Kingdom Riches

September 23, 2007
Luke 16:1-13; Jeremiah 8:18-9:1
So my mom sent me a story from the Chattanooga newspaper last week about this guy who’s written a book about church signs and other roadside evangelical Christian icons that abound in the southern United States. His collection includes some pretty standard fair, such as “You do the math: 1 cross plus 3 nails equals 4-given,” as well as some amusing ones, such as “stop, drop and roll does not work in hell.” My favorite was, “eternal life guaranteed, just $49.95.”
Signs of southern culture? To be sure. Signs of the times? Perhaps. Signs of the Kingdom? Well ….
Still, I loved that last one because it provides such a wonderfully mixed, and, well mixed up metaphor. I think Jesus would be amused, although, I’m pretty sure he’d want to remind us that the economy of the empire is not at all the same as the economy of the household of God.
Jesus targets that mix of economies in the profoundly strange little parable of the dishonest manager. What are we to make of a story in which the guy who rips off his boss is held up as an exemplar of faithful living?
First, let’s acknowledge the unsettling familiarity of the tale. A guy in middle management gets a pink slip. One supposes that neoconservatives control the system so there’s no social safety net for him to rely upon. He’s feeling the sting of economic insecurity. Whether or not you’ve ever actually lost your job, it’s not difficult to imagine the sense of desperation this guy feels. He’ll do just about anything to protect himself, and, one supposes, his family. There’s really nothing at all unusual about any of that – about the desperate feelings that lead us to consider all kinds of actions.
But it what he does do that makes this story so profoundly strange, so unsettling, so utterly at odds with typical middle class morality.
In the midst of a crushing debt system – think extreme sub-prime mortgage lending with Tony Soprano as your banker – in the midst of that, he practices jubilee! He forgives debts. He realizes, albeit rather late in the game, that the system he is caught in is profoundly unfair, and he steps outside of it completely to practice kingdom economics rather than empire economics.
His realization, the story suggests, comes only at this moment of profound personal crisis. Until he gets the pink slip, presumably, he has gone along to get along and done just fine for himself.
Step back from this strange tale for a moment. Let me suggest that while it may be, in some sense, about any one of us as individuals, the word of God in this text is first and foremost for the church. Because we have gone along to get along for a long, long time in this culture. So much so that, in some instances, we can put up signs promising eternal life for less than 50 bucks and not even recognize that we’ve become captive to a culture and economy that are completely at odds with the movement Jesus set in motion.
We North American Christians find ourselves at the dawn of the 21st century no less exiles in a foreign land than did the people of Israel in the land of Babylon. We are living in the midst of our own Babylonian captivity and, like frogs in a pot of water headed toward boiling, we are too warm and cozy most of the time to recognize the we about to be cooked.
We do not know enough of our own condition to sing the sorrow songs of Jeremiah.
We so comfortably enjoy our unwitting service to the god of mammon, to the economy of the empire, that we do not think to ask after the balm in Gilead.
Yet the signs of the times – the signs of kairos time – are all around us – though seldom on church marquis, to be sure. Steep declines in church membership across the entire spectrum of Christianity – including conservative evangelical denominations – are but one such sign. Indeed, sometimes I believe that the declining membership is actually a sign of the health of gospel as it sheds a certain version of middle class American respectability.
Of far deeper concern than such measures as attendance and budgets, though, are the numerous instances of the ongoing cultural captivity of the church, and the signs of this are everywhere around us. At its most extreme, we witness church leaders blessing the military adventures of the empire and conflating cross and flag in public displays of support for the architects of empire.
Writing this summer in the Boston Globe, UVA professor Charles Marsh reflected on one such event: “a photograph in Time magazine during the 2004 presidential election of Christian Coalition activists in Ohio. Two men, both white, and both identified as Coalition members, are holding two crosses aloft. The crosses upon closer inspection appear to be made of balloons twisted together. Across the beam-section of one of the crosses was the "Bush-Cheney" logo, and alongside the president's name was the image of an American flag. In the second cross, the president's name appeared in full at the places where Jesus's hands were nailed.”
The image would have been every bit as offensive had the words read “Kerry-Edwards,” but militaristic aspect of the church’s cultural captivity tends to be expressed primarily in conservative evangelical circles.
In more progressive mainline churches, the cultural captivity of the church tends to be expressed more often in terms of our relationship to money, and our trust in the god of the market over the God of the universe. Too often, we really do believe we can find salvation on sale for $49.95; and if we’re really good shoppers we can find a better deal down the road. We do not really believe that our daily bread will be sufficient to our needs, but we do believe – as our lives testify – that we can surround ourselves with enough stuff that we will never hunger or thirst.
We don’t trust living water; we’d prefer bottled water instead, thank you very much.
And thus we live closer to the waters of Babylon than to the waters of baptism.
All of this is driven by our own deep-seated fears: fear of the other, fear of our own inadequacies, fear of failure. But we do not have to remain there. There is good news in all of this – indeed, the situation itself may be received as good news if we hear in it the call of Christ to live here and now as if another way is possible – because it is.
We can see it contours, as if through a glass dimly to be sure, but nonetheless emerging in our midst – in this very room.
We are called, in the present moment, not only to a certain shrewdness akin to the manager in Jesus’ tale, but moreover, to practice a kind of kingdom economics as well, shaped by the disturbing logic of jubilee – a mix of Sabbath rest and debt forgiveness that has both deep spiritual implications as well as practical applications to the situations we find ourselves in every day.
Got a grudge you’ve been nursing? Practice a bit of jubilee forgiveness and then take a Sabbath rest from resentment. Owe someone a debt of apology? Pay it off according to the economics of the beloved community – seven times seventy times and find in the transaction a bit of Sabbath peace and restored relationship.
In these and so many other ways, we become an alternative community of compassion, doing the work of justice in the world – not conformed to the values of the world but rather transforming them according to the gospel vision of love and justice.
All of this built on the network of relationships that binds together the beloved community of the church of Jesus Christ.
As I have noted before, in terms of community building, such relationships are critical, and they are built on our willingness to share of our own lives and experiences. So we’re going to take a couple of minutes now for the sharing of stories. Find someone here who you do not know well, and spend the next few minutes sharing your own response to some jubilee experience in your own life. When has someone forgiven you – or you forgiven someone else – that really made a difference in your life?

A Day of Atonement

September 16, 2007
Jeremiah 4:11-12, 22-28; Psalm 14; 1 Timothy 1:12-17; Luke 15:1-10
It’s not often at Clarendon that we read each passage that a Sunday lectionary places before us, but this week’s readings present such a rich, full and challenging collection that it’s worth the extra effort of holding four disparate texts in front of ourselves.
From Jeremiah’s stark warning of judgment to Luke’s word of unexpected, even unreasonable mercy – with reassurance from the psalms and epistles to underscore and provide context for understanding that unanticipated grace – the arc of the Biblical narrative reiterates itself in these passages: creation, fall, redemption.
Such a grand sweep invites us to consider God’s perspective of the world for a moment rather than our own.
That these particular texts should be open before us today is compelling, for this Sunday falls in the midst of holy days: the high holy days – the days of awe – that our Jewish sisters and brothers mark – Rosh Hashana, the beginning of a new year, and Yom Kippur, a day set aside for confession and atonement that the new year begin well; also the beginning of Ramadan, which our Muslim sisters and brothers set aside for renewal and rededication; and, as well, the anniversary of September 11, which we mark regardless of creed in memory and, we must confess, a certain amount of confusion.
That confusion underscored this year, by the coincidence of ongoing testimony in Congress concerning the state of the nation’s war in Iraq.
In the midst of that rich, challenging landscape, then, we listen for a word from God from the prophet Jeremiah.
“I looked to the earth,” Jeremiah says – creation. “I looked to the mountains, to the heavens … desolate, dark, devoid of life,” the prophet continues – fall.
Then this word: “Because of this the earth shall mourn, and the heavens above grow black; for I have spoken, I have purposed; I have not relented nor will I turn back.”
Judgment.
God looks across the vastness of God’s own creation at what human beings have made of it: what once was a luscious and verdant garden has become a dark and desolate space devoid of life – and we might take note of the fact that present-day Iraq is said by some to have been the home of the Biblical Eden. Thus the righteous judgment of God is plain: I have turned away and will not turn back. I will leave you to your own devices. You have made yourselves destroyers of worlds, now live with what you have destroyed. We can think of this on a geo-political scale or on scales more local and personal – from international relations to interpersonal relationships, from the betrayals of kings and presidents to our own acts of betrayal.
That is the judgment of God: to grant us the freedom to dwell in the hells of our own creation.
And perhaps the greatest sin of all is the choice that we make – over and over and over again – to remain there. We make an idol of our present pain and refuse to consider the possibility of a future otherwise. We trust in surges of economic or military might and are blind to any other power or possibility. Our myopia denies the gift of imagination that God has given us, and, indeed, denies the very God who gives it.
In spite of all of that, God does not stop in judgment, but acts with love and mercy to invite creation into redemption.
Indeed, the prophetic oracle to which Jeremiah responds appoints him not only to “pluck up and pull down, to destroy and overthrow,” but also to rebuild and to plant. The city – the polis – has failed by every measure to live into the covenant community that God calls forth – the community of compassion and celebration, the community of shared suffering, shared burdens, yes; but also the city of shared wealth and resources and harvest and celebration. The utter failure to live into that vision – the vision of the commonwealth of the beloved – is the occasion for the prophetic pronouncement of God’s judgment.
God’s judgment is simply this: any city that fails to live into that promise, that vision of authentic community – any city that fails that project fails, plain and simple.
We live in just such a time; we live in just such a city; we live in just such failure; we stand under just such judgment.
Jeremiah’s words bear repeating:
“From the least to the greatest of them, everyone is greedy for unjust gain; and from prophet to priest, everyone deals falsely. They have treated the wound of my people carelessly, saying ‘peace, peace,’ when there is no peace. They acted shamefully, they committed abominations; yet they were not ashamed, they did not know how to blush. Therefore they shall fall among those who fall; at the time that I punish them, they shall be overthrown, says the Lord” (Jer. 6:13-15).
Let us say it plain, that the people may understand: from the least of us to the greatest we pursue the outrageous gains of speculative markets; we buy the i-thises and i-thats that, by their very names, underscore the market’s utter disdain for authentic community; we strive mostly to assure our own place on the ladder of success without blushing at the fact that our incomes are 45 times or more the median global per capita income and many more times more than that of the least of these our sisters and brothers in the global commons; and we sit idly by while our nation engages in wars fought to ensure that gap remains firmly in place – all while our leaders promise us “peace, peace, and security, security,” but there is neither peace nor security for we stand under God’s judgment.
But the story does not end in judgment. We are called, in the tradition of Jeremiah, to imagine a future otherwise, to imagine a new Jerusalem and to call it forth even at this late hour.
The pivot point arrives for Jeremiah at the moment he realizes that repentance is possible, that the present time may be redeemed and transformed because the future belongs to God. “The days are surely coming, says the Lord, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and the house of Judah.” When that day comes, “then shall the young women rejoice in the dance, and the young men and the old shall be merry. I will turn their mourning into joy.”
Why such hope? How can such a promise be spoken in the midst of desolation? Because the future belongs to God – “to the king of the ages, immortal, invisible, the only God,” as Paul sings in doxology.
The future belongs to the God made known in the one who welcomed the tax collectors and sinners into his presence; the one who understood the fundamental value of the least of his sisters and brothers in the household of God; the one who knew that no measure of worth or accomplishment or power or success makes anyone 45 times more valuable than anybody else; the one who knew that no surge in violence could ever bring peace in a world where some still champion economic and political systems that define such vast disparities of wealth as the just results of an invisible hand.
That very God calls us now to be quite visible counterweights on the scales of justice.
Our pivot point has arrived. Even in the present darkness, the time for light and more light has come. Repentance is possible and the present time may be redeemed.
A day of atonement lies before us.
Now the dictionary defines “atonement” as “reparation for an offense or injury,” and a certain conservative orthodoxy holds that such reparation was made through the sacrificial death of Jesus on the cross. I don’t think much of that orthodoxy. I don’t like what it says about the possibilities of human life, I am disgusted by what it suggests about God, and I cannot abide the way it simply dismisses the life of Jesus as mere prelude to his death.
But I do like the word. I like the suggestion, imbedded in the word itself, that we can be at one with God, that our purposes and God’s purposes can come together in reconciling love.
That possibility is the pivot point upon which Jeremiah’s prophetic vision turns, and it can be the point upon which the present time turns as well.
How can I stand before you and make such a claim, given all I’ve just said about unjust economies and unjustifiable war? How can I stand here having laid out what can best be called the case of humanity’s fall, and suggest that redemption is at hand?
No logic can explain it, no calculus account for it, no economy comprehend it. This is a moment that calls for that larger perspective I mentioned at the beginning – a kingdom perspective.
For if we are who we say we are – children of a loving God; and if we believe what we say we believe about that God, then we must sing with the psalmist,
”The Lord will reign forever, your God, O Zion, for all generations!”
The reign of God announces a profoundly different kind of kingdom, not so much about power as it is about covenant fidelity – about steadfast faithfulness, about a Godly power that is concerned not with the acquisition of more power but, instead, concerned first and foremost precisely about the condition of those with no power. Imagine our rulers putting such concerns first – imagine Republicans and Democrats concerned not with who controls the Senate but with how the hungry are to be fed, not with who will win the White House but with how the sick are to be cared for, not with the culture wars of Red and Blue but with how a just and lasting peace can be constructed. This is not to say that there are no important differences between the parties, but it is to call deeply into question their quite similar relationships to the question of power.
That same psalm that sings kingdom praises recalls the nature of God and of God’s power, telling us that this God “keeps faith for ever, executes justice for the oppressed, gives food to the hungry, sets the prisoners free, opens the eyes of the blind, lifts up those who are bowed down, loves the righteous, watches over the strangers, and upholds the orphan and the widow.”
We are called into relationship with this God. We are called to trust this God before any princes and rulers, any Democrat or Republican, and even and especially against the lure of so many socially constructed idols: militarism, consumerism and every other “ism” that tempts us to put our trust in something less than ultimate, something other than God. And we are called to put first in our lives the same concerns as this God puts first – precisely the concerns that all the false gods ignore or belittle: justice, welcome of strangers, compassion for the outcast and marginalized, shalom for all creation.
That is how we become at one with God. That is how we mark a day of atonement. That is how we live kingdom lives. That is how we claim for ourselves the promise of Jesus that the kingdom of God is among us, within us, here and now, in this very place at this very moment.
Trusting that truth, then, I am able to say confidently this morning that though the wrong seems oft so strong, God is the ruler yet. And thus I trust that though the arc of the moral universe is mighty long, it does bend toward justice. Though the nations tremble under tumult of war, the time of the prince of peace is at hand. The time for peace is at hand. Amen.

What Are We Afraid Of?

September 9, 2009
Jeremiah 18:1-11; Luke 14:25-33
I want to begin this morning, indeed, this program year that we kick off this morning with a quotation, then a brief story, after which I propose to invite you into some dialogue about who we are and why we are here.
First, then, this brief word from Walter Brueggemann’s most recent work. Brueggemann is, for my money, the most provocative theologian at work in the church today, which is at least mildly amusing because he’s been retired for several years, which just goes to show that provocation is not the exclusive province of the young.
Brueggemann writes,
"You might think
• If you cringe at the boisterous, cocky new sound of religion in politics,
• If you worry about the divisiveness of “red” and “blue,” and
• If you are vexed that too many people claim to be speaking directly for Christ …
You might think that our Christian faith is all about getting the moral issues right and leveraging others to think and act the right way, as do we. But if you think that, you are very wrong, because such contemporary loud posturing is not so much about faith as it is about anxiety and maintaining control in the world. Our faith, I propose, is not about pinning down moral certitudes. It is, rather, about openness to wonder and awe in glad praise."
“Such posturing is not so much about faith as it is about anxiety …”
So I want to ask, this morning, with Jesus’ words about the cost of discipleship ringing in our ears, I want to ask, “what are we so afraid of?”
I was on my bike one morning a couple of weeks ago, riding up the W & OD trail. I was passing a little wetlands preserve, looking out over the reeds when a bull frog offered a low croak of commentary on the morning. The sound caused two almost simultaneous responses in me.
The second was a memory – both personal and, I think, primal – of hearing that sound as part of a chorus or symphony of night sounds when I was a child spending summers in the mountains of East Tennessee.
It was a sweet recollection, but the first response strikes me as more interesting: fear. Oh, sure, it was not any deep fear – more a startle reflex than a thought. Nonetheless, it was an instant of anxiety.
As I considered this irrational response to a bull frog, I thought, “how 21st-century American of me.”
What’s that you say? We Americans may be many things, but we are not afraid of frogs!
Well, I don’t mean to suggest that we are a nation fearful of amphibians. But we are a nation afraid, and, increasingly, we are afraid of nature itself.
“Nature deficit disorder” is a label recently given to this fear as it has come to be lived out in the lives of kids who know all there is to know about navigating the internet but know nothing about navigating a creek bed or a park trail.
Whether it’s a fear expressed from a perspective on the Left, such as the fear of nature’s wrath in the form of global warming, or a fear expressed from a perspective on the Right, such as the fear of the immigrant other, we are told from all sides that we should be afraid, and, increasingly, we are told to be afraid of things that are either natural or of nature herself.
Please don’t misunderstand me on this – climate change and immigration reform are real and complex issues, but the rhetoric of fear surrounding them and most every other issue reflects a deep-seated anxiety as we confront our inability to control the most natural things in the world, such as people and the weather.
If the church is to be what it is called to be, we must be first and foremost, a people unafraid. To be such, we must be a people unafraid to talk together about precisely the things that scare us, the things that cause us anxiety.
The church is called to be a people unafraid, not a people anesthetized. We don’t come here on Sunday mornings for a does of religious laughing gas that will enable us to waltz through the days to come. The extent to which we need such a balm to make it through the days is precisely the extent to which those days and our lives need to be transformed.
Life is not to be endured, it is to be lived fully. A human being alive is the glory of God, as Augustine put it.
So don’t look for ways through our around what troubles you, what angers you, what hurts you, what scares you. Maybe you have raised a chronically ill child or cared for an aging parent in poor health and know first hand the deep brokenness of our health care system – the ways that the ministry of healing has become the industry of treatment delivery systems.
The church ought to be a place of comfort and of transformation; the place where we seek ways to engage precisely those things that tick us off.
Maybe you are deeply troubled, angry even, about the war. The church – the followers of the prince of peace – ought to be a place of comfort and of transformation: the place where seek deeper engagement with the world, not escape from it.
Maybe you are angry about the way the church and culture treat sexual minorities. The church – the followers of the one whose love and compassion knew no bounds – ought to be a place of radical welcome and transformation: the place where we engage the culture and the ecclesiastical powers as well.
If we are to be the people we are called to be, we must be unafraid. Perhaps the most scary thing of all – we must be a people unafraid to talk about what draws us together as a community of faith rather than a huddled mass of fearful folk.
So that’s what we’re going to do for the next few minutes. I know that, for some of you, nothing is more anxiety-producing than the words, “get in groups of three or four,” but I promise you it will be OK. As Jesus said, “fear not, be not afraid; I am with you always, even when you are in small-group discussions!”
Here is your charge: first, gather in small groups that mix young and old, newcomer and old timer; second, make sure that you share names; third, share for the next couple of minutes, your various responses to the question, “what causes you to feel anxious?” or “what are you afraid of?” I invite you to move beyond the “snakes and spiders and flying insects” to deeper levels of anxiety – although, feel free to linger at the level of creepy-crawly for a bit if you feel so moved.

* * *
By way of calling you back together, let me suggest that you’ve just participated in something profoundly counter-cultural: you’ve gathered in community and shared some of your own insecurities. For so many folks these days, the response to insecurity is to build walls rather than connections, but walls do not create real security – community does that.
I am utterly convinced that the only way to be disciples, the only way to pick up our crosses and follow Jesus, the only we to be unafraid, is to gather in community where we bear one another’s burdens, bind one another up, and love one another. It really is all that simple; and all that hard. Let us endeavor to do it, here at Clarendon. Amen.

Accepting the Cost of Discipleship

Luke 9: 51-62
September 2, 2007
The Rev. Dr. Jean M. Coyle
Good morning. I’m very pleased to be joining with you in worship this morning.
Let us pray. May the words of my mouth and the meditations of all our hearts be acceptable in Thy sight, O Lord, our Strength and our Redeemer. Amen.
Our passage from Luke’s gospel today takes us on part of Jesus’ journey. In this first part of this scripture, we note the unswerving intensity, and destiny-oriented sense of Jesus’ move toward Jerusalem. This helps us to grasp—at least a little—the UNCOMPROMISING demands that Jesus places on would-be followers. Earlier in this chapter, Jesus has prophesied his own suffering and death and then has called his disciples to life of DAILY CROSS BEARING (Craddock, 142).
In the first part of this passage, Jesus knows that his ministry is moving swiftly to its close. Also, Jesus is to be “received up,” an expression used later by Luke to refer to the ascension. The ascension implies, of course, the whole drama of crucifixion and resurrection, as well as ascension. Finally, in verse 51, we know that, toward that end, Jesus set his face toward Jerusalem. “Set his face” echoes the song of the suffering servant of Isaiah 50:7: “Therefore, I have set my face like a flint, and I know that I shall not be put to shame; he who vindicates me is near.” We can sense the strong opposition that will occur (Craddock, 142).
The journey to Jerusalem begins with a rejection. Just as Jesus’ baptism was followed by rejection in Nazareth, so now the transfiguration, an event parallel to the baptism, is followed by rejection in Samaria. Rejection by the Samaritans on one level testifies to the tension between Jews and Samaritans, but their Inhospitality also means they are unwilling to follow one on his way to suffering and death. Even more significant is the fact that Jesus has sent two disciples into a Samaritan village to arrange for lodging and food. Jesus was planning to take his ministry among these outsiders, these despised half-Jewish heretics! He has ministered to Jews and Gentiles, to social, ritual, and political outcasts, and now here in Samaria, as far away as one could be and still be in the land. Later, Jesus would say to his disciples, “And you shall be my witnesses in Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria and to the end of the earth” (Acts 1:8). According to Acts 8:5-25, the Christian mission was successful in Samaria; this was, perhaps, due, in part, to the warrant for such a mission in the visit of Jesus to that area (Craddock, 142-143).
We can almost appreciate the anger of James and John over the refusal of hospitality to Jesus. They are being protective and do not know how to handle rejection. They bring to mind overzealous evangelists of another generation who extended God’s grace to the audience and then tossed balls of hellfire at those who refused the offer. Jesus’ disciples remember quite well scriptural precedent for calling down heaven’s fire (II Kings 1:9-10), but they have forgotten the recent words of Jesus: when on a mission, accept the hospitality offered you. If none is extended, shake the dust off your feet and move on (9: 1-6). Is it not interesting how the mind can grasp and hold those scriptures which seem to bless our worst behavior and yet cannot retain, past the sanctuary door, those texts which summon to love, forgiveness, and mercy? Jesus rebukes James and John for an attitude of revenge and retribution, an attitude totally foreign to his ministry and theirs (Craddock, 143).
No sooner has Jesus “set his face to go to Jerusalem” than he meets opposition. As Jesus and his followers start out on their journey, a Samaritan village refuses to receive them. The overtones of this section are set up by its location in the narrative and its allusions to Elijah. In the end, Jesus asserts not only his determination to go to Jerusalem, but also the nature of his mission (NIB, 215).
Malachi 3:1 declares that the Lord will send a messenger to prepare the way. The connection can hardly be missed, then, when we are told that Jesus sent messengers to prepare his way (v. 52). The first reference to Samaria occurs in this scene, but it foreshadows Phillip’s work in Samaria in Acts, which results in Peter and John laying hands on the Samaritans. That a Samaritan village should refuse to receive Jewish pilgrims on their way to Jerusalem was not unusual. Later in the first century, a serious incident that led to the removal of Herod Antipas from office began with a massacre of Jewish pilgrims in Samaria. The repetition of “his face was set toward Jerusalem” in v. 53 underscores the importance of this new information (NIB, 215).
Just as John erred in hindering the unauthorized exorcist, so now James and John ask Jesus to let them call down fire on the Samaritan village. The request echoes Elijah’s answer to the officer sent by the king of Samaria: “If I am a man of God, let fire come down from heaven and consume you and your fifty” (2 Kings 1:10, 12). Because James and John are called “Sons of Thunder” in Mark 3:17, it has been suggested either that the nickname was derived from this incident or that the name explains why Luke names these two disciples in this scene (NIB, 215).
This episode allows us to study the temptation to use violence to achieve right. Does insult entitle one to do injury? Does being right or having a holy cause justify the use of force or violence? Elijah had called down fire on the Samaritans; could not Jesus’ followers do the same? Misunderstanding the identity of the one they followed, the disciples mistakenly thought they could achieve his ends by violence. How often have those who claimed to be following Christ repeated the mistake of these early disciples? They had yet to learn that violence begets violence, and that Jesus had come to break the cycle of violence by dying and forgiving rather than by killing and exacting vengeance (NIB, 216).
Introduction to the journey to Jerusalem continues with a warning of the radical demands of discipleship. The responses of three would-be followers of Jesus show that they have not understood the demands of discipleship and are not prepared to give it the priority that Jesus demands (NIB, 216).
Together, the three stories function to set the call to discipleship above every other duty, whether care for self, care for the dead, or care for family. So stringent is the demand, however, especially in the second saying, that one is tempted to place these sayings in the category of Semitic hyperboles that dramatize a point, but are not meant to be taken literally (NIB, 216).
The three would-followers are similar, but not identical, cases. The first came with the lofty, enthusiastic promise, “I will follow you wherever you go.” The promise is made “as they were going along the road,” however, a setting that reminds the alert among us of the journey’s tragic destination. Jesus had told his followers that he would be rejected and despised. He had been in Samaria, and the people there would not receive him. Would this enthusiastic volunteer really follow him in the face of such rejection? (NIB, 217).
The first saying establishes two relationships, one explicitly and one implicitly. Explicitly, it contrasts the security of the Son of Man with the condition of animals at the mercy of nature. Even foxes have holes and birds have nests, but the Son of Man has no such home. Implicitly, the saying works on the assumption that the follower will be like the one who is followed. If the Son of Man has no place to lay his head, then neither will those who follow him. Does the would-be follower realize what he has promised? (NIB, 217).
To the first man, Jesus’ advice was, “Before you follow me, count the cost.” No one can ever say that he was induced to follow Jesus under false pretences. Jesus paid people the compliment of pitching His demands so high that they cannot be higher. It may well be that we have hurt the Church very seriously by trying to tell people that Church membership need not make so very much difference; we would be better to tell them that it must make ALL the difference in the world. We might have fewer people, but those we had would be totally pledged to Christ (Barclay, 133).
Jesus then calls another to follow him. This would-be follower asks for permission to “go and bury my father.” The duty to bury the dead was binding on all devout Jews. In Jewish folklore, for example, Tobit’s piety is demonstrated by his faithfulness in burying the dead, and his son, Tobias, takes seriously his duty as an only son to bury his father and mother. From the sparse context, it is not clear whether the father has already died. The one whom Jesus called may have been pledging to follow Jesus as soon as possible. First, however, came the responsibility to care for one’s parents for the rest of their lives (NIB, 217).
Jesus’ response is harsh. It demands that the priority of service to the kingdom be set ABOVE EVERY OTHER PRIORITY. The saying should probably be understood to mean, “Let the spiritually dead bury the physically dead.” Others who had not come alive to the sovereign rule of God, could discharge the duty of burying the dead. Again, the saying assumes implicit relationships. Those who have not responded to the call to the kingdom are like the dead, thus let the dead bury the dead. Those who have responded to the call to discipleship are no longer dead. Their concern should be with life and the living: “Go and proclaim the kingdom of God” (NIB, 217).
The point that Jesus was making is that in everything there is a crucial moment; if that moment is missed the thing most likely will never be done at all. This man in the story had stirrings in his heart to get out of his spiritually dead surroundings. If he missed the moment, he would never get out. The psychologists tell us that every time we have a fine feeling, if we do not act on that feeling at once, the less likely we are to act on it each time. The emotion becomes a substitute for the action. It is Jesus’ insistence that we must act at once when our hearts are stirred within us (Barclay, 133-134).
The third example is similar at points to each of the first two. The third would-be disciple offers to follow Jesus—as did the first—but asks to bid farewell to his family first, a milder version of the request made by the second. Both Jesus’ call, “Follow me,” and the disciple’s response echo I Kings 19:19-21, which records Elijah’s call to Elisha. Elisha, who was plowing at the time, responded, “Let me kiss my father and mother, and then I will follow you” (I Kings 19:20). The Elijah motif links this scene with earlier scenes with allusions to the expectation of the coming of one like Elijah. Unlike Elijah, however, Jesus will not let the would-be disciple turn aside from the call to follow him EVEN to bid farewell to his family. If one looks back while plowing, the furrow will be crooked. Therefore, building on this element of the story of the call of Elisha, Jesus emphasizes again the unconditional demand of the call to discipleship. On the way to the cross, there is no place for rash promises or misunderstanding regarding the cost of following Jesus (NIB, 217).
Jesus’ words to the third man state a truth which no one can deny. There are some whose hearts are in the past. They walk forever looking backwards and thinking wistfully of the good old days. Watkinson, the great preacher, tells how once at the seaside, when he was with his little grandson, they met an old minister. The old man was very disgruntled and, to add to all his troubles, he had a slight touch of sunstroke. The little boy had been listening, but had not picked it up quite correctly, and when they left the grumbling complaints of the old man, he turned to Watkinson and said, “Granddad, I hope YOU never suffer from a sunset!” The Christian marches on, not to the sunset, but to the dawn. The watchword of the Kingdom is not, “Backwards!” but “Forwards!” To this man, Jesus did not say either “Follow!” or “Return!” Rather, he said, “I accept no lukewarm service,” and left the man to make his own decision (Barclay, 134).
The final scene, which depicts the errors of would-be disciples who do not understand that Jesus is on the road leading to the cross in Jerusalem, challenges us with the radical demands of discipleship to which Jesus inevitably means UNCONDITIONAL COMMITMENT to the redemptive work of God for which Jesus gave his life. The disciple will be like the Lord. Therefore, one should not rush into discipleship with glib promises. On the contrary, the radical demands of discipleship require that every potential disciple consider the cost, give Jesus the highest priority in one’s life, and, having committed oneself to discipleship, move ahead without looking back (NIB, 217-218).
Had Jesus’ words “Take up your cross daily” never been spelled out concretely, they could have remained an ethereal ideal having the effect of background organ music or they could have sunk to some meaningless act of self-inflicted pain such as walking to work during Lent with a tack in one’s shoe. Here, however, Jesus’ words are translated into specific circumstances. The threefold pattern is, “I will follow,” “Follow me,” and “I will follow.” The one who has set his face like a firm stone to go to Jerusalem has no bargains to offer. “I am totally dependent on the hospitality of others; are you will to be?,” he says to the first volunteer. “Loyalty to me takes precedence over a primary filial obligation,” he says to the second prospective disciple. “I expect more from you than Elijah asked of Elisha” is his word to the third, also a volunteer. The radicality of Jesus’ words lies in his claim to priority over the best, not the worst, of human relationships. Jesus never said to choose him over the devil but to choose him over the family. And the remarkable thing is that those who have done so have been freed from possession and worship of family and have found the distance necessary to love them (Craddock, 144).
This sermon could have been entitled, simply, “Follow me.” Because Jesus didn’t say, get your affairs in order, say your farewells, get your life organized—and, then, follow me.
He said, in a very straightforward manner, “Follow me.” Make the decision for servanthood to Christ and “follow me.”
Focus not on the details and detritus of daily life, but rather on the ultimate goal of spreading the Good News of Jesus Christ, making disciples of all nations.
Let me share several stories with you.
Have you ever watched a stream of ants stretching between their anthill and a food source? Some will be going to pick up their load, others will be returning to deposit their prize in the recesses of the anthill. The whole process will be very organized, very precise. Then ask yourself, “Why are these ants so organized in their task?” The reason is that ants are good followers, each dependent on the ant in front of him to lead him to the food supply. Because each ant follows the other, there is a straight line between the anthill and the food—no wasted energy, no unnecessary detours. There is a lesson in that for would-be disciples (Green, 151).
Imagine a field covered with freshly-fallen snow. Off to the one side, you notice two figures entering the field. The first is larger than the second—perhaps they are a father and his son. As they walk across the field, you notice that the father pays no particular attention to where he is going, but his son, on the other hand, follows directly behind, making a special effort to step in his father’s footprints. After the two figures pass off the scene, you notice that there is only one set of tracks visible in the field, although two people had walked across it. The Christian life is that way. In our daily walk, we ought to be following Christ’s example, particularly in times when we are suffering. If someone were to observe the snow-covered fields of your life, would there be one set of tracks, those of Christ? Or would you see two sets—one belonging to Christ and the other distinctly yours? (Green, 53).
Finally, an illustration that reminds us what it means to surrender our lives to Christ. Why do people resist surrendering themselves to Christ? Think of some of the people who have long been on my list of heroes and heroines—Albert Schweitzer, Mother Teresa, Martin Luther King, Jr. All of them said, “Use me, Lord.” For many individuals, the reason they give for not surrendering their lives is that they don’t really trust God to handle their lives to their suiting. A young lady stood talking to an evangelist on the subject of consecration, of giving herself wholly to God. She said, “I dare not give myself wholly to the Lord, for fear He will send me out to China as a missionary.” The evangelist said, “If some cold, snowy morning a little bird should come, half-frozen, pecking at your window, and would let you take it in and feed it, thereby putting itself entirely in your power, what would you do? Would you grip it in your hand and crush it? Or would you give it shelter, warmth, food, and care?” A new light came into the girl’s eyes. She said, “Oh, now I see, I see. I can trust God!” Two years later, she again met the evangelist and recalled to him that incident. She told of how she had finally abandoned herself to God—and then her face lit up with a smile, and she said, “And do you know where God is going to let me serve Him?” Here, there was a twinkle in her eye—“In China!” (Hewett, 443-444).
Do you remember the words of the old Indian folk song?
I have decided to follow Jesus.
I have decided to follow Jesus.
I have decided to follow Jesus.
No turning back, no turning back.

Will you decide now to follow Jesus?
Will you decide now to follow Jesus?
Will you decide now to follow Jesus?
No turning back, no turning back.

Christ’s command was very direct and simple—“Follow me.” Don’t count the cost. Don’t make lists. Don’t wait to get your life organized. Accept your discipleship. “Follow me.”

References
Barclay, William. The Gospel of Luke. Philadelphia: The Westminster Press, 1956.
Craddock, Fred B. Luke: Interpretation. Louisville: John Knox Press, 1990.
Culpepper, R. Alan. The Gospel of Luke: The New Interpreter’s Bible, Vol. IX. Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1995.
Green, Michael P., Editor. 1500 Illustrations for Biblical Preaching. Grand Rapids, Michigan: Baker Books, 1989.
Hewett, James S., Editor. Illustrations Unlimited. Wheaton, Illinois: Tyndale House Publishers, Inc., 1988.
Miller, Donald G. The Gospel According to Luke, Volume 18, The Layman’s Bible Commentary, edited by Balmer H. Kelly. Richmond, Virginia: John Knox Press, 1963.