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SEEDS, PLANTS
and
SOULS
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 22 FIRE!
Forests and their timber have continued to be used
not only for building, but also for burning
- to provide energy to make something else:
cooked food, cast bronze,
or just heat to keep warm.
In the early days of the Jewish people,
when they were in captivity in Egypt,
one of their number - Moses -
killed an Egyptian and had to flee for his life.
Despite this,
God chose Moses to lead the Jews
out of Egypt and back to Palestine,
and informed Moses of his plan
in a very mysterious way,
while he was acting as shepherd.
There the angel of the Lord appeared to him
in flames of fire from within a bush.
Moses saw that though the bush was on fire
it did not burn up.
So Moses thought,
"I will go over and see this strange sight
- why the bush does not burn up."
When the Lord saw that he had gone over to look,
God called to him from within the bush,
"Moses! Moses!"
And Moses said, "Here I am."
"Do not come any closer," God said.
"Take off your sandals,
for the place where you are standing is holy ground." Then he said,
"I am the God of your father,
the God of Abraham,
the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob."
At this, Moses hid his face,
because he was afraid to look at God.
(Exodus 3: 2-6)
God went on to explain
how Moses would lead the Jews out of Egypt
en route for the promised land, Palestine.
Moses was not at all happy about this,
and it needed
quite a few more miraculous signs from God
to persuade him of his mission.
Two thousand years later,
Jesus used that incident
to counter the Jewish Sadducees claim
that there was no resurrection of the dead.
"Now about the dead rising
- have you not read in the book of Moses,
in the account of the bush,
how God said to him,
`I am the God of Abraham,
the God of Isaac,
and the God of Jacob'?
He is not the God of the dead, but of the living.
You are badly mistaken!"
(Mark 12:26-27)
Isaiah,
writing about the futility of worshipping material things,
gave an example of making an idol with wood,
compared with using the same timber for fuel,
to drive his point home:
The carpenter measures with a line
and makes an outline with a marker;
he roughs it out with chisels
and marks it with compasses.
He shapes it in the form of man,
of man in all his glory,
that it may dwell in a shrine.
He cuts down cedars,
or perhaps took a cypress or oak.
He let it grow among the trees of the forest,
or planted a pine and the rain made it grow.
It is man's fuel for burning;
some of it he takes and warms himself.
But he also fashions a god and worships it;
he makes an idol and bows down to it.
Half of the wood he burns in the fire;
over it he prepares his meal,
and he roasts his meal and eats his fill.
He also warms himself and says,
"Ah! I am warm; I see the fire.
For the rest he makes a god,
his idol; he bows down to it and worships.
He prays to it and says,
"Save me; you are my god."
They know nothing,
they understand nothing;
their eyes are plastered over so that they cannot see,
and their mind closed so that they cannot understand.
No-one stops to think,
no-one has the knowledge or understanding to say,
"Half of it I used for fuel;
I even baked bread over its coals,
I roasted meat and I ate.
Shall I make a detestable thing from what is left?
Shall I bow down to a block of wood?"
He feeds on ashes,
a deluded heart misleads him;
he cannot save himself, or say,
"Is not this thing in my right hand a lie?"
(Isaiah 44:13-20)
In Ezekiel,
God is recorded admonishing Israel for her sins
which make her worthless.
He compares Israel to the vine when used as fuel.
Apparently vine-wood isn't up to much,
except maybe for swinging on.
Even among trees,
there is a great range of fuel quality,
as any Nepali housewife would tell you.
"Son of man,
how is the wood of a vine better
than that of a branch on any of the trees in the forest?
Is wood ever taken from it to make anything useful?
Do they make pegs from it to hang things on?
And after it is thrown into the fire as fuel
and the fire burns both ends and chars the middle,
is it then useful for anything?
If it was not useful when it was whole,
how much less can it be made into something useful
when the fire has burned it and it is charred?
"This is what the Sovereign Lord says:
As I have given the wood of the vine
among the trees of the forest
as fuel for the fire,
so will I treat the people living in Jerusalem.
I will set my face against them.
Although they have come out of the fire,
the fire will yet consume them.
And when I set my face against them,
you will know that I am the Lord.
I will make the land desolate
because they have been unfaithful,
declares the Sovereign Lord.
(Ezekiel 15:2-8)
Unfortunately,
a lot of forest is simply burnt to get rid of it
prior to farming,
without providing any benefit
– except perhaps a brief input of fertile ash.
It is that fertiliser
that makes many a subsistence farmer think
that he is on to a good thing after clearing the forest.
But after a rainy season or two,
all the goodness is washed away
and the farmer has to think again.
Much forest gets burnt by mistake
- in forestry,
fire is one of the greatest dangers
that trees have to be protected against.
But interestingly,
complete protection is not usually the answer.
Sometimes the forester must allow controlled fires
just to avoid an explosive build-up of fuel.
At other times,
he must ensure fire passes through
to kill off competing trees,
even though elsewhere they could be useful.
Most of the savannahs of Africa
and the pine woodlands of Central America
maintain their ecosystems by fire.
Eliminate the fire,
and the ecosystems will eventually change
to dense broadleaved forest.
If your intention
is to manage a natural pine forest for timber,
or maintain savannah as parkland,
then you will need to keep the unwanted trees burnt out.
What seems anathema to some environmentalists
is simply nature's way
of maintaining the balance of species.
Such a paradox extends to the spiritual.
Just as physical fire can be a boon or a bane,
so spiritual fire can represent good or evil,
God or the Devil,
working in seemingly contradictory ways.
Perhaps this is a good time to remember
that we have to be careful
about extending analogies too far,
or mixing metaphors.
We are likely to get our fingers burnt!
Isaiah knew how to use his metaphors,
and an example in the following passage
shows how in the same passage
fire can represent opposing ideas.
Again,
poor Israel's misdemeanours are the figurative subject:
Surely wickedness burns like a fire;
it consumes briers and thorns,
it sets the forest thickets ablaze,
so that it rolls upward in a column of smoke.
By the wrath of the Lord Almighty the land will be scorched
and the people will be fuel for the fire;
no-one will spare his brother.
(Isaiah 9:18-18)
Wickedness burns up the forest
- and the wrath of God burns up the land.
The trees get the treatment,
just like the briers and thorns.
The people are fuel.
How do we interpret all this?
What represents good and evil?
Later on,
Isaiah makes the figures of speech even more varied:
Does the axe raise itself above him who swings it,
or the saw boast against him who uses it?
As if a rod were to yield him who lifts it up,
or a club brandish him who is not wood!
Therefore, the Lord, the Lord Almighty,
will send a wasting disease upon his sturdy warriors;
under his pomp a fire will be kindled like a blazing flame.
The Light of Israel will become a fire,
their Holy One a flame; in a single day it will burn
and consume his thorns and his briers.
The splendour of his forests and fertile fields
it will completely destroy,
as when a sick man wastes away.
And the remaining trees of his forests will be so few
that a child could write them down.
(Isaiah 10:15-19)
Complicated, isn't it?
Isaiah certainly had specific things in mind
when he wrote this
- but we won't go into them here.
However,
note that we now have a prophetic reference
to Jesus as the Light of Israel, a flame.
Throughout both Old and New Testaments
God is represented as a fire
that guides, energises, refines, protects
and also destroys.
The Holy Spirit came as tongues of fire on the disciples,
also like wind, and also like water.
If we try to mix all these metaphors together
- then like water on fire,
we stand the risk of ending up with a soggy mess
- not of ashes but of ideas!
Perhaps that emphasises
how fire, water and wind in themselves
are neither good nor bad.
It all depends how we use them.
Not only can they represent the various facets of God,
but also the vagaries of the Devil.
Getting back to the practicalities of living a good life,
let's burn out on fire
and hear what James has to say about
bickering, gossiping and other such nasty things:
Consider what a great forest is set on fire
by a small spark.
The tongue also is a fire,
a world of evil among the parts of the body.
It corrupts the whole person,
sets the whole course of his life on fire,
and is itself set on fire by hell.
(James 3:5-6)
I didn't want to mention hell,
but here it is - hell fire, to boot!
Whatever state hell represents,
it is obviously nasty and absolutely to be avoided.
And all the hell on earth that we create
usually starts with an unkind, unthinking or untrue word.
As paradise began with a word,
God's Word - so hell has begun through man's word, our word.
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