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Fire Fall Down

There are times when I am jolted out of times of worship by a phrase or image that strikes me in an unexpected way, and whilst I may return to worship after a moment or two, the jarring image can stay with me. Be it the more poetic metaphors of traditional hymns or some of the Biblical language and images lifted in a cut and paste fashion in many contemporary praise songs there is often a niggle akin to Inigo Montoya's oft repeated line from "The Princess Bride" - 'I do not think it means what you think it means...'
This happened to me yesterday with the phrase "Let your fire fall down." We obviously tend to think of this in Pentecostal terms, but rarely do we think of the revolutionary long term implications of that first Pentecost after the resurrection.
But I've also been feeling a bit burned-out myself in recent months, and am hearing the voice of my wise friend Derrick Poole reminding me that "God wants us to be living sacrifices, not burnt offerings." 
With that in mind I am also wary of the shadow side of the much lauded story of Elijah v the Priests of Baal on Mount Carmel, remembering the slaughter afterwards, and Elijah's exhausted depression - finding God not in the fire (or wind or earthquake) but in "the utter silence" (a better translation than "the still, small voice.")
But there was also the issue of news images of the devastation caused by drones or cruise and ballistic missiles on both sides in the current conflict in the middle east, some of which is cheered on by people using Old Testament passages as justification. 
All of that percolated to produce this.
(the image is "The Sacrifice of Elijah [epitaph of Balthasar Hoffmann]" an oil paintinon wood from the workshop of Lucas Cranach the Younger (1552-1557) in the Stadtgeschichtliches Museum, Leipzig.)

We may sincerely sing and pray 
"Let your fire fall down!"
but do we really, really mean it
 and what do we actually want?

Lightning that strikes down
and immolates the unrighteous
in clouds of sulphurous smoke,
presuming that we are not the target?

Or fire that completely consumes 
a whole burnt offering, proving 
the superiority of OUR faith in OUR God,
through exhausting performative sacrifice?

Or unexpexted tongues of fire, producing 
tongues on fire, igniting the fuse 
of explosive expansion, taking us 
beyond age-old accepted boundaries?

But then, what of those on whom
Fire is currently falling from on high
Not as a metaphor set to rousing music
But as a world-altering reality?
Selah

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