Reflection - Change Comes with Fire - August 16, 2026

Sermon: CHANGE COMES WITH FIRE

August 16^th, 2026               Traci Hubbard

There is something different about talking about fire when you can smell the smoke. For us, this isn't theoretical. We are living in a season of wildfire. We know what it feels like to look toward the lakes and the mountains and wonder what is happening. We know what it means to watch the sky change, to check alerts, to wonder whether someone we love is safe. And when the world around us changes that quickly, we discover something: Change doesn't ask permission. It just comes. And sometimes it comes with fire.

Walter Brueggemann said, “The world for which you have been so carefully prepared is being taken away from you—by the grace of God.” Now, that's a sentence we don't put on a Hallmark card or embroider on a pillow. And we don't put it on our refrigerator next to the grocery list. “Have a blessed day! The world for which you have been carefully prepared is being taken away from you.” That's not exactly inspirational refrigerator poetry. But Brueggemann is getting at something important. Sometimes we spend our lives preparing for a world that no longer exists. In Seminary and in the church, we learn how things are supposed to work. We develop expectations. We establish routines. We create traditions. We build structures. And then life, culture, changes. And we say, “Wait a minute. This isn't the world I was prepared for.” And the Universe responds saying, “I know.” Because perhaps Infinite LOVE isn't only taking something away from the church. Perhaps the Spirit is making room for something new. Folks, there is grace in being disoriented.

Paul writes in his letter to Ephesus, “Be made new in the attitude of your minds.” He doesn’t say, “Behave better.” He says, “Think differently. See differently. Imagine differently.” Because transformation begins when the purifying fire of Infinite LOVE changes the way we imagine the world. And that is exactly what Jesus did.

Jesus changed lives because he changed the way people imagined their lives. He dared people to imagine the stranger as neighbor, child as teacher, enemy as mirror. He asked people to imagine lepers, women, Samaritans, and even Roman centurions as people through whom faith could be revealed. Jesus kept turning people's assumptions upside down. And you know what? People didn't always appreciate it. There is nothing more uncomfortable than the Spirit messing with our imagination. We prefer our Creator and Keeper of our inner flame to confirm what we already think. Jesus kept saying, “What if you're wrong?” What if the person you have written off is actually your neighbor? What if the person you don't understand is the person who can teach you something? What if the person you consider least important is actually the person God wants you to notice? What if the end of the line is actually the beginning of the Kingdom? What if we reimagine, rethink and remodel the ways we do church so our collective interior sparks can create a fire of love that sweeps through the Okanagan like a healing rain?

Fred Craddock, one of the great preachers of the last century, taught the virtue of inviting people to laugh together before asking them to go deep together. That's wisdom. Because sometimes you have to get people laughing before you can get them thinking. And Barbara Brown Taylor tells a wonderful story about someone who came up to her after a lecture and said, “Whenever you make me laugh, I make sure my seat belt is fastened, because I know you're about to hit me with something hard.” I believe the Spirit understands and often leads this way. Jesus had a way of getting people to listen. He would tell a story, ask a question, use exaggeration, and he would often say something almost ridiculous. I mean what kind of teacher or leader says things like a camel through the eye of a needle or a log in your own eye? Or a shepherd leaving ninety-nine sheep to look for one. Or a person trying to get a tiny speck out of somebody else's eye while a two-by-four is sticking out of their own. We can almost hear people laughing. “Jesus, are You serious?” And He says, “Oh, I'm serious.” That's the genius of Jesus and the Spirit. They get us laughing...and then we realize that they are talking about us. You and I thought we were laughing at the story. Then suddenly the story is looking back at us, and we realize it’s time to buckle our spiritual seat belts because the bumps are coming and the road is curving out of necessity. So, if you're sitting here today and thinking, “Traci, this is a nice sermon about wildfire and transition and change.” Fasten your seat belts. Because we're about to hit something hard.

What if Infinite LOVE is not simply asking us to survive this season of the church being forced to become relevant or die? What if LOVE is asking us to become different because of how people, culture, have changed and view the church? Not because the Spirit caused someone's suffering, that’s not her nature. Not because every tragedy is a secret message from heaven. But because the Spirit of LOVE can enter even the most painful circumstances and ask, “Who will you become now?”

Anyone who has seen wildfire understands that fire changes a landscape. Things that were standing yesterday may not be standing tomorrow. The view changes. The horizon changes. The air changes. And sometimes our lives, and the life of the church feel exactly like that. The landscape has changed. The old landmarks of songs we sung, liturgies we repeated, orders of service, aren't where we remember them. The things we counted on don't feel certain anymore. And we're tempted to say, “I want my old world back. I want my church back.” But Brueggemann gives us another possibility, “Perhaps the world we were so carefully prepared for is being taken away by the grace of God.” Not because LOVE delights in our discomfort. If that were so, LOVE would NOT BE LOVE. But because sometimes we become so attached to what was that we cannot receive what the Spirit of LOVE is doing now.

Perhaps that's the deeper work of this season in the church. Not simply, “How do we get through the fire?” But, “How does the fire of cultural change transform the way we see?” What if the person you never noticed becomes the person you need? What if the stranger becomes your neighbor? What if the person who believes differently from you becomes someone you can listen to? What if the person who has been pushed to the margins becomes the person who teaches the church something about faith? What if our churches become less concerned with preserving what we have and more concerned with becoming the people our community needs? What if we stopped asking, “How do we get people to come to us?” and started asking, “How do we go where people are?” What if we stopped asking, “How do we keep church the way it used to be?” and started asking, “Holy One, what does faithfulness look like now?”

Richard Rohr says that spirituality and gathering need to remain living, breathing realities, rather than becoming antique shops preserving old ideas. And I think that is particularly important in a season like this. We don't need an antique church. We need a living church to be a communal place that can breathe, listen, change, and respond. A place that is an open table that can see the needs of its neighbors and say, “How can we help?” Folks, the Gospel, the Good News, is not an artifact. It is alive. Jesus is not a museum piece. The Spirit is alive. She is not stuck in yesterday. She is moving now and into tomorrow.

Think about Jesus at a table. Jesus could turn a dinner into mentoring, transforming an ordinary meal by enticing people to rethink who belonged. The kin-dom is a banquet. And we are called to welcome people others wouldn't invite. To notice people others ignored. To put children in the middle of everything to eat, play, and love. We need to speak to others in public places that will shock some folks. We need to touch people considered untouchable. Jesus praised outsiders, ate with addicts and sex workers and his love turned the religious and social ladder upside down.

And Jesus asked people to imagine, “What if the Kingdom of God doesn't look like the world you have been taught to expect? What if greatness looks like serving? What if leadership looks like washing feet? What if the first become last and the last become first? Jesus didn't just give people information. He gave them a new imagination. And once we can imagine a different world, we can begin to live differently in the world we have.

So, what does fire have to do with it? Fire forces us to see differently. When the smoke comes, we look differently at the sky. When evacuation orders come, we look differently at our homes. When uncertainty comes, we look differently at our neighbors. And maybe that's where the Spirit is working. Maybe this season is teaching us that we need one another. Maybe it is reminding us that possessions are not the same thing as life. Maybe it is showing us how quickly circumstances can change. Maybe it is reminding us that we are all more vulnerable than we like to admit. And maybe, just maybe, the Spirit is asking the Church, “Can you imagine a different way of being together?”

Paul wrote, “Put on the new self, created to be like God in true righteousness and holiness.” Paul doesn't say, “Go back to the old self and make it slightly better.” He says, “Put on the new self.” (Think and live in new ways) The Spirit is doing something new. And sometimes the new thing begins in a place that feels confusing. Sometimes it begins in the wilderness. Sometimes it begins in the ashes. Sometimes it begins when the old ways of being a community of faith no longer work. And sometimes it begins when we finally say, “LOVE, I don't know what you're doing—but I'm willing to let You change me.”

Are you fastened in, because here is my question and it’s not, “When will everything go back to normal?” It is, “What if normal isn't where God is taking us?” I’m not asking, “How do we preserve what we've always had?” I’m asking, “What is LOVE asking us to become?” Not, “How do we get our old world back?” But, “What new world is the Spirit inviting us to imagine?” Because the world for which we have been carefully prepared is vastly and dramatically changing. And with courage and grace, so should we.

One day the smoke will clear. The lake and the mountains will look different. Some places will recover quickly. Some will take years. Some losses cannot be replaced. And we must never minimize that. But when the smoke clears from the ways that need to burn away in the church, you have not called me to rebuild the same things. I pray that we rebuild with imagination. That we will take risks and become a community where strangers become neighbors, children and teenagers are listened to, where the lonely have a place, the displaced are welcomed, and where the overlooked are seen. A place that is not an antique shop but a living, breathing expression of Christ. Where people experience the ways of Jesus. And perhaps that is what it means to be made new in the attitude of our minds.

Fire changes the landscape. The Spirit changes the imagination. And when this happens, we change the way we live. We need to buckle our seat belts because the wind, the breath of the Spirit is blowing with something hard, something holy, something new. Change comes with fire. But the fire does not have the final word. Infinite LOVE does. May we become an inspirational fire that motivates the divine spark in each of us to become a flame of love and healing.

May it be so, amen.