Follow, and Follow Through – sermon on June 26, 2016
Luke 9: 51-62 As the time approached for him to be taken up to heaven, Jesus resolutely set out for Jerusalem. And he sent messengers on ahead, who went into a Samaritan village to get things ready for him; but the people there did not welcome him, because he was heading for Jerusalem. When the disciples James and John saw this, they asked, “Lord, do you want us to call fire down from heaven to destroy them?” But Jesus turned and rebuked them. Then he and his disciples went to another village. As they were walking along the road, a man said to him, “I will follow you wherever you go.” Jesus replied, “Foxes have dens and birds have nests, but the Son of Man has no place to lay his head.” He said to another man, “Follow me.” But he replied, “Lord, first let me go and bury my father.” Jesus said to him, “Let the dead bury their own dead, but you go and proclaim the kingdom of God.” Still another said, “I will follow you, Lord; but first let me go back and say goodbye to my family.” Jesus replied, “No one who puts a hand to the plow and looks back is fit for service in the kingdom of God.”
Sermon: Follow, and Follow Through by Rev. Doreen Oughton
Such a curious reading, isn’t it? It doesn’t surprise me that I have not preached on it before. I must have skipped right over this text. (check time). But we have a little time to spend, and it is my job, right, so let’s dive in and see if we can discern a message for us here today.
The passage starts by letting us know that a turning point has come for Jesus. He has, until now, focused his ministry on healing and preaching, and mostly in Galilee and surrounding areas. We are told that the time is approaching for him to be taken up to heaven, and so Jesus resolutely heads for Jerusalem. He sends messengers ahead “to get things ready.” I suppose this must refer to finding a place for the travelers to rest, have a bite to eat. They would be looking for the hospitality that was so important in those days. It is interesting that he would send them to a Samaritan village, given that tensions ran very high between Jews and Samaritans.
Just a little history about this tension. About 750 years before Jesus’ time, during the Jewish exile, the king of Assyria, which had conquered Israel, sent people of his own country to occupy some of the lands of Israel, where the tribes of Ephraim and Manasseh had been. These occupiers were getting killed by lions, and they thought it was an omen that they had offended the God of the Jews, so they asked for an Israeli priest to be sent to them. They learned about the 5 books of the Torah, and sort of wove in some Jewish rituals with their own pagan rituals. And then, after the exile, they intermarried with the returning Jewish people, and continued with their alternative worship practices. So there they were, right in Israel, contaminating the blood lines, adulterating the worship practices – just an affront to good Jews everywhere. For the Samaritans, the holy place of worship was Mt. Jerizim, not Jerusalem!
But Jesus plans his route to go through one of their villages, and sends people ahead to ask if there is a place the group can stay, or eat, or at least rest. And when the people of the village learn where he is heading, they say, “no way.” And as they are on the way to the next village, someone comes up and says to Jesus, “I will follow you wherever you go.” But it seems as if Jesus is still stewing over the rejection of the Samaritans, perhaps frustrated that he has to travel quite a bit further than he’d planned before he can get some rest. The foxes and birds have places to rest, but not the Son of Man?! I’m not sure from this passage whether these people who next are asked by Jesus to follow him, or who initiate it themselves, approach while he is still on his way to the next village, or whether he has had a break by then. But he still sounds peeved, impatient. He seems to be saying, “If you want to follow me, then come along. Because I am not waiting for you!” He is determined to get to Jerusalem, to bring his message there, right to the center of religious power and activity. If others want to get sidetracked by family obligations, well, he will be moving on without them.
The metaphor about putting a hand on the plow and looking back may be a bit lost on us in this time and place, but it is about the folly of divided attention. It’s like his saying that you cannot worship two masters. These people have said they want to follow him, but they are still conflicted, divided in their hearts
For us, following Jesus means something different than it did to those people along the road, literally following Jesus, walking with him, going to the places he goes and witnessing his work. We cannot follow him geographically any more, but we can do our best to follow in his ways. What were his ways? First in this story we have him making plans to go to a people that were considered unclean, even enemies. Can we follow him this way, going to places among people we have a prejudice against? And not just as helper in a one-up position, but could we go in need, seeking their help, asking for their hospitality? Next thing Jesus does is rebuke James and John for wanting to call down fire on the uncooperative Samaritans. Can we follow Jesus this way? Can we stand against violence as a response to those who thwart our wishes?
And we have Jesus expressing what I hear as outrage and frustration that the Son of Man doesn’t even have what foxes and birds have – a place to stop and rest. Can we follow Jesus into a place of outrage that there are human beings, sons and daughters of God, with no place to lay their heads? Cities go to war not against homelessness, but against the homeless, shooing them off the sidewalks and parks, prosecuting them for their efforts to get out of the cold or rain, banning them from the shelters for several hours a day. Can we channel our indignation over those indignities to take action that might make a difference? Can we ponder what we might do so that people who need a place to rest will have it?
And finally Jesus expresses his impatience with those who say one thing and do another. There is a message here I am not sure I’m getting, that I have questions about. Because in so many stories Jesus is headed someplace, and is sidetracked, or at least interrupted. He consistently responds to people in their need, and I wonder if he is really telling those that would follow him that they should not do so. Or is he trying to break them away from family obligations, because if you wait for those to end, well, you’ll be waiting a long, long time. Certainly Jesus challenged the centrality of biological family, trying to widen the scope of who people considered family.
But for us, I wonder if there is a message that we don’t have to put Jesus off while we are tending to family obligations. If we are following him, we let him lead the way into any family situation, any work situation, any place at all. We bury our dead and put a hand to the plow all with our eye on Jesus, with our hearts open, determined to make friends of enemies, to call out for justice, even if it leads to a cross. Because we know that this is the way toward ascension – the upward way, where Jesus has gone ahead and continues to call us on. May we hear, and respond. May we follow, and follow through. Amen.
