2025
Before the perfect storm that was the Halloween gale of 1991, the blizzard of ‘78 was the worst nor’easter to hit Massachusetts in over a century. It wasn’t just a nor’easter, it was hurricane-force winds with high tide occurring during a super moon, flooding along the coast, and over two feet of snowfall in just under two days. Thousands of vehicles were abandoned on I-95 alone. Some people had to evacuate from their homes and fled to emergency shelters, as well as makeshift ones like churches and movie theaters. It was a harrowing time for first responders, National Guard personnel, and snowplow drivers.
But for a middle-class 12-year-old on the South Shore it was the adventure of a lifetime. School was cancelled for the next two weeks. Every day we went sledding in our six-house bowl-shaped cul-de-sac that used to be a sandpit. Our parents were home with us, so they helped us build a sled trail that had a banking turn that looked like it came right out of a luge track at the Olympics. Snow drifts were so high we carved igloos and tunnels in the snow.
It wasn’t all fun though. We had no electricity, which meant no hot water and no heat. The snow became our refrigerator and freezer. My stepfather had tropical fish, so we kept a fire going and put the fishtank on the hearth to keep it warm. We cooked hotdogs on roasting sticks and slept in the living room.
One house out of the six had gas heat and a gas stove and oven, and it was our saving grace. Not just because of the physical warmth we needed but the spiritual, social warmth we craved too. Winter can be isolating even in good times, but a blizzard can add a bigger heaviness to the gloom. Every evening all the neighbors and their kids and pets would gather for dinner, bringing what they had and cooking it together. We played games by the light of candles and lanterns. We spent more time together during that blizzard than we had before or after the power was restored. We got through it because we got through it together, as community.
A fire needs four things in order for it to burn strong: heat, oxygen, fuel, and a spark to get it going. In the monastic community of the Order of the Holy Cross, the rule that governs them states that “Love must act, just as light must shine and fire must burn.” In order to have community, there must be warmth, heat, the fire of shared purpose, and community is what gives us hope.
When John the Baptist was offering baptism in the wilderness of Judea, he was creating hope-filled community. A community built from the bottom up. A community that had no use for pretenders and those trying to save only their own skins. A community that would burn brightly with hope for those who suffered injustice. A community that would turn away from deceit, exploitation, and self-interest and turn toward God’s kindom of justice, peace, and wholeness.
When we say, “baptism by fire”, we often mean having to face something stressful or challenging without much if any preparation or being initiated into a new role or position as if we are being thrown into the deep end. The fire that Jesus baptizes with is a winnowing fire, like a controlled burn on a farm or in a forest, that clears away the deadwood and dross and makes room for new growth. A fire that makes us honest with ourselves and with God. A fire that liberates us from what holds us down. A fire that once kindled sets us on a path from which there is no turning back.
This fire of community is not always cozy; like John the Baptist sometimes it’s coarse and demanding. This hope that John brings to the people is one stripped away of magical thinking and pipe dreams. It’s about a material difference in people’s lives: justice for those whose lives have been exploited, whose means of supporting themselves has been stolen, for those who have been criminalized and marginalized by the powerful.
But justice for the poor means justice for the rich too. And that’s where John’s fiery speech can make us hot under the collar. Earlier this week I marched with Wilmington neighbors and colleagues for the Poor Peoples’ Campaign Moral Monday. We processed to the Louis Redding City County building with pallbearers carrying an empty coffin for the policy violence done daily to those experiencing homelessness. I was asked to give a prayer of lament but I knew I could only speak from my privilege, from the truth that comes with John’s fire.
God in community, Holy in One,
We hunger for justice, we thirst for wholeness, but we cling to comfort, safety, and power.
How long will we privileged people long for change and yet hold on desperately to what we have?
How long will we exploit those we depend on for healthcare, education, skilled labor, the food on our tables?
How long will we punish people for being poor in the system we created?
How long will we continue to take more than we give back, rich in things but poor in soul?
How long will we make our better angels drink gall, will we poison our minds, harden our hearts, all so we can think ourselves entitled, better than, more deserving than others?
How long will we center and worship Whiteness at the expense of everyone else and the earth and its creatures?
How long will we lack shame for the violence we have done, the injustice we have perpetuated?
If not now, when, O God? If not us, then who?
Knock us down from our thrones and lift up the lowly.
Send us away empty and fill the poor with good things.
Bind us together with the vulnerable, joining our fate to theirs.
Let your justice roll down like an ever-flowing stream, scattering our pride, softening our rocky hearts, creating canyons of courage, shaping our minds and wills to be your kindom people.
Wake us and goad us until your love lives in us and acts through us, just as light must shine and fire must burn.
Following in the Way of Jesus, Amen.
This community of faith was born out of its own fiery need to do church differently, to live in this world differently, to do justice, love mercy, live humbly. For more than 45 years you have kept that fire going: with the heat, the warmth of community; the oxygen, the Spirit, the breath of self- and community-care; the spark of consensus building, the joy of resolution; and the fuel of social justice, of love made public and tangible.
And it is this fire that gives us hope. It’s a bonfire to signal hope in the distance. It’s a campfire that lasts the night and into the dawn. It’s not a burning down but a lighting up the dark. It’s a flame that sets our imaginations on fire. It’s a lamp we keep trimmed and burning for those times when we feel powerless. It’s a light we share with others, that is shared with us, all of us lighting the way together. Amen.
Benediction – Edward Hays
In the darkness we light a flame of hope
This dancing flame sings out that the reign of God,
Love’s pure light, is slowly dawning in our world.
O come, O come, Promised One of the ages.
Come into our home, sit at our table;
dwell with hope in each of our hearts and in our life together.
O come, O come, Emmanuel, and set our hearts on fire.
New Ark United Church of Christ, Newark, DE
November 30, 2025
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| Photo of a woodshed made from a faded red storage container with the words "When times are dark, build a CRACKLING FIRE and gather good people" by Silas House, painted in light blue paint. Photo by Mark Whitley https://www.instagram.com/markwhitleystudio/ |
Before the perfect storm that was the Halloween gale of 1991, the blizzard of ‘78 was the worst nor’easter to hit Massachusetts in over a century. It wasn’t just a nor’easter, it was hurricane-force winds with high tide occurring during a super moon, flooding along the coast, and over two feet of snowfall in just under two days. Thousands of vehicles were abandoned on I-95 alone. Some people had to evacuate from their homes and fled to emergency shelters, as well as makeshift ones like churches and movie theaters. It was a harrowing time for first responders, National Guard personnel, and snowplow drivers.
But for a middle-class 12-year-old on the South Shore it was the adventure of a lifetime. School was cancelled for the next two weeks. Every day we went sledding in our six-house bowl-shaped cul-de-sac that used to be a sandpit. Our parents were home with us, so they helped us build a sled trail that had a banking turn that looked like it came right out of a luge track at the Olympics. Snow drifts were so high we carved igloos and tunnels in the snow.
It wasn’t all fun though. We had no electricity, which meant no hot water and no heat. The snow became our refrigerator and freezer. My stepfather had tropical fish, so we kept a fire going and put the fishtank on the hearth to keep it warm. We cooked hotdogs on roasting sticks and slept in the living room.
One house out of the six had gas heat and a gas stove and oven, and it was our saving grace. Not just because of the physical warmth we needed but the spiritual, social warmth we craved too. Winter can be isolating even in good times, but a blizzard can add a bigger heaviness to the gloom. Every evening all the neighbors and their kids and pets would gather for dinner, bringing what they had and cooking it together. We played games by the light of candles and lanterns. We spent more time together during that blizzard than we had before or after the power was restored. We got through it because we got through it together, as community.
A fire needs four things in order for it to burn strong: heat, oxygen, fuel, and a spark to get it going. In the monastic community of the Order of the Holy Cross, the rule that governs them states that “Love must act, just as light must shine and fire must burn.” In order to have community, there must be warmth, heat, the fire of shared purpose, and community is what gives us hope.
 |
| Illuminated manuscript of the Rule of the Order of the Holy Cross: "Love must act as light must shine and fire must burn." |
When John the Baptist was offering baptism in the wilderness of Judea, he was creating hope-filled community. A community built from the bottom up. A community that had no use for pretenders and those trying to save only their own skins. A community that would burn brightly with hope for those who suffered injustice. A community that would turn away from deceit, exploitation, and self-interest and turn toward God’s kindom of justice, peace, and wholeness.
When we say, “baptism by fire”, we often mean having to face something stressful or challenging without much if any preparation or being initiated into a new role or position as if we are being thrown into the deep end. The fire that Jesus baptizes with is a winnowing fire, like a controlled burn on a farm or in a forest, that clears away the deadwood and dross and makes room for new growth. A fire that makes us honest with ourselves and with God. A fire that liberates us from what holds us down. A fire that once kindled sets us on a path from which there is no turning back.
This fire of community is not always cozy; like John the Baptist sometimes it’s coarse and demanding. This hope that John brings to the people is one stripped away of magical thinking and pipe dreams. It’s about a material difference in people’s lives: justice for those whose lives have been exploited, whose means of supporting themselves has been stolen, for those who have been criminalized and marginalized by the powerful.
But justice for the poor means justice for the rich too. And that’s where John’s fiery speech can make us hot under the collar. Earlier this week I marched with Wilmington neighbors and colleagues for the Poor Peoples’ Campaign Moral Monday. We processed to the Louis Redding City County building with pallbearers carrying an empty coffin for the policy violence done daily to those experiencing homelessness. I was asked to give a prayer of lament but I knew I could only speak from my privilege, from the truth that comes with John’s fire.
God in community, Holy in One,
We hunger for justice, we thirst for wholeness, but we cling to comfort, safety, and power.
How long will we privileged people long for change and yet hold on desperately to what we have?
How long will we exploit those we depend on for healthcare, education, skilled labor, the food on our tables?
How long will we punish people for being poor in the system we created?
How long will we continue to take more than we give back, rich in things but poor in soul?
How long will we make our better angels drink gall, will we poison our minds, harden our hearts, all so we can think ourselves entitled, better than, more deserving than others?
How long will we center and worship Whiteness at the expense of everyone else and the earth and its creatures?
How long will we lack shame for the violence we have done, the injustice we have perpetuated?
If not now, when, O God? If not us, then who?
Knock us down from our thrones and lift up the lowly.
Send us away empty and fill the poor with good things.
Bind us together with the vulnerable, joining our fate to theirs.
Let your justice roll down like an ever-flowing stream, scattering our pride, softening our rocky hearts, creating canyons of courage, shaping our minds and wills to be your kindom people.
Wake us and goad us until your love lives in us and acts through us, just as light must shine and fire must burn.
Following in the Way of Jesus, Amen.
This community of faith was born out of its own fiery need to do church differently, to live in this world differently, to do justice, love mercy, live humbly. For more than 45 years you have kept that fire going: with the heat, the warmth of community; the oxygen, the Spirit, the breath of self- and community-care; the spark of consensus building, the joy of resolution; and the fuel of social justice, of love made public and tangible.
And it is this fire that gives us hope. It’s a bonfire to signal hope in the distance. It’s a campfire that lasts the night and into the dawn. It’s not a burning down but a lighting up the dark. It’s a flame that sets our imaginations on fire. It’s a lamp we keep trimmed and burning for those times when we feel powerless. It’s a light we share with others, that is shared with us, all of us lighting the way together. Amen.
Benediction – Edward Hays
In the darkness we light a flame of hope
This dancing flame sings out that the reign of God,
Love’s pure light, is slowly dawning in our world.
O come, O come, Promised One of the ages.
Come into our home, sit at our table;
dwell with hope in each of our hearts and in our life together.
O come, O come, Emmanuel, and set our hearts on fire.
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