This is the text of the message I prepared for Kaniva Shared Ministry and The Serviceton Church for Sunday 26th June 2022.
2 Kings 2:1-2, 6-14; Galatians 5:1, 13-25; Luke 9:51-62
Last week I didn’t quite share some bad news with you. I told you that I had received an unwelcome story in the mail, and that it had upset my apple cart a bit. This week in our reading from the gospel we get a lesson for such a time as that: maintain your focus no matter what the cost. In Luke 9 we read how Jesus was denied entry and accommodation to a Samaritan town because he was going to Jerusalem. In the next paragraph Jesus warned those who would follow him to Jerusalem that they too would face sleeping on the road. Then he invites a potential follower but that man was too busy trying to get his inheritance. Similarly a man who wants to join the progression on his own terms is told to not wait but follow immediately.
This is not just another a travel journey, it’s a major shift in focus for Jesus and for world history. Unlike John where Jesus is in and out of Jerusalem quite a few times in his three and a half years of active ministry, in Luke (as in Mark and Matthew) Jesus is only on the road for a year, and he only goes to Jerusalem once. He begins in ministry in Galilee, and then (at Luke 9:51) he turns toward Jerusalem and spends the next ten chapters walking toward his death and his glory. So that’s what’s going on here, Jesus has just turned his face and begun the big walk South; he’s a man on a mission and he’s spruiking that mission to the people around him.
For freedom Christ has set us free. Stand firm, therefore, writes Paul to the Church in Galatia, because those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires. If we live by the Spirit let us also be guided by the Spirit. (Galatians 5:1, 24-25). There are many sermons that can be preached on these verses, and it wasn’t so long ago that I spoke to Kaniva’s combined churches about the fruit of the Spirit. I hope you remember that an orange that is sour is a bad orange, it cannot self-identify as a grapefruit; and that a Christian who is loving and kind but not self-controlled similarly cannot say “well I’m a 7/9 in the fruits and that’s okay”. One fruit, nine characteristics. Today let’s take a different look at the same verses alongside what we have just read from the Jesus Tradition. Discipleship requires us to persevere, with the fruit in all of its character, but with a focus on the goal. The freedom you have in Christ is not a lack of control, but liberation from all of the stuff that is not Christ. You are freed from sin and guilt and habit, released from a yoke of slavery to follow Jesus. As was Jesus departing Galilee, so Paul sees each Christian as a woman or man on a mission: Paul commends to us a similar determination and strategy to stay on course, and on cause. Yoke yourself to Christ, be the bondservants of each other in The Church, and let your self-indulgent flesh-life go the way of all flesh to the grave.
In our story from the Hebrew Traditions and 2 Kings 2 today we get another reminder of the call to stay focussed, and to ignore the voices of distraction. I like this story a lot, it makes me laugh how determined Elisha is to shut out the voices of the doomsayers. “Yeah I know, just shut up would youse” he says to the bands of prophets at a distance. For the second week in a row the Lectionary has cut out the good bit so we didn’t get to hear that today; although we do get to hear Elisha speaking just as much Strayan when he tells Elijah to “stop telling me to stop, I’m coming alright and you can’t make me stay here.” Elisha is staying the course and the cause; he knows what he wants, he know where to get it, and he’s not stopping until he gets to the place and gets what he wants, despite what Elijah and the bands of prophets at a distance are telling him. And he does get it: Elijah’s mantle is powerful in Elisha’s hands, doubly so when you read the whole story of Elisha.
In the various translations and commentaries I referred to this week I found that in Luke 9:51 Jesus is described as resolutely determined, or in words similar. He hasn’t just turned left or faced south, he’s done more even than set the satnav for The Church of The Holy Sepulchre, Jesus had decided to be unstoppable and unwavering in his walk to Jerusalem. Jesus takes the fullest notice of the time and, understanding that the fulness of time has come, he sends messengers ahead of him at each point to prepare for his arrival at the next point. It is while they are underway and travelling that they come across the recalcitrance of this Samaritan village; but we are told that Jesus takes it all in his stride and simply seeks alternative accommodation. He’s on a mission from God, he’s here to save the world, he hasn’t got time to waste on petty squabbles with petty foreigners. Jesus is a man on a mission of salvation, so he’s not interested in pausing to call down destruction upon anybody, no matter how personally insulting they were to him.
I wonder how we go as disciples with this model of diminishing self-interest. Jesus doesn’t acknowledge the hurt of being denied accommodation, even though the hurt is fully recognised and displayed by the Boanerges brothers. Elijah had indeed called down fire upon people who insulted him, (you see it in 2 Kings 1:10-12, just before the Elisha story we read today), and not only did God send the fire in answer to Elijah’s prayer God also honoured Elijah with a glorious and spectacular ascension. But Jesus doesn’t do that, Jesus rejects anything that distracts him from his goal; Jesus rejects the threat to his majesty by travelling the path of humility and forgiveness against rudeness and rejection, and he sets an example for his companions on the road. Do we follow Christ along the way with such unconditional love for the world he saves, and uncompromising attention to his call? I think the answer is actually “mostly, yes” rather than “no”; we are Christians here and most of us get it right most of the time, thanks to Holy Spirit for guiding and teaching us as we walk.
When Jesus decides to pass through Samaria with a determination to reach Jerusalem he has changed his lifestyle. I’ve already said that he’s leaving local ministry around Galilee to go to Jerusalem, but this is not only a geographical change. Jesus used to pop up in a new Galilean town every now and then and hang around a bit for ministry. Now he’s in transit and he stops only to sleep and eat. Maybe the Samaritan village took that as a slight, an offence to them in the sense that “well he stayed in Capernaum for months, but he won’t even stay a second night in our town,” grizzle. “Fine then, if you’re not gonna stay here and take a few photos of our plastic sheep then you’re not gonna stay here at all!” When you choose a nomadic existence in life and live “only passing through” you cause offence and you attract opposition; and when you, choose to prioritise vision and purpose for the Kingdom’s cause over domestic obligations you cause offence and you attract opposition, even when you are not intending to be rude.
Even if you can set aside self-interest and the yoke of sin, and you live within freedom for which Christ has set you free, how do you deal with the life-interests of others in you? How do you live by the Spirit and do not gratify the desires of the flesh when Jesus seems to be saying that you can’t even delay your departure from the old life long enough to kiss goodbye to your parents, spouse and kids?
Discipleship is painful, and from the outside it might look hurtful; but it is never to be spiteful, nor is it to be arrogant. Paul reminds his disciples to not become conceited, competing against one another, (Galatians 5:26a). There are no Frequent Martyr Points for the ones who shun their families the hardest. No, be resolutely determined to live by the Spirit, bearing fruit with nine flavoursome characteristics, and submitting to one another in love, delighting in the service of others and their service of you. Discipleship is a radical change; Jesus might not have been killed if he had stayed in Galilee, but then he wasn’t born just to die of old age in Sepphoris, was he? No, Jesus was resolute and determined, but he also was provided with meals and naps and friends, and with the salvation of his family through his consistency to the cause of the Kingdom and course of his ministry under God.
Maintain your focus, and like Elijah beneath the broom tree last week let God maintain you.
Amen.
damienwrites 