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The Third Sunday after Pentecos, 06/30/2019

Sermon on Luke 9:51-62, by Paul Bieber

Luke 9:51–62 Revised Standard Version

51 When the days drew near for Jesus to be received up, he set his face to go to Jerusalem. 52 And he sent messengers ahead of him, who went and entered a village of the Samaritans, to make ready for him; 53 but the people would not receive him, because his face was set toward Jerusalem. 54 And when his disciples James and John saw it, they said, “Lord, do you want us to bid fire come down from heaven and consume them?” 55 But he turned and rebuked them. 56 And they went on to another village. 

57 As they were going along the road, a man said to him, “I will follow you wherever you go.” 58 And Jesus said to him, “Foxes have holes, and birds of the air have nests; but the Son of man has nowhere to lay his head.” 59 To another he said, “Follow me.” But he said, “Lord, let me first go and bury my father.” 60 But he said to him, “Leave the dead to bury their own dead; but as for you, go and proclaim the kingdom of God.” 61 Another said, “I will follow you, Lord; but let me first say farewell to those at my home.” 62 Jesus said to him, “No one who puts his hand to the plow and looks back is fit for the kingdom of God.”

 

also

I Kings 19:15–16, 19–21

Psalm 16

Galatians 5:1, 13–25

 

Follow Me and Do Not Look Back

 

Grace, peace, and much joy to you, people of God.

 

We have come to a turning point in Luke’s Gospel. Here begins the Travel Narrative, which takes up over nine chapters, about 40% of Luke’s story of Jesus, and will take us through the green season of growth in discipleship in the Church’s Year of Grace, all the way to All Saints Sunday. In prophetic fashion, Jesus sets his face to go to Jerusalem. Ezekiel and Isaiah’s Suffering Servant both set their faces like flint; they were determined to fulfill their callings, and so is Jesus. Jesus invites us to journey with him on this pilgrimage.

 

Today’s gospel offers us two vignettes as Jesus sets out for Jerusalem. First, a village of the Samaritans will not receive him. Then he encounters three would-be disciples. Jesus’ responses to each of them show some important contours of his call to discipleship, the conditions of this pilgrimage.

 

Jesus, Luke tells us, is on his way to be “received up,” taken up, lifted up, by way of the cross, his resurrection, and the ascension. This is his Exodos, to be accomplished at Jerusalem, which he discussed with Moses and Elijah at the transfiguration. He is re-enacting Israel’s Exodus from their old life of slavery, going up to the land of promise.

 

To go up to Jerusalem from Galilee directly, pilgrims must pass through Samaria. But we know—from a hundred sermons on Jesus’ parable of the Good Samaritan and the story of Jesus and the Samaritan woman at the well—about the animosity between the Samaritans and the Jews. Because

of this, many pilgrims to Jerusalem skirted Samaria by going around it on the East side of the Jordan River. Jesus, having set his face to go to Jerusalem, heads straight through, but there is a village of the Samaritans that will not receive him and his disciples.

 

Enter James and John. We know these guys. They belong to the inner circle of the disciples and, because we know that they are angling for places at the right and left of Jesus when he comes in his glory, we can be sure that they were heavily involved in the conversation among the disciples that took place just before Jesus set his face to go to Jerusalem. You see, Jesus had just made his second passion prediction, about the cross and rising that will be his destiny in Jerusalem. His disciples, never quick to understand the paradoxical way of self-denial, cross-bearing, finding by losing, and the last being first, begin to argue about who among them is the greatest.

 

Who knows, maybe James and John are here suggesting this disproportional retaliation to the failure of Samaritan hospitality in order to cement their status as trusted insiders. But Jesus is not interested in the Elijah-like response of calling down fire from heaven on these inhospitable villagers as though they were the prophets of Baal. This rejection, a foretaste of his rejection in Jerusalem, doesn’t bring revenge, just moving on to the next village, a little closer to Jerusalem.

 

As they are going, Jesus encounters the three would-be disciples. With the first, Jesus points to his own example and destiny: he has no place to call home. With the second, he seems to speak against the Fourth Commandment. Rendering the final obligation of filial piety, burying the parent who has died, is part and parcel of honoring your father and mother. The third wants only to do what Elisha asked to do before following Elijah in our first reading—to go home and say goodbye to his family.

 

The contours of discipleship, the conditions of this pilgrimage preclude the boastful claim that I will follow Jesus wherever he goes. When Peter tries that at the Last Supper, Jesus predicts that he will deny that he even knows him. Following Jesus through death—and the borrowed tomb where his head will be laid—to new life will not be easy. But Jesus is saying that those not living the new life of this pilgrimage with him are dead. On this journey to Jerusalem, Jesus will offer over and over again the paradoxical teaching that the way to life is through death, his death on the cross and our own death to our self-centered selves. But here, in saying, “Leave the dead to bury their own dead,” he is calling would-be disciples to that life on the other side of death that we already begin to know in Holy Baptism.

 

Jesus’ responses about doing one’s duty to parents and saying farewell seem to ask those who would follow to cast aside normal human obligations, but it seems that the question behind Jesus’ aphorisms here is, Why would anyone want to return to the old life he has escaped when summoned to journey with Jesus to a new life? In this new life, Jesus Christ sets us free for a freedom which is not libertine, the freedom of the self-centered, but loving, the freedom of the self-giving. Following Jesus is not an opportunity for self-indulgence; it is being drawn into the self-offering love of the Holy Trinity. Our obligations to others are not less than in the old life, but greater: to love them as ourselves. Not easy.

 

This pilgrimage of discipleship is not easy. You are following a rejected leader who will not revenge himself, one who has set his face to go to the cross and tomb and only so to new life, and will not look back. He calls you to follow him, to belong to him, to be guided by the Spirit of our Lord and of his resurrection, and so to know love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness,

gentleness, and self-control. That’s the life I really want. The way of discipleship is the path to that life; it is the path of life.

 

Jesus invites us to journey with him on this pilgrimage, this path, so that we, too, may participate in the event of his death and resurrection. Today’s Psalm, Psalm 16, is the first Psalm employed in the apostolic preaching in Acts to interpret Jesus’ resurrection. The way we are called to follow is the path of life. To be received by the Father is to enter into fullness of joy forevermore. Our Christian life, our baptized life, is a pilgrimage through this world toward the fullness of the new creation that we already experience in the Liturgy and our life in the Spirit—and even in the rejection we suffer, for our God will not abandon us. Guided by the Holy Spirit, we can respond to Jesus’ call to discipleship in faith; we can persevere. Our response to Jesus’ call to discipleship is our trust in the God who shows us this path of life every day of this life.

 

In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.



The Rev. Dr. Paul Bieber
San Diego, California, USA
E-Mail: paul.bieber@sbcglobal.net

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