START WITH SCRIPTURE:
Luke 9:51-62
CLICK HERE TO READ SCRIPTURE ON BIBLEGATEWAY.COM
OBSERVE:
Now we begin to experience a change in tone in the Gospel of Luke. The tone becomes more somber. Jesus has been an itinerant preacher and healer in Galilee and its environs up until this moment. Now Jesus grimly turns toward his inevitable cross:
When the days drew near for him to be taken up, he set his face to go to Jerusalem.
There is almost the sense that Jesus is preparing a campaign to “march” on Jerusalem. Much as a king might do, he sends an advance team of emissaries to prepare the way:
he sent messengers ahead of him.
Jesus chooses not to take the more circuitous route from Galilee to Jerusalem, which would have taken him east and south along the Jordan River. Instead, he takes the more direct route through non-Jewish Samaria that lay between Galilee and Judea.
He is not welcomed there. We are reminded of the implacable hostility between Samaritans and Jews. According to 2 Kings 17, when the Assyrians conquered the Northern Kingdom of Israel in 722 B.C., the Israelites were deported. The Assyrians then gave their lands and cities to colonists from Cutha, Babylon, Hamath and other places. These colonists adopted some of the religious practices of the native Israelites who remained, but were never considered by the Jews to be true worshipers of the Lord. Their center of worship was Mount Gerizim in Samaria, not Jerusalem. A good analogy might be the modern conflict between Sunni and Shiite Moslems.
When the Samaritans refused to offer hospitality to Jesus and his entourage, it was:
because his face was set toward Jerusalem.
James and John go ballistic when they experience this hostility. Not for nothing does Jesus elsewhere call them the Sons of Thunder (Mark 3:17):
When his disciples James and John saw it, they said, “Lord, do you want us to command fire to come down from heaven and consume them?”
Jesus’ agenda in Samaria is not to alienate the Samaritans. As we will see in Luke and Acts, Samaria will become a mission field for the disciples in the future. So his answer to the Sons of Thunder is this:
he turned and rebuked them. Then they went on to another village.
However, Jesus’ passage through Samaria does elicit interest from some would-be followers. Jesus is still in Samaria:
As they were going along the road, someone said to him, “I will follow you wherever you go.”
Here we see the realism of discipleship. Jesus is no salesman or politician trying to sell a product or garner votes. He has stern words of warning to would-be followers, advising them that there is a cost to following him:
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.”
In other words, he is saying, are you willing to give up the comforts and security of home to follow me?
In another instance, Jesus takes the initiative and invites someone to follow him — but the invitee demurs:
“Lord, first let me go and bury my father.” But Jesus said to him, “Let the dead bury their own dead; but as for you, go and proclaim the kingdom of God.”
We don’t know the back story of this man — was his father dead, or dying, or aging? What Jesus is accentuating is the urgency of bringing new life to the world by proclaiming the kingdom of God. He is looking forward to life, not backward to death.
And then there is an encounter that sounds hauntingly like the response of Elisha when Elijah threw his mantle over Elisha’s shoulders in 1 Kings 19:19-20. (Click here for this week’s lectionary post on Elijah and Elisha.)
Jesus seems to reprimand the would-be follower for making excuses about following him.
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 a hand to the plow and looks back is fit for the kingdom of God.”
His words about the hand on the plow and looking back are a vivid image. We are reminded that Elisha was plowing with oxen when Elijah called him, and Elisha promptly slaughtered them and offered them as a sacrifice to the Lord. But Elisha kissed his father and mother goodbye before joining Elijah.
The call of Jesus doesn’t even leave room for farewells.
Here, Jesus seems to be saying that the plow represents the work of proclaiming the kingdom of God. Anyone who looks back in regret or wistfulness instead of keeping their eyes focused on the kingdom of God will not be a good worker. Any plowman knows that not keeping one’s eye on the furrows ahead makes for crooked rows!
APPLY:
We will not always be welcomed when we proclaim the Gospel of Jesus Christ — especially in these perplexing times. There are many “Samaria’s” all around us where the Gospel is unwelcome — intellectually, culturally, and morally.
That is why when we undertake to follow Jesus, we must be clear about the cost. Discipleship is not always comfortable, and may actually take us away from responsibilities and relationships at home.
Jesus does not promise that following him will be easy, but he does promise that the rewards are great. A little later in the Gospel of Luke, Peter will plaintively say “we have left our homes to follow you.” And Jesus says to him:
“Truly I tell you, there is no one who has left house or wife or brothers or parents or children, for the sake of the kingdom of God, who will not get back very much more in this age, and in the age to come eternal life.” (Luke 18:29-30).
RESPOND:
I have experienced a deep tension in my ministry over the past decade or so. When I entered the ministry some 36 years ago, the denomination was declining and the emphasis was on church growth, church growth, church growth. We were encouraged to be “seeker sensitive” and “attractional.”
But when I read the accounts of Jesus’ ministry I see that he set the bar high for discipleship — and when he began to bear down on the truth, many people stopped following him. The crowds dwindled from the thousands to a handful who were with him in the Garden and at the Cross.
And I thought of my own Christian tradition, and the emphasis of John Wesley on classmeetings and accountable discipleship. He did not mind losing members who weren’t upholding their vows to obey the rules of the Methodist societies.
And I remember reading a Latin American theologian named Juan Luis Segundo who challenged me to think that “heroic minorities” in the Christian church would have a greater impact on society than “consumer majorities” of Christians who came to be entertained and catered to.
We fall all over ourselves to get members on our membership rolls. Jesus is interested in making disciples, not church members.
Winston Churchill gave a speech after becoming Prime Minister of Great Britain, while his country was in a desperate struggle for survival against the Nazis. He said:
I have nothing to offer but blood, toil, tears and sweat. We have before us an ordeal of the most grievous kind. We have before us many, many long months of struggle and of suffering. You ask, what is our aim? I can answer in one word: Victory. Victory at all costs—Victory in spite of all terror—Victory, however long and hard the road may be, for without victory there is no survival.
I believe those words apply just as well to the Christian disciple who takes his/her call seriously, and looks forward to the ultimate victory.
Lord, following you is difficult at times. Sometimes, to be honest, the difficulty lies in the temptation to please people instead of challenging them; it lies in seeking security and comfort rather than daring to take you seriously and take a stand or go to risky places. When you call me, please empower me to do what you ask. Amen.
PHOTOS: "...Just Text" by Joshua Ommen is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 2.0 Generic license.
SOAR Lectionary Bible Study 