God is fire

(I preached this sermon on Pentecost, May 31, 2020. You can find the full worship service at www.ststephenlc.org).

Fire has three necessary ingredients — you need heat, fuel, and oxygen. Take away any one of the three and a fire will either not start or it will be extinguished pretty quickly. Heat is necessary for fire so that the chemical reactions can take place that produces fire or keeps it going. Think of when you strike a match — the friction releases energy and heat.

Fuel is necessary because without something to burn, you don’t have a fire. Think of any campfire you have ever been a part of. The wood is the fuel for the fire.

Oxygen is necessary for fire to start or continue. Without sufficient oxygen, the combustion process stops. Think of putting a glass over the top of a candle and watch it suffocate itself out.

In 1989, Billy Joel, the singer and song writer, released a song — We didn’t start the fire. Its lyrics include brief, rapid-fire allusions to more than 100 headline events between 1949, the year of his birth, and 1989, when the song was released. It encompasses the history of most of the Cold War era, although he never intended for the song to be that.

The chorus between some of the stanzas of events goes like this:

We didn’t start the fire. It was always burning since the world’s been turning. We didn’t start the fire. No we didn’t light it but we tried to fight it.