“I have come”, said Jesus, “to cast fire upon the earth, and how I wish it were already ablaze!... Do you think that I have come to bring peace to the earth? No, I tell you, but rather division!” Well, good morning to you too Jesus! Today’s Gospel is not exactly happy 50th anniversary greetings to MCC Sydney, is it? - or is it? In the Spirit of Jesus, and with help in a few moments from Black trans people of colour, let us reflect together on three ‘f’ words: namely fire, futures, and faith. What might Jesus’ words about fire mean for us today? What possible futures are there for us and others today? And what kind of faith are we invited to share today?...
where are we headed?
These are vital questions. For, 50 years on from the founding of this church community, we surely live in what the old Chinese curse called ‘interesting times’. A range of destructive fires are raging across the world, fuelled not least by leaders in the Kremlin and Knesset. Futures are uncertain, aided by rapacious White House vandalism, set on destroying the common good and accelerating so many features of the old Western worlds. Faith, meanwhile, is typically in retreat, where its last embers are not fanned by fundamentalist rage. Are we, and our planet, simply burning up? Where do we find vital hope? Is Christianity, in life-giving forms, done for? What is the point of MCC Sydney today, in the face of all of this?
Jesus on fire and division
At first hearing, Jesus’ words in today’s Gospel (Luke chapter 12 verses 46-57) seem only to make things worse. Do we really need more fire on the earth, and more division? This might sound more like an encouragement to the MAGA movements than to the MCC. However, that would be to read the Bible through the eyes of the powerful, who tend always to see a God of their own making in scripture: namely a God of power, inclined to the use of violence, punishment, and abuse, for their own ends. Is that the real truth?
Where, I wonder, were you in 1975, when this church community was founded? In my case, I was at secondary school in England, and I was blessed by having a gay man as my teacher of religion. He himself sometimes had a bad time, as so many queer people did back then. However, some of what he taught me about the deep compassion of the true living God I have never forgotten, and it has helped shaped my life. For, as with this church community, seeds sown in 1975 have born great fruit. One of the things my gay teacher taught me relates to passages like today’s Gospel text. ‘Watch out’, he would say, ’that you don’t confuse description with prescription.’ In other words, as in the case of the Beatitudes, when Jesus speaks in the Gospels, Jesus is often describing, rather than prescribing, the life of faith. It is not therefore that God’s blessed ones must be poor, or humble, or persecuted. Rather, if we look for God’s blessed ones, we will typically describe people who are poor or marginalised, humble peacemakers and activists for love. This is similarly the case with Jesus’ words about fire and division, the future and faith.
Today’s Gospel passage comes at a point in Jesus’ ministry when they were meeting increasing conflict. Jesus’ words are thus describing, not prescribing, what is happening and will happen. Their words about families being divided are not therefore about intention, as if God has designed people to be separated, or provides cruel tests of allegiance. Rather Jesus’ words describe our realities, wherever love, justice, and mercy are deeply at stake. Of all people, sexually and gender diverse people should therefore be able to identify with today’s Gospel. Jesus is describing their own reality and so many of our own. For, sadly, many of us know only too well how being fully true to God’s image in us is also manifest in family rejections, and in huge amounts of heated words and actions. This reality, as Jesus observes, is like a baptism we cannot avoid. For what Jesus describes is too often the consequence of living authentically: doing justice, loving mercy, and walking humbly with God. As such, it is not just about being honest about God’s calling. It is also about the way to hope, and finding a positive future: something which it is often hard to see, or hold onto, in today’s world. For this we need to renew our faith by rekindling three particular types of alternative loving fire.
fire as hearth
The first kind of alternative loving fire is that of the hearth. For Aboriginal people especially, we may think of the campfire. For people like me, who grew up in colder north European climes, we may think of fireplaces indoors. Yet, however we think of it, the hearth has always been both a vital practical and spiritual space of life and growth. At the campfire, around the fireplace, young and old are warmed and bound together, stories are told, memories and hopes shared, griefs tended and courage renewed. If there are to be flourishing futures and living faith among us, this kind of gathering has to be central. John O’Donohue, the great Irish poet-priest, put it this way:
The hearth is ... the place of warmth, belonging and intimacy. This is a powerful metaphor for the spiritual quest, for the hearth is the place where the heart is at home. This is the longing in all spirituality: to come in out of the winter of alienation, self-division, and exile and into the hearth of warmth and at-one-ment. The spiritual journey is the journey home.[1]
All life-giving churches are hearths, true families. That has been at the heart of the Metropolitan Community Church’s gift for 50 years here, not least for sexually and gender diverse people otherwise denied a hearth and family. It remains a gift to nurture, with others, not least in our own days. I say that also partly as human beings wrestle with the challenges of AI, something barely considered 50 years ago but which is part of the huge technological revolution currently transforming our lives and world. For AI can no doubt offer many things. Yet, despite some people’s current fascinations with chatbot friends, it cannot provide us a true hearth. In a recent conversation,[2] this point is well made by the notable contemporary thinker Yuri Noah Harari and Stephen Fry. For Harari’s recent work has affirmed the importance of trust in human development. Despite conflicts, humans have actually been amazing at cooperating throughout history, even developing international networks. Today however, we not only have AI & algorithms, in which we do not easily trust. We also have an Al arms race between humans, like Elon Musk, who do not trust, adding to the growth of populism and unreason worldwide. Thus, Harari and Fry rightly say, it is vital we address the human trust deficit, investing above all in our distinctive characteristics - characteristics I would say are nurtured at the hearth - in being kind, rather than more efficient, and in concentrating on how much pleasure we can bring others. In other words, as MCC Sydney travels onward, for others and ourselves, how well can we nurture the fire of the hearth, where genuine love and spirit can flourish?
fire as shared resistance
The second kind of alternative loving fire is that of shared resistance. Again, this links both the Jesus experience and that of sexually and gender diverse people. Truly, as today’s Gospel affirms, and queer history amplifies, this is core to queerness and loving faith. It is also why MCC Sydney is still needed. For whilst some other church traditions have nurtured hearths in which diversity can flourish, it is only the MCC, to use a phrase, that is ‘queer all the way down’, and that makes a difference. Today, 50 years on from its founding, MCC Sydney can rejoice in many positive changes for sexually and gender diverse people, and should rightly celebrate its own vital part in bringing them about. After all, MCC Sydney is older than even the first Sydney Mardi Gras. However, there are clear signs of moving backwards, not least in the USA where the MCC is so strong.[3] In the UK, transphobia has also significantly increased, and seen legal rollbacks. Attacks here on queer people, through various means, including dating apps, have also shown signs of increase.[4] More broadly, the value of diversity is not owned by all.[5] The Gospel call to share the baptism of Jesus therefore continues to be very real, and, arguably, ever more urgent. How then do we nurture greater intersectional solidarity, courage, and trust in the future? On the one hand, this must surely involve growing new relationships, partnerships, and involvements with others. On the other hand, our other New Testament reading today, from Hebrews 11.29-12.2, provides us with another vital clue; namely, keeping alive our histories of shared resistance so that we can live them forward. For, as we hear that great roll call of heroes of faith today, can we be encouraged by them to show similar love, courage, and trust in God’s future? How good it is, in this, to recall today the heroes of MCC Sydney over the last 50 years too, and other queer heroes of our lives!
These are vital questions. For, 50 years on from the founding of this church community, we surely live in what the old Chinese curse called ‘interesting times’. A range of destructive fires are raging across the world, fuelled not least by leaders in the Kremlin and Knesset. Futures are uncertain, aided by rapacious White House vandalism, set on destroying the common good and accelerating so many features of the old Western worlds. Faith, meanwhile, is typically in retreat, where its last embers are not fanned by fundamentalist rage. Are we, and our planet, simply burning up? Where do we find vital hope? Is Christianity, in life-giving forms, done for? What is the point of MCC Sydney today, in the face of all of this?
Jesus on fire and division
At first hearing, Jesus’ words in today’s Gospel (Luke chapter 12 verses 46-57) seem only to make things worse. Do we really need more fire on the earth, and more division? This might sound more like an encouragement to the MAGA movements than to the MCC. However, that would be to read the Bible through the eyes of the powerful, who tend always to see a God of their own making in scripture: namely a God of power, inclined to the use of violence, punishment, and abuse, for their own ends. Is that the real truth?
Where, I wonder, were you in 1975, when this church community was founded? In my case, I was at secondary school in England, and I was blessed by having a gay man as my teacher of religion. He himself sometimes had a bad time, as so many queer people did back then. However, some of what he taught me about the deep compassion of the true living God I have never forgotten, and it has helped shaped my life. For, as with this church community, seeds sown in 1975 have born great fruit. One of the things my gay teacher taught me relates to passages like today’s Gospel text. ‘Watch out’, he would say, ’that you don’t confuse description with prescription.’ In other words, as in the case of the Beatitudes, when Jesus speaks in the Gospels, Jesus is often describing, rather than prescribing, the life of faith. It is not therefore that God’s blessed ones must be poor, or humble, or persecuted. Rather, if we look for God’s blessed ones, we will typically describe people who are poor or marginalised, humble peacemakers and activists for love. This is similarly the case with Jesus’ words about fire and division, the future and faith.
Today’s Gospel passage comes at a point in Jesus’ ministry when they were meeting increasing conflict. Jesus’ words are thus describing, not prescribing, what is happening and will happen. Their words about families being divided are not therefore about intention, as if God has designed people to be separated, or provides cruel tests of allegiance. Rather Jesus’ words describe our realities, wherever love, justice, and mercy are deeply at stake. Of all people, sexually and gender diverse people should therefore be able to identify with today’s Gospel. Jesus is describing their own reality and so many of our own. For, sadly, many of us know only too well how being fully true to God’s image in us is also manifest in family rejections, and in huge amounts of heated words and actions. This reality, as Jesus observes, is like a baptism we cannot avoid. For what Jesus describes is too often the consequence of living authentically: doing justice, loving mercy, and walking humbly with God. As such, it is not just about being honest about God’s calling. It is also about the way to hope, and finding a positive future: something which it is often hard to see, or hold onto, in today’s world. For this we need to renew our faith by rekindling three particular types of alternative loving fire.
fire as hearth
The first kind of alternative loving fire is that of the hearth. For Aboriginal people especially, we may think of the campfire. For people like me, who grew up in colder north European climes, we may think of fireplaces indoors. Yet, however we think of it, the hearth has always been both a vital practical and spiritual space of life and growth. At the campfire, around the fireplace, young and old are warmed and bound together, stories are told, memories and hopes shared, griefs tended and courage renewed. If there are to be flourishing futures and living faith among us, this kind of gathering has to be central. John O’Donohue, the great Irish poet-priest, put it this way:
The hearth is ... the place of warmth, belonging and intimacy. This is a powerful metaphor for the spiritual quest, for the hearth is the place where the heart is at home. This is the longing in all spirituality: to come in out of the winter of alienation, self-division, and exile and into the hearth of warmth and at-one-ment. The spiritual journey is the journey home.[1]
All life-giving churches are hearths, true families. That has been at the heart of the Metropolitan Community Church’s gift for 50 years here, not least for sexually and gender diverse people otherwise denied a hearth and family. It remains a gift to nurture, with others, not least in our own days. I say that also partly as human beings wrestle with the challenges of AI, something barely considered 50 years ago but which is part of the huge technological revolution currently transforming our lives and world. For AI can no doubt offer many things. Yet, despite some people’s current fascinations with chatbot friends, it cannot provide us a true hearth. In a recent conversation,[2] this point is well made by the notable contemporary thinker Yuri Noah Harari and Stephen Fry. For Harari’s recent work has affirmed the importance of trust in human development. Despite conflicts, humans have actually been amazing at cooperating throughout history, even developing international networks. Today however, we not only have AI & algorithms, in which we do not easily trust. We also have an Al arms race between humans, like Elon Musk, who do not trust, adding to the growth of populism and unreason worldwide. Thus, Harari and Fry rightly say, it is vital we address the human trust deficit, investing above all in our distinctive characteristics - characteristics I would say are nurtured at the hearth - in being kind, rather than more efficient, and in concentrating on how much pleasure we can bring others. In other words, as MCC Sydney travels onward, for others and ourselves, how well can we nurture the fire of the hearth, where genuine love and spirit can flourish?
fire as shared resistance
The second kind of alternative loving fire is that of shared resistance. Again, this links both the Jesus experience and that of sexually and gender diverse people. Truly, as today’s Gospel affirms, and queer history amplifies, this is core to queerness and loving faith. It is also why MCC Sydney is still needed. For whilst some other church traditions have nurtured hearths in which diversity can flourish, it is only the MCC, to use a phrase, that is ‘queer all the way down’, and that makes a difference. Today, 50 years on from its founding, MCC Sydney can rejoice in many positive changes for sexually and gender diverse people, and should rightly celebrate its own vital part in bringing them about. After all, MCC Sydney is older than even the first Sydney Mardi Gras. However, there are clear signs of moving backwards, not least in the USA where the MCC is so strong.[3] In the UK, transphobia has also significantly increased, and seen legal rollbacks. Attacks here on queer people, through various means, including dating apps, have also shown signs of increase.[4] More broadly, the value of diversity is not owned by all.[5] The Gospel call to share the baptism of Jesus therefore continues to be very real, and, arguably, ever more urgent. How then do we nurture greater intersectional solidarity, courage, and trust in the future? On the one hand, this must surely involve growing new relationships, partnerships, and involvements with others. On the other hand, our other New Testament reading today, from Hebrews 11.29-12.2, provides us with another vital clue; namely, keeping alive our histories of shared resistance so that we can live them forward. For, as we hear that great roll call of heroes of faith today, can we be encouraged by them to show similar love, courage, and trust in God’s future? How good it is, in this, to recall today the heroes of MCC Sydney over the last 50 years too, and other queer heroes of our lives!
Renewing shared resistance is of course at the heart of trans activism. This, for example, is expressed in the work of Forward Together in the USA,[6] which has helped trans people of colour to survive and flourish. Forward Together encourages us that remembrance is not enough, as for example in the Trans Day of Remembrance. We also have to nurture resilience for now and for the future. For that is how we best honour our past and the heroes who have helped us get to where we are and whose examples can still inspire us. Take a look therefore at this poster (see left)[7] which is an affirmation of Black trans femme power, of lives and loves that are so easily shamed and destroyed. This was one of a series, with each artwork coupled with a poem, which, like the life and work of Jesus, offers continuing inspiration.[8] The accompanying poem ‘litany in which you are still here’ thus speaks, like Jesus, in spiritual terms about both the realities of struggle and the possibilities of life:
today you think about fear
& fear it
but you do not die…
you care & you love
& you love & you love
so much you hold
both a hot thing & nature’s milk
for to stay is to carry
so much…
& like any goddexx
you are scorned
& become the fire anyway
& this,
too,
is a form of resurrection
today
you are
& you are not afraid
& what mistake
what divine miracle.[9]
today you think about fear
& fear it
but you do not die…
you care & you love
& you love & you love
so much you hold
both a hot thing & nature’s milk
for to stay is to carry
so much…
& like any goddexx
you are scorned
& become the fire anyway
& this,
too,
is a form of resurrection
today
you are
& you are not afraid
& what mistake
what divine miracle.[9]
fire as living spiritual imagination
For, to nurture hope for the future, and renew our faith, the third kind of alternative loving fire we need to cultivate is that of renewed inner life and imagination. Sadly, there are still tensions for many between queerness and faith. However, and it may of course be expressed in a variety of fruitful pathways, without cultivating living queer spirituality we will neither be sustained as individuals nor fully free as a society. This is also core to MCC Sydney and other futures. Faith, art, and politics need one another. Perhaps Forward Together thus also give us encouragement to make such links and alliances. With another poster, coupled to the following prayer-poem, I conclude these reflections this morning. For, whilst titled ‘Imprecatory Prayer to Transestors’, it is a prayer for all who have gone before us, who have tended sacred queer hearths like this one, who have shared in loving resistance, and who have lived out queer imaginaries:
To The Ancestors & Elders who have guided us here:
We honor your legacy with new celebrations.
May our bodies persist, let them shine whole & well.
May our minds calibrate to the call of the universe.
Let our protest songs transfigure to peace hymns.
Let our cultural knowledge produce nourishment.
May our homes bustle warm with abundant love.
May our communities flourish despite borders.
Let our love quake open any lingering shackle.
Let our joy obliterate any festering contempt.
As we bind each other closer,
we manifest futures more possible.[10] Amen.
[1] in Four Elements: Reflections on Nature, found at https://rwww.hearthgatherings.com.au
[2] https://singjupost.com/ai-how-can-we-control-an-alien-intelligence-yuval-noah-harari-transcript
[3] See https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/jul/05/harvey-milk-trump-lgbtq-rights
[4] https://www.abc.net.au/news/2025-07-06/gay-dating-app-users-lured-into-violent-homophobic-attacks/105464048
[5] https://www.abc.net.au/news/2025-08-02/multiculturalism-australia-america-schools/105581050
[6] https://forwardtogether.org/about-us/
[7] image by Amir Khadar, used by permission of Forward Together
[8] poem by kiki nicole, see further about the project at https://www.them.us/story/these-trans-posters-are-lit
[9] see and hear more at https://www.tdor.co
[10] https://soundcloud.com/user-830244714/jayy-dodd-imprecatory-prayer-to-the-trancestors - image and words used by permission of Forward Together
by Josephine Inkpin, for the 50th Anniversary Celebration of MCC Sydney, Sunday 17 August 2025
For, to nurture hope for the future, and renew our faith, the third kind of alternative loving fire we need to cultivate is that of renewed inner life and imagination. Sadly, there are still tensions for many between queerness and faith. However, and it may of course be expressed in a variety of fruitful pathways, without cultivating living queer spirituality we will neither be sustained as individuals nor fully free as a society. This is also core to MCC Sydney and other futures. Faith, art, and politics need one another. Perhaps Forward Together thus also give us encouragement to make such links and alliances. With another poster, coupled to the following prayer-poem, I conclude these reflections this morning. For, whilst titled ‘Imprecatory Prayer to Transestors’, it is a prayer for all who have gone before us, who have tended sacred queer hearths like this one, who have shared in loving resistance, and who have lived out queer imaginaries:
To The Ancestors & Elders who have guided us here:
We honor your legacy with new celebrations.
May our bodies persist, let them shine whole & well.
May our minds calibrate to the call of the universe.
Let our protest songs transfigure to peace hymns.
Let our cultural knowledge produce nourishment.
May our homes bustle warm with abundant love.
May our communities flourish despite borders.
Let our love quake open any lingering shackle.
Let our joy obliterate any festering contempt.
As we bind each other closer,
we manifest futures more possible.[10] Amen.
[1] in Four Elements: Reflections on Nature, found at https://rwww.hearthgatherings.com.au
[2] https://singjupost.com/ai-how-can-we-control-an-alien-intelligence-yuval-noah-harari-transcript
[3] See https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/jul/05/harvey-milk-trump-lgbtq-rights
[4] https://www.abc.net.au/news/2025-07-06/gay-dating-app-users-lured-into-violent-homophobic-attacks/105464048
[5] https://www.abc.net.au/news/2025-08-02/multiculturalism-australia-america-schools/105581050
[6] https://forwardtogether.org/about-us/
[7] image by Amir Khadar, used by permission of Forward Together
[8] poem by kiki nicole, see further about the project at https://www.them.us/story/these-trans-posters-are-lit
[9] see and hear more at https://www.tdor.co
[10] https://soundcloud.com/user-830244714/jayy-dodd-imprecatory-prayer-to-the-trancestors - image and words used by permission of Forward Together
by Josephine Inkpin, for the 50th Anniversary Celebration of MCC Sydney, Sunday 17 August 2025
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