Proper 8C1 Galatians 5: 1, 13-25; Luke 9: 51-62
The 51st verse of chapter 9 marks a major turning point in
Luke’s gospel: “When the days drew near
for him to be received up, he set his face to go to Jerusalem.”
The
story of the earthly ministry of Jesus begins in Luke in Chapters 3 and 4--at
his Baptism in the Jordan and Temptation in the Wilderness--and then continues
as Jesus gathers his disciples and begins his work of preaching and teaching
and healing, miracles and exorcisms, all in the region around the Sea of Galilee,
little towns like Nazareth and Capernaum and Cana. At the beginning of Chapter 9 this first
phase of his ministry comes to a dramatic high point at the Mountaintop of the
Transfiguration, as Jesus is revealed in all his transcendent glory.
And then they come down from the mountain. “When the days drew near for him
to be received up, he set his face to go to Jerusalem.”
The last leg of the journey to the Cross that began on that holy night
in Bethlehem many years before. The Lord
returning to his Temple, as prophesied by Isaiah and announced by John the
Baptist, “make straight in the desert a highway for our God.” It’s almost like a liturgical procession—but
not one filled with song and praise and celebration, except for that brief,
deceptive moment on Palm Sunday. Instead,
it becomes a long march into ever deeper darkness. A hard road, to be marked by an ever-rising
tide of rejection, conflict, opposition, plots and intrigue. A gathering murderous storm. All the forces of evil and sin and death
rallying for their last stand.
Jesus has spent these past months and years, teaching and preaching and
preparing his disciples for what was to come, for a life of what Dietrich
Bonhoeffer called “costly discipleship.” For what it’s going to be like to live in him
and for him, with one foot still in this world.
Costly Discipleship. For
Jerusalem and Holy Week, and then for what lies beyond, in the years and
centuries to come. If this is what they do to the teacher, so it
will be for his students. Continuing in
our own present time in Iraq and Syria with ISIS, in East Africa with Al Shabab
and Boko Haram. It always is unsafe to
be a Christian somewhere.
So his preaching and teaching and his prayers for them, giving shape and
direction to his church . . . . To
build them up, to encourage them and guide and sustain them in the coming days
and in all the generations to come. And
now here we are, Luke 9:51, and that preparation is going to be put to the test,
its first test, as we can see just in the very first incident on the first day
of the journey. And I guess we would say on the first time
out for these disciples, for the life of the church—well: not a passing score. It’s actually almost embarrassing.
Jesus and company leave their hometowns, and as the first day of travel
comes to an end they approach a Samaritan village. Some run ahead to make arrangements--to seek
a resting place, somewhere to stay the night, perhaps an evening meal . . . but they are refused, turned away, rejected. Not clear that these villagers had any particular
idea who Jesus was. Just that this was a
party of Jews on their way to Jerusalem.
Reason enough in the context of ethnic and religious prejudice between
Jews and Samaritans to shut the door and put up the “No Vacancy” signs. We don’t want your kind around here.
(Perhaps as a side note--we as readers of this gospel will pause here
for a moment of context, as we recall that just a little while later along this
road to Jerusalem Jesus is going to tell his disciples in Luke chapter 10, the
Parable of the Good Samaritan. Just to
keep this morning’s story in mind when we get to that parable in our lectionary
reading in a couple of weeks.)
In any event, our Samaritan villagers here are for sure violating traditional
norms and customs of Middle Eastern hospitality—but I guess we could say that
compared to what was coming for Jesus and his friends this is really not all
that big a deal. It’s not Good Friday
yet. So what is so interesting is the
reaction of the disciples. They go
ballistic! Over the top! They immediately want Jesus to call down a
fiery blast from the heavens to consume the village, to sweep them all up, men,
women, boys and girls, to wipe every last one of them in one horrible punishing
and incinerating pulse from the face of the earth. Wow. Talk about a short fuse! None of that classic Anglican “Keep Calm and
Carry On” spirit, that’s for sure . . . .
And so maybe we can hear Jesus sigh--like a schoolteacher looking over
the weekly quiz after the kids have had their first lesson in fractions. Clearly we’re going to have to spend some
more time working with this bunch. I mean, is anybody paying attention?
Just a few days before these very same disciples had all sat with him
as he preached. From Luke, Chapter 6,
in what we sometimes call his great Sermon on the Plain (usually
appointed for us in the lectionary on the 7th Sunday after the
Epiphany in Year C, but we didn’t hear this reading this year because Easter
was so early. Perhaps we remember it
from three years ago, or from other times when we’ve read and studied Luke’s gospel.) Words
for his disciples, his church, all of us.
“But I say to you that hear, Love
your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray
for those who abuse you. To him who
strikes you on the cheek, offer the other also; and from him who takes away
your coat do not withhold even your shirt . . . . If you love those who love you, what credit is
that to you? For even sinners love those
who love them. And if you do good to
those who do good to you, what credit is that to you? For even sinners do the same . . . . But love your enemies, and do good, and lend,
expecting nothing in return; and your reward will be great, and you will be
sons of the Most High; for he is kind to the ungrateful and the selfish. Be merciful, even as your Father is
merciful.”
Needless to say, it’s hard to find much in there about a destroying
fire raining down from on high upon those who reject us.
Echo in the reading from Galatians 5 as we heard it this morning as our
first lesson: the Old Adam and the
“works of the flesh”-- Fornication,
impurity, licentiousness, idolatry, sorcery, enmity, strife, jealousy, anger,
selfishness, dissension, party spirit, envy, drunkenness, carousing. A partial list, but we get the idea. (We all did get the idea, right?)
Killing our enemies, or even wishing them
dead, or even in our own hearts and minds stripping from them their dignity and
humanity and value--anything short of
love and prayer for them--that’s not
Kingdom living. It’s where we are with
the disciples as we come to the first night on the journey to Jerusalem, but
it’s not where Jesus wants to leave us. Not
who we are, who we would pray that we are becoming, as we are walking with him
along this road. What we learned from
him—what Paul calls the “fruit of the Spirit.”
A great list: Love, joy, peace,
patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control.
This Luke 9 moment on the first day of the journey to Jerusalem made me
think some in the past couple of weeks about the angry times we live in. Politically, socially. Divisions and polarization, from every side
and point on the spectrum, left and right, conservatives and liberals, and
fueled at least in part by the instantaneous reactivity of politically
segmented media and the white-hot rhetoric of social media. Rage and more rage. The election cycle here, and perhaps reflected
in the election in Britain this past week as well. All
kinds of anger and polarization.
And so, again, a memo to myself, with this incident at the Samaritan
village in the background. The disciples
miss the boat big-time. But Jesus
doesn’t leave them there. “Let’s keep
going,” he tells them, and see what we can find together down the road.” A yellow post-it for the mirror, to see in
the morning while I’m shaving and getting ready to head out into the day. Stick close to Jesus. Listen.
Pay attention. Learn from
him. Fortunately, he’s not leaving us on the first
day of the journey. We still have miles
to go; he’s not finished with us yet.
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