When Jesus Isn't Nice: June 26, 2022

Year  C, Pentecost 3                                             Luke 9:51-62                                                                                               

            I’m going to be honest with you.  These readings are not my favorite readings, especially for a baptism.  I could preach on the psalm.  It’s a nice one.  It has some very uplifting verses.  Or I could pull one line out of the Gospel or Galatians and take it totally out of context.  It’s tempting, but I am not going to do it.  Sometimes we have to talk about the uncomfortable passages in the Bible, even the ones where Jesus doesn’t act the way we think he should act.

            The Gospel starts out in a fairly standard way. Jesus had “set his face to go to Jerusalem.”  That means that Jesus was resolved to go to Jerusalem where he would be crucified.  We don’t like that he has to be crucified, but we are certainly used to hearing about it at this point and since we know how the story ends, we don’t get overly concerned with Jesus setting his face to Jerusalem.  He sent James and John (who he previously nicknamed the “sons of thunder.”) to Samaria to get things ready. 

            The Samaritans rejected them.  We don’t know why. It could have been anything.  But James and John were upset about it as they asked Jesus if he would like them to command fire to come down and consume the Samaritans.  Now before you label this as an overreaction on the part of James and John, it might be helpful to remember that there was precedent for this reaction.  There were a few times in the Old Testament when God rained fire on a city or a group of people. 

            Fortunately a cooler head prevailed.  Jesus rebuked them.  There would be no fire raining down on anyone. So far so good.  This is classic Jesus. He’s going to be crucified.  The disciples say something absurd. Jesus rebukes them and they move on. But this is where things get a little uncomfortable.  As Jesus walked along, three different people approached him and either asked to follow him or were asked to follow him.  When the first one offered to follow him, Jesus explained (using metaphoric language) that this was not an easy life as he was essentially a homeless man wandering from place to place.  He didn’t say no, but he wasn’t very encouraging.

The next person, Jesus asked. That person was willing but had one reasonable request: “Lord, first let me go and bury my father.”  Jesus said no. You either bury the dead or you proclaim the kingdom.  Not a very pastoral or kind response.  

The third potential disciple told Jesus he wanted to follow him, but he needed to say goodbye to his family first.  Another reasonable request.  Jesus was even harsher in his rebuke “No one who puts a hand to the plow and looks back is fit for the kingdom of God.”  When it comes to being Jesus’s disciple, there are no “but firsts.”  There is no looking back or saying goodbye.  You stop what you are doing and you follow.  You change your plan.  You change the course of your life.  This might be why Jesus didn’t have a large band of followers.  He had 12, maybe a few more that they didn’t count---but definitely not a large group.

            This is a disturbing story because we want Jesus to be kind, compassionate and loving.  A kind and loving person would be understanding if someone wanted to bury their father. He would say something like, “Take the time you need. I will be here when you are ready.” But here’s the thing. Jesus was a man on a mission.  His mission was to save humanity, to release people from the bondage of sin and death.  He was on his way to Jerusalem, which meant he was on his way to his death.  He didn’t have time to be patient with people.  They either followed him or they didn’t.  There was no “but first.”  There could be no other priority in their life, not even their family.  So no, he wasn’t very kind in these instances.  Nothing was more important than what he was doing.

            Ok.  Maybe we can accept that. We don’t necessarily like what Jesus had to say, but we can accept that was what was required of Jesus’ disciples when he was on his way to his crucifixion.  Here’s the tricky part---what does this passage mean for us now?  (Is it too late for me to preach on the psalm? I think it is.)  The thing is, it is highly unlikely that Jesus will return in the flesh, walk right by you and ask you to follow him.  Does that mean that we don’t have to worry about what is required of us as disciples?  Of course not.  We are still called to follow Jesus.  However, we are called to discipleship in more nuanced ways which makes it more challenging and easier at the same time. It is more challenging in that we don’t have Jesus in the flesh telling us exactly what to do. It is easier in the sense that the modern call to discipleship can be ignored or quickly forgotten.

            In the end, what Jesus was asking these potential disciples and what he asked all the disciples was, “Will you change your plans and your life for me?”  So we might each ask ourselves, would my life be any different if I wasn’t a Christian?  How has a relationship with God changed the way I live? Most people I know like to have some kind of plan for their life.  Then once that happens, they might try to fit God into that plan. But what Jesus asked his disciples 2000 years ago and what he still asks us now is to let our plans, our dreams, our goals, be secondary to his holy and life giving mission. I understand how hard to that is---how hard it is to follow God’s plan when it is far easier to fit God into a corner of our plan. 

            One of the final prayers in the baptismal liturgy is: “Give them an inquiring and discerning heart, the courage to will and to persevere, a spirit to know and to love you, and the gift of joy and wonder in all your works.”  We say that prayer for the baptismal candidate, but it’s a prayer that every baptized person shares.  And I wonder if it might help us to figure out how to be better disciples.  I would encourage us all to find this in the prayer book and read it every day.  But pray it for yourself, that you might have the courage to will and persevere and a spirit to know and to love God.  Because if you have those things, you will find a way to let God play a bigger part in your life, to lead you in the right direction.  It’s never too late to start following God’s plan for you.

                       

Disciples who are Desperate: June 26, 2016

Year C, Pentecost 6                                                               
Luke 9:51-62                                                                          

            People often struggle with this passage from the Gospel of Luke.  Jesus seems a little insensitive.  He’s not quite as insensitive as the disciples who want to command fire to come down from heaven and consume an entire city because they were inhospitable, but still insensitive.   In this story, he had three people who wanted to follow him.  The first person said that he would follow him wherever he went. Jesus did not say no, but his response was less than affirming.  He said, “Foxes have holes, and birds of the air have nests; but the Son of Man has nowhere to lay his head.”  The second person wanted to follow Jesus but wanted to bury his father first.  Jesus replied, “Let the dead bury their own dead; but as for you, go and proclaim the Kingdom of God.”  The third agreed to follow Jesus but wanted to say goodbye to his loved ones first.  To that Jesus essentially replied, “You can’t follow me when you are constantly looking back.  When proclaiming the Kingdom of God, you have to look forward.”

            The response that troubles most people is to the man who wants to bury his father. Anyone who has experienced the death of a loved one knows how important the grieving process is.  And even if we set aside the emotional needs, what about the very practical needs?  Someone has to make the necessary arrangements for a funeral.   It makes perfect sense that it would be the son who would do that.  Why would Jesus be so unreasonable as to not let someone bury his father?

            In order to answer that question, we need to take a couple steps back to the beginning of the reading.  “When the days drew near for Jesus to be taken up, he set his face to go to Jerusalem.”  It seems like a benign enough sentence; but it was anything but that.  Remember what happened in Jerusalem: that is where Jesus was crucified.  For the author of Luke, this sentence marked a turning point for Jesus. If it was a movie, the music would have changed and the screen would have darkened.  There would be a close up of Jesus’ face and things might switch to slow motion, because slow motion always adds drama. This was Jesus’ walk to his death.  It is when things got very serious.  When the first man said that he would follow Jesus wherever he was going, Jesus knew that he had no idea what he was talking about.  Even the disciples who had been following him all along did not understand where this journey would lead them. 

            For Jesus, it wasn’t just that things got more serious at this point-- there was an urgency to his actions.  He could not wait for people to say good bye.  He could not wait for people to make funeral arrangements.   His task was to follow the will of his father.  Nothing else mattered in comparison.  Jesus understood the importance of his mission, the urgency of his journey, but it must have been difficult for him to convince others of that.  Even when he started talking to his disciples about his death, they did not really understand it.  They did not understand it until he was arrested.

            About five years ago, I was able to take a month long sabbatical.  I had been studying something called the Emerging Church for several years at that point.  It is essentially a movement in modern Christianity to revitalize the church and find new ways of being the church.  What I learned was that the roots of this emerging church were in England.  The Church of England had begun working on initiatives like this decades before and had even started funding the process long before the Episcopal Church even acknowledged that there was a need.  I was able to visit places in England that had been engaged in this kind of work. They had an entire facility devoted to all kinds of church revitalization. 

I sat down with one of the leaders of the organization as he described all of the things they were doing.  At one point I said, “I don’t understand why you are so far ahead of the American Church in this conversation.” He said, “We hit rock bottom before you did. The church over here has been in decline far longer than the church in America.  You just aren’t desperate enough yet.  However, it looks like you are getting there.”  This past year at General Convention, the church dedicated millions of dollars to exploring new ways for the church to grow and thrive in this day and age (essentially engaging in the very same things the Church of England has been doing for the last 10-20 years). It would appear that we finally got desperate enough. 

            Sometimes that is what it takes for there to be change in the life of a person or an institution.  There needs to be a sense of urgency and desperation.  We have to be prepared to make our faith and even our church a priority in our lives.  You can see it in the history of St. John’s as well. It was not until the church was in ruins after the Civil War when people discovered a renewed energy for the church.  The church had been in decline since the American Revolution, but it was only after the Civil War when people got serious.  The need was obvious as the building was complete rubble.  Our building is not in ruins, but our church is facing hard times in more ways than one.  There needs to be an infusion of energy and hope for it to have chance to make it to year 500, or even 420.  We can’t assume that someone else will do it, someone with more time and more money.  It is dependent on each one of us to make following Jesus our priority. 

Unlike Jesus, we are not marching to our death, but we should still be marching somewhere, with that same determination that Jesus had.  There comes a point in our lives when we have to decide what our priorities are---what really matters in our lives.  What we will see time and time again is that how we spend our time, points to our priorities.

            We don’t need to look very hard to know that the need in our lives and in our world for disciples of Jesus is urgent and desperate.  In our baptism we have been saved, but it is up to us become disciples, to live into that call.  There is no better time than now to commit to follow Jesus.