1 Kings 19:9b-21 Luke 9:51-62<\/p>\n 51<\/sup>When the days drew near for him to be taken up, he set his face to go to Jerusalem. 52<\/sup>And he sent messengers ahead of him. On their way they entered a village of the Samaritans to make ready for him; 53<\/sup>but they did not receive him, because his face was set toward Jerusalem. 54<\/sup>When his disciples James and John saw it, they said, \u201cLord, do you want us to command fire to come down from heaven and consume them?\u201d 55<\/sup>But he turned and rebuked them. 56<\/sup>Then they went on to another village.57<\/sup>As they were going along the road, someone said to him, \u201cI will follow you wherever you go.\u201d 58<\/sup>And Jesus said to him, \u201cFoxes have holes, and birds of the air have nests; but the Son of Man has nowhere to lay his head.\u201d 59<\/sup>To another he said, \u201cFollow me.\u201d But he said, \u201cLord, first let me go and bury my father.\u201d 60<\/sup>But Jesus said to him, \u201cLet the dead bury their own dead; but as for you, go and proclaim the kingdom of God.\u201d 61<\/sup>Another said, \u201cI will follow you, Lord; but let me first say farewell to those at my home.\u201d 62<\/sup>Jesus said to him, \u201cNo one who puts a hand to the plow and looks back is fit for the kingdom of God.\u201d<\/p>\n Homily<\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 God loves us \u2013 period. Our lives are, by His choice, destined to be with him. God loves us, and we are<\/em> with him, and he is<\/em> with us, and so it shall remain \u00a0because he loves us. So, how, now are we going to live?<\/p>\n There is a variety of ways we can ask that question; from a variety of angles, and in various degrees of intensity we can ask the question, \u201cHow are we going to live as followers of Christ?\u201d God loves us, regardless, and within<\/em> God\u2019s love and kindness is the context in which we ask the question, \u201cHow are we going to live?\u201d<\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Some years ago I knew a professor who had a poster on his door on which read: Just imagine\u2026 If you could take so much of \u2018the bad\u2019 that\u2019s in the world \u2013 profanity, murder, stealing, adultery, disrespect for elders, disrespect for children, disrespect for family, disregard for God, lying, cheating, jealousy, anger \u2013 if you could take all these bad things in the world and put them in a box, would you want to bring that box into your house and open it up for all that terror and sadness to come flying out of there and affect the life of your family, your children, your friends who come into your house; or, would you simply take the remote control and turn it off?<\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Rather clearly, this is a criticism against television; and the poster was written before the prevalence of computers and smart-phones and other \u201cboxes\u201d that we can open that provide access to ugly things in this world.<\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 The poster, and the very question of whether \u201cto watch, or not to watch, or what<\/em> to watch\u201d on TV (or the internet), raises a question of how we want to live following the values and the ways of God. How radical, or not so radical, do we want to be?<\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 But, of course, not only my professor\u2019s poster raises that question; today\u2019s scripture readings raise that question. We hear in today\u2019s first lesson, from 1st <\/sup>Kings, about the prophet Elisha (successor to the prophet Elijah), taking the oxen and plough with which he was plowing a field, slaughtering the oxen, and then with the plow, building a fire, cooking the oxen on the fire and giving the cooked cuisine to the neighbors. This was the way he decided to follow God, following Elijah, to become a prophet: that is, destroying, burning, and cooking the tools of his previous life as a farmer, so that there would be no<\/em> turning back!<\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 In three unnamed individuals in the gospel reading, we have examples different than Elijah. One claims he (or she) wants to follow along with Jesus, but the text suggest this person didn\u2019t want to embrace the poverty. Another wants to follow Jesus, but first wants to bury his father \u2013 a commendable, and important, good deed in Jewish culture. And yet a third one wants to follow Jesus, but wants first to go tell everybody at home \u201cfarewell;\u201d and that\u2019s not a bad thing. But it is not a radical kind of following such as we see in Elisha, or other examples we have in the Bible (and Church history) of people choosing to dedicate themselves totally to God.<\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 So, we, individually<\/em>, have choices to make about how we want to live by the values of God, how we want to follow Jesus. And, collectively, as families \u2013 or as a group of friends, or as a congregation \u2013 we have choices to make, issues we will need to decide, about how we embody the values of the kingdom of God, how we follow Jesus. Whatever we decide, we are setting examples, we are role models for others; and <\/em>\u00a0however, whatever we decide, whatever \u00a0we do, God can use it. God can use our choices \u2013 especially our personal sacrifices on behalf of others \u2013 and join them with the sacrifice of his Son, and God can — and will –make something grand out of even the little we may give to him.<\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 God can make grandeur, God can make strength, God can make beauty, without us. And sometimes (often!) he allows our participation. Today, with the simple objects (creations by God) of \u00a0bread and wine, still seen with such simplicity, God almighty makes something glorious. By the power of God, Christ, with bread and wine, gives to us himself, preparing us for the day when he, out of self-sacrificial love, gives us the grandeur of glory. Until that day, in the meantime, \u201cCome, Lord Jesus.\u201d<\/p>\n —<\/p>\n Pastor Andrew F. Weisner, Ph.D. The Third Sunday After Pentecost | 1 Kings 19:9b-21 | June 29, AD 2025 | Andrew F. Weisner | 1 Kings 19:9b-21 At that place he came to a cave, and spent the night there. Then the word of the\u00a0Lord\u00a0came to him, saying, \u201cWhat are you doing here, Elijah?\u201d\u00a010He answered, \u201cI have been very zealous […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":24670,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14,1,2,845,157,853,108,114,110,466,109],"tags":[],"beitragende":[],"predigtform":[],"predigtreihe":[],"bibelstelle":[],"class_list":["post-24682","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-1-koenige","category-aktuelle","category-at","category-andrew-f-weisner","category-beitragende","category-bibel","category-current","category-deut","category-engl","category-kapitel-19-chapter-19-1-koenige","category-predigten"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theologie.uzh.ch\/apps\/gpi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24682","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theologie.uzh.ch\/apps\/gpi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theologie.uzh.ch\/apps\/gpi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theologie.uzh.ch\/apps\/gpi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theologie.uzh.ch\/apps\/gpi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=24682"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.theologie.uzh.ch\/apps\/gpi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24682\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":24683,"href":"https:\/\/www.theologie.uzh.ch\/apps\/gpi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24682\/revisions\/24683"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theologie.uzh.ch\/apps\/gpi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/24670"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theologie.uzh.ch\/apps\/gpi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=24682"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theologie.uzh.ch\/apps\/gpi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=24682"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theologie.uzh.ch\/apps\/gpi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=24682"},{"taxonomy":"beitragende","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theologie.uzh.ch\/apps\/gpi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/beitragende?post=24682"},{"taxonomy":"predigtform","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theologie.uzh.ch\/apps\/gpi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/predigtform?post=24682"},{"taxonomy":"predigtreihe","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theologie.uzh.ch\/apps\/gpi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/predigtreihe?post=24682"},{"taxonomy":"bibelstelle","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theologie.uzh.ch\/apps\/gpi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/bibelstelle?post=24682"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\nAt that place he came to a cave, and spent the night there. Then the word of the\u00a0Lord\u00a0came to him, saying, \u201cWhat are you doing here, Elijah?\u201d\u00a010<\/sup>He answered, \u201cI have been very zealous for the\u00a0Lord, the God of hosts; for the Israelites have forsaken your covenant, thrown down your altars, and killed your prophets with the sword. I alone am left, and they are seeking my life, to take it away.\u201d\u00a011<\/sup>He said, \u201cGo out and stand on the mountain before the\u00a0Lord, for the\u00a0Lord\u00a0is about to pass by.\u201d Now there was a great wind, so strong that it was splitting mountains and breaking rocks in pieces before the\u00a0Lord, but the\u00a0Lord\u00a0was not in the wind; and after the wind an earthquake, but the\u00a0Lord\u00a0was not in the earthquake;\u00a012<\/sup>and after the earthquake a fire, but the\u00a0Lord\u00a0was not in the fire; and after the fire a sound of sheer silence.\u00a013<\/sup>When Elijah heard it, he wrapped his face in his mantle and went out and stood at the entrance of the cave. Then there came a voice to him that said, \u201cWhat are you doing here, Elijah?\u201d\u00a014<\/sup>He answered, \u201cI have been very zealous for the\u00a0Lord, the God of hosts; for the Israelites have forsaken your covenant, thrown down your altars, and killed your prophets with the sword. I alone am left, and they are seeking my life, to take it away.\u201d\u00a015<\/sup>Then the\u00a0Lord\u00a0said to him, \u201cGo, return on your way to the wilderness of Damascus; when you arrive, you shall anoint Hazael as king over Aram.\u00a016<\/sup>Also you shall anoint Jehu son of Nimshi as king over Israel; and you shall anoint Elisha son of Shaphat of Abel-meholah as prophet in your place.\u00a017<\/sup>Whoever escapes from the sword of Hazael, Jehu shall kill; and whoever escapes from the sword of Jehu, Elisha shall kill.\u00a018<\/sup>Yet I will leave seven thousand in Israel, all the knees that have not bowed to Baal, and every mouth that has not kissed him.\u201d 19<\/sup>So he set out from there, and found Elisha son of Shaphat, who was plowing. There were twelve yoke of oxen ahead of him, and he was with the twelfth. Elijah passed by him and threw his mantle over him.\u00a020<\/sup>He left the oxen, ran after Elijah, and said, \u201cLet me kiss my father and my mother, and then I will follow you.\u201d Then Elijah said to him, \u201cGo back again; for what have I done to you?\u201d\u00a021<\/sup>He returned from following him, took the yoke of oxen, and slaughtered them; using the equipment from the oxen, he boiled their flesh, and gave it to the people, and they ate. Then he set out and followed Elijah, and became his servant.<\/p>\n
\npastorweisner@gmail.com
\nPastor, New Covenant Lutheran Church
\nMorganton, North Carolina, USA
\nFaculty, North American Lutheran Seminary, Ambridge, PA, USA<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"