Proper 8C
June 30, 2019
Galatians 5:1,13-25 You were called to freedom…do not use your freedom as an opportunity for self-indulgence.
Luke 9:51-62 Follow me.
O God of our ground of all being, grant us the strength, the wisdom and the courage to seek always and everywhere after truth, come when it may, and cost what it will.
Last week I gave you some homework: to re-read or pray with Psalm 42 to help you acknowledge your thirst for the Divine; to disable or dial down the “better-than/worse-than” calculators that are always running in our brains and using up power like background apps on a smart phone or like clocks on kitchen appliances. And finally, to tell others what the Holy One has done for you. How did it go? If you missed the assignment or the dog ate your homework, it’s okay. You’re here – that’s the important thing! Thank you for being here. Church is one place in life where you get full credit just for showing up!
If you’re going to seek after truth, though, it’s going to cost you. Today, all three of our scripture readings have things to say about the costs of following great teachers and apostles and prophets who plead with folks to eschew idolatry and injustice, which means the uneven or uncompassionate distribution of resources and mercy. All three of our scripture readings are about the cost of discipleship – the cost of being a seeker of greater truth.
In our Hebrew Bible lesson this morning we have the curious story from 2 Kings about how Elisha got the power and the authority to carry on Elijah’s work after Elijah was gone – after Elijah was “taken up.” Elisha had been travelling with and learning from Elijah for many years. He had burned his farming equipment and slaughtered his oxen, thus destroying his means of income, his livelihood, and he left his home so that he could travel with the prophet Elijah. (Many years and a lot of miles have passed in the story of Elijah since our reading from last week!) When Elijah asks Elisha what he can do for him before he’s taken away, Elisha asks for a double portion of Elijah’s spirit. According to Biblical scholars, this is an allusion to the inheritance designated by law to go to the first born. The double portion actually means 2/3 of an estate. [1] But in this case, Elisha is not Elijah’s son, and it’s not property that Elijah has or that Elisha wants. It’s the “mouth” or the “edge” of Elijah’s spirit that Elisha is hoping to inherit. Elijah’s response is – “ooh that’s a hard thing that you’re asking for.” Elijah knows that “twice his mouth, a double edge” is going to be a hard way to live! Elisha did go on to perform twice as many wonderous deeds as his predecessor, and he is revered by Jews, Christians, and Muslims.
In Paul’s letter to the Galatians, he’s writing about the cost of freedom. He’s arguing that the Galatians were free from the burdens of conditions of membership that others were trying to place on them. They were free from behavioral codes that other Jesus-followers were asserting. (The important point for us is that this isn’t a Christianity v. Judaism argument – it’s one of a group of Jesus missionaries –that is, Paul– arguing with another group of Jesus missionaries.) Paul was asserting that codes and conditions that the others were trying to impose don’t count. The only thing that counts is faith working, or made effective, through love of one’s neighbor. “Neighbor” in both Testaments of the Bible, means any person encountered in every day life, or someone with whom one shares a boundary, or someone with whom there is an intimacy, or a fellow citizen. [2] But lest you think that that definition excludes anyone, the Torah instructs that anyone who resides in your land must be treated as the citizens are treated: you shall love the alien as yourself as well as your neighbor as yourself. In Galatians, Paul is asserting that it’s all for, and only for the purpose of loving one another that we have been made free in Christ. Loving one another is the great benefit and loving one another entails great cost.
And then there’s our reading from Luke. It usually strikes churchy folks as harsh. Jesus rebuked his disciples, then in response to three different people who told Jesus that they wanted to follow him, he warned that he was homeless – even bed-less, that family obligations must be disregarded, and that even saying farewell to those at home before following Jesus makes one unfit for the realm of God. This is a hard Gospel lesson to say “Praise to you Lord Christ” after. I think that folks who talk about upholding Biblical family values are not reading the scriptures very closely.
In Luke’s account, Jesus had begun his journey toward Jerusalem where he would be “taken up.” (Taken up is just what happened to Elijah). He was looking for some hospitality along the way, and when he encountered hostility instead, his associates enthusiastically offered to annihilate the people who did not receive Jesus. Now we’re not talking about a lack of hospitality like they didn’t invite him in for tea. This lack of hospitality in biblical times was a matter of life and death, and offering hospitality to travelers was a fundamental obligation. (It still is, by the way.) The disciples were right to be incensed. Still, Jesus must have been thinking, “how many times do I have to tell these guys that violence only begets more violence? We don’t command fire to come down from the sky and consume our enemies.”
It seems that the lack of hospitality and the disciples’ knee jerk response to retaliate put Jesus in a very bad mood because next, as they were going along the road, someone said to him, “I will follow you wherever you go.” Rather than expressing his gratitude, Jesus’ response was a warning not to be naïve – that he had nowhere to lay his head. Jesus warned that following him would not be at all comfortable or safe.
Another person came along and Jesus said, “Follow me.” The person said, “First let me go and bury my father.” In other words, “I have a family obligation, then I’ll get back to you.” But Jesus said to him, “Let the dead bury their own dead; but as for you, go and proclaim the realm of God.” This is what sounds shocking and downright offensive. Now I don’t want to make excuses for Jesus, (he certainly had reason to be grumpy) but I am persuaded by the opinion in the Greek lexicon [3] that this saying is an idiom, an adage that means, “the matter in question is not the real issue,” or “that is not the point.” Just like we might say to someone, “that’s apples and oranges,” meaning, “you’re talking about two different things.” In our idiomatic conversation, we don’t mean literally that someone is talking about fruit. The lexicon suggests that Jesus is not talking literally about dead people burying other dead people. Jesus was saying, “your family obligations are not the real issue…[That’s] not what’s keeping you from following me….go and announce the justice and peace of God.”
And a third person 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 realm of God.” This doesn’t sound as offensive as simply impossible. Who among us doesn’t look back from time to time or wouldn’t want to say goodbye to our family before we embark on a journey? But Jesus likens saying goodbye to looking back while operating a plow. A plow in Jesus’ time required constant focused attention. Diverting one’s attention from unruly oxen even for a short while could lead to disaster. The modern day analogy might be driving down the highway while fixing one’s eyes on the rear-view mirror.
I think Jesus is saying that following him is not for those who require comfort, for those who are ambivalent or distracted or faint of heart. Jesus, conscious of the inevitability of suffering, seems to be saying, “I’m wild – not domesticated and my good news is not house-broken,” [4] as one of my colleagues puts it. Perhaps following Jesus is most difficult for those who have a lot to lose. Grant Gallup, an Episcopal priest who worked in Nicaragua said, “The hard fact of the matter is that most of us, most of the time don’t want to follow Jesus, we want Him to follow us. We would like him to be available to us as we go on our self-appointed rounds, to keep us safe, well fed and tucked into warm beds at night, protected on our way, our travel maps and plans in our glove compartments, our credit cards at the ready. We will get our ‘post it’ notes off the refrigerator door and see what it is we will do today, what we will buy, what we will sell, where we will go… for we prefer being the mentor and the guide.” But when Jesus is saying “follow me,” he wants a commitment to the good news for the poor. He wants a massive change – a revolution in our lifestyle, a seismic shift in our attention and focus on the future well-being of those who are not faring well at all.[5]
But in case we hear those three accounts of folks who aren’t fit to follow and wonder how we or anyone we know could make the cut, in the very next verse, Luke writes, “after this the Lord appointed seventy others and sent them on ahead of him in pairs to every town and place where he himself intended to go. That makes me think that maybe it’s really hard to be fit to follow, but the standards for going out ahead to prepare a place for the Lord are not impossibly high – you just need a buddy! Maybe what we are fit for is being the advance team, the warm-up band, the stagehands or roadies. Maybe our version of the question, “what would Jesus do,” can be “where does Jesus need us to be?” If you want more homework this week, meditate on that question. It’s a communal question. What would Jesus want for the people that we encounter in all of the places he intends to go? Probably in addition to love, it’s mercy, and food and clothing and shelter and friendship — come when it may and cost what it will.