Sunday, July 1, 2007
By pastor John Jorgenson
Text: Luke 9:51-62
“When the days drew near for him to be received up, he set his face to go to Jerusalem. And he sent messengers ahead of him, who went and entered a village of the Samaritans, to make ready for him; but the people would not receive him, because his face was set toward Jerusalem. 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?’ But he turned and rebuked them. And they went on to another village.
“As they were going along the road, a man said to him, ‘I will follow you wherever you go.’ 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.’ To another he said, ‘Follow me.’ But he said, ‘Lord, let me first go and bury my father.’ But he said to him, ‘Leave the dead to bury their own dead; but as for you, go and proclaim the kingdom of God.’ Another said, ‘I will follow you, Lord; but let me first say farewell to those at my home.’ Jesus said to him, ‘No one who puts his hand to the plow and looks back is fit for the kingdom of God.’
The Gospel of The Lord. Thanks Be To God.
On our text for this morning Luke writes about the concern that Jesus expressed for people who did not choose to follow him. It seems they were still looking for more before they would make a serious commitment or a decision to listen to Jesus and be part of what he was suggesting or advocating for a life in this world. That concern or issue includes you and me also if and when we stop and think about it. Let’s look at the examples Luke wrote about.
First of all the Samaritans did not want Jesus to go to Jerusalem. They did not want him to die. Instead they wanted Jesus to stay in Samaria and not get involved with the Judeans. After all Jesus had used a Samaritan as an example of the kind of life people are to live. The examples of those from Jerusalem included the priest and the Levite, both of whom felt their traditional style of living was more important than helping a person who was suffering. So they wondered why in the world Jesus would want to go to Jerusalem to simply face more of what he had said earlier was not acceptable in the eyes of Almighty God.
Another individual wanted Jesus to have a home, a place where he could take a break, do some entertaining, and have a respectable existence. Jesus indicated that there was no place for him to be in this world. His responsibility was to be a leader, to deliver a message of freedom ad responsibility that all of us share and when we begin to value our possessions to a greater degree than our accountability to Almighty God, that can be not so important as we think in terms of what Jesus taught us.
Then there was the man who wanted to bury his father first before he would follow Jesus. Again Jesus teaches that when push comes to shove, traditional values of family and community are secondary to our values that are based on God’s relationship with us. God comes first as far as Jesus is concerned and in terms of what Jesus taught.
Another wanted to say goodbye to his family and friends. The same issue is here as well. Our friends are valuable yes. However, the importance is our service to our family and friends based on God’s relationship with us, not our relationship with famiy and friends and then our relationship with God.
And you know, this not so far from what we face in our world today. The issues we face are quite similar. I have heard these and maybe even express them myself from time to time. We are too busy to follow Jesus or to do what Jesus wanted done. We are not ready yet, gotta finish my gardening, I have too much to do on the job, maybe next time. I am really not ready yet, I promise that I will follow Jesus tomorrow though, just wait and see. I simply so not have time today.
Now I wonder what it is exactly that we are looking for. I wonder sometimes why we are still looking and do not make the commitment to follow Jesus. It really does not interfere with our lives. Instead it frees us up to respond to people and make our relationships with God and with them much stronger.
I wonder if it is because we really have not stopped to consider the essence of our faith and what it is based on. I was thinking about this in my own life. Do I believe in God because I found something that helped me survive two typhoons on shipboard? Do I believe in God because I survived a couple of car crashes? Do I believe in God because I survived a plane crash and some other events in Korea? Is my faith in God dependent on physical survival?
Well, no, not really. These events and experiences helped raise some questions about religion, faith, trust, meaning and purpose. After all, I had experienced the ineffective curing ability of the faith healers and the herbs, the never ending prayers, and the hot water, which were supposed to be used to relieve my mother’s rheumatoid arthritis. I witnessed my faithful church attending devoted God-fearing uncle roll up his leather bound, red lined King James bible and whap my six year old cousin on the head because he reached for some food when he though the never ending prayer and blessing was over and it was not. I had experienced an evangelistic crusade event at the Minneapolis auditorium when so many people got up and went down for an altar call and I found out later that these people were trained to do just that. The audience was being manipulated to do what the speaker wanted done.
Working on my journalism degree at the University of Minnesota, one of my goals was to expose this false nonsense. This church business was simply a con-job by those people who only work one day a week and then play religion the other six days. I knew the reality of what I had experienced. This was a joke. I remember drawing a cartoon of a priest in vestments blessing the bread and wine and being startled when a ghost came out of the chalice!
I am sure you too have had many such similar experiences as you and as I tried to make rational sense out of having faith in God. Now when I look back on what I was trying to understand, as you probably do too, I find that faith is not a human rational exercise or activity. True effective faith has its basis in and on God’s activity and not ours.
God loves you. God loves me. Like Jesus, we do not have a place to put down our head other than what God has provided. God has ultimately provided everything we need and what we have. Without God we are nothing. With God we have the ability to change lives and make this a world worth enjoying. I suggest it takes a lifetime of living and learning to become aware of that and the effect God has on us as we work together.
I thank God for what we have here that we share with one another. Let us also ask God to open our hearts, our minds and our doors to share these gifts with others as well. I thank God for bringing ten people to come and share with us what we are and do just since Easter. Next Sunday we will celebrate this gift of life from God.
Amen.