Luke 9:51-62
Gospel Reading for the Sixth Sunday After Pentecost (Year C)
So let me talk briefly about Lost, which is one of my all time favorite TV shows. Lost is the story of the passengers of Oceanic Flight 815 and their struggle to survive after their plane crashes on an island in the middle of the Pacific Ocean. But this was not any ordinary island. It was populated by polar bears, a crazy French lady, ghosts, a smoke monster, an old Spanish galleon, another crashed plane, a hatch that led to an underground bunker, and much, much more. By the time the show wrapped up there was time travel, deaths, resurrections, and more spiritual ruminations than you could shake a Bible verse-emblazoned walking stick at. I loved it. I loved it so much guys.
Through the first three seasons of the show, the action on the island was interspersed with flashback stories about one of the castaways. These flashbacks occurred in every episode and were a pillar of Lost's storytelling vocabulary. That is until the final scene of Season 3. Throughout that episode, the story about Jack, our flawed Doctor male protagonist, appeared to be just another flashback. Then in the final moments, he meets with Kate, our flawed ex-fugitive female protagonist. We learn that this flashback wasn't a flashback. It's a flashforward. At least Jack and Kate have gotten off the island, which is huge. But something is wrong. The scene and the season end with Jack screaming desperately at Kate as she walks away. "We have to go back, Kate! We have to go baaaaaack!"
I begin here because, as I have sat with this text these past couple of weeks, I have heard that panicked cry "We have to go back!" As Jesus and others try to move forward, the past is yelling after them. "Back" has a powerful gravitational pull. It pulls at Jesus as he sets his face toward Jerusalem. It pulls at James and John as they desire for some old time fire and brimstone. It pulls at three potential disciples as each comes face to face with the dark, difficult road that is following after Jesus. "We have to go back" is a cry that still calls out to you and I today. The past pulls at us, tugs at us, and beckons us.
We open with Jesus setting his face towards Jerusalem. The entire gospel of Luke pivots on this phrase. His momentum, his destination is his crucifixion, his resurrection, his ascension. From here the writer of Luke will mention 16 times that Jesus is on his way. He doesn't want the reader to forget the purpose and the goal.
The English phrase used here--"setting his face"--does not adequately convey what's going on. The Greek reads literally that Jesus "hardened his face to go." So imagine an athlete twisting his or her face in determination. Or perhaps think of the resolute stubbornness in the furrowed brow of, I don't know, a three year old or a six year old. You see that look in their face and you know that nothing is going to stop them.
This is no ordinary journey. As we know, Jesus is going to encounter rejection, abandonment, pain, and even death. This is a quest and one that makes the adventures of an Odysseus or a Frodo Baggins look like a stroll in the park. It would be easy for Jesus to turn his back on this difficult path. He did not have to go to Jerusalem.
I believe that Jesus, in addition to being fully God, was fully human and thus he had to have some fear about the road that was laid out before him. He had to hear that voice screaming "We have to go back!" But he doesn't look back. Last Sunday I was looking at the stained glass windows and I noticed in all of the pictures of Jesus' ministry his face is forward. With two exceptions, he is always focused on what is ahead. Jesus hardens his face, grits his teeth, and nothing will deter him. Not obstacles, pain, death, or rejection, the last of which is something he immediately encounters.
Jesus sends out messengers to prepare the way. Commentators think this was not just an act of setting up food and lodging, but of preaching the good news to the villages that lined the route to Jerusalem. In a certain Samaritan village, a pair of disciples get a less than warm reception. We have a religious schism here. The Judeans believe that God is to be worshipped in Jerusalem. The Samaritans at Mt. Gerizim. Having been rebuffed, James and John want to call down fire from heaven to scorch this inhospitable, non-receptive community. While this desire seems like an overreaction--granted one that we'd all like to employ at some point--it is not one without precedent.
The two are likely recalling an event found in 2 Kings 1:1-18 when the prophet Elijah twice sent fire down on an uncooperative Samaritan garrison to prove his "man of God" bona fides. The writer of Luke does his best to make sure that we draw the same connection between Jesus and the great Old Testament prophet. The language of "being taken up" in verse 51 echoes 2 Kings 2:1 in which God is about to take Elijah up into heaven. The three potential followers later in our gospel passage resemble Elisha thrice expressing his devotion in following Elijah. By drawing so tight a parallel with Elijah, James, John, and the reader are led to believe that Jesus will be a throwback to the prophet's actions.
The church and most organized institutions have this reputation for always trying to return to the glory days. We want to go back to how our church was in its heyday. We want to be like the church was 5 years ago, 20 years ago, 50 years ago. I had so many conversations in college about how the church needed to go back and be like the church we find in Acts. I pretty much co-wrote a dinner theater about that idea. The answer to all our ills and hiccups seem to be behind us. We want to make our church, our country great again.
But that greatness should always be labeled with an asterisk. Looking back, people were often excluded. Women couldn't be in leadership. People of different races were barred from fellowship. James and John wanted to exclude the Samaritans. Even in the church of Acts, there were some people who didn't want the Gentiles hanging around: a group which would envelop pretty much all of us. All of which is to say we often romanticize the past. Sometimes that results in stagnation. We try to recapture some nostalgic ideal and it's like chasing after the wind. Other times that impulse to go back can be more destructive and this was the case with the Sons of Thunder in our passage. They wanted to violently harm those they saw as different, which is an action we have seen all too recently and all too frequently in our world.
But Jesus rebukes the James and John. Luke echoes Elijah not to harken back to some halcyon day, but as a foundation upon which to build. Jesus is like Elijah, but he is more than a retread. Jesus is greater than the great prophet. And he won't rain down fire. He won't go back to the prejudices that have divided his people and the Samaritans for so long. In fact, in less than a chapter Jesus will tell one of his most famous parables in which a Samaritan embodies one who is full of God's love and mercy. In Acts, Jesus will tell his followers to take the Good News to Samaria. Where the disciples saw an enemy to be consumed by heavenly fire, Jesus saw a bigger picture in which those traditionally thought to be outsiders would be part of God's community. Don't look back lest you miss new people who could be your brothers and sisters.
Such a great prophet would draw wannabe followers and that is precisely what happens as we move forward. The first individual comes and says that he will follow Jesus wherever he goes. The teacher warns him that, unlike foxes and birds, he has nowhere to call home. To follow Jesus is to forsake the basic security of having a place to lay your head.
Jesus asks a second to follow him and that individual requests to first be able to bury his father. This seems like a perfectly reasonable and acceptable request. Which is why Jesus' response is so jarring: "Let the dead bury their own dead."
The third requests to first say goodbye to his family. Again, reasonable and again Jesus challenges: "No one who puts a hand to the plow and looks back is fit for the Kingdom of God." Don't look back. Here we see another echo of Elijah. When called, Elisha had one request, to go and tell his parents goodbye. Elijah permitted him to go back. Jesus is saying that he requires more than Elijah asked of Elisha.
These last verses put me in kind of a difficult spot. It's way easier for me to call out James and John for looking back with their desire to incinerate the Samaritans. Yet I feel sympathy for these three. I could try to do some scriptural gymnastics and get everyone, including a callous-sounding Jesus, off the hook.
Unfortunately I came across this note from Fred Craddock: "For the preacher of the text to look for loopholes by impugning the motives of the three or by assuming that the father of the second man is not yet dead and may live for years is to trivialize the passage. The radicality of Jesus' words lie 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." Well, thanks a lot, Fred.
The frustrating thing is that Fred and Jesus are right. As Franciscan priest Richard Rohr once noted, "Before the truth 'sets you free,' it tends to make you miserable." As harsh as it sounds, the radical words of Jesus have their merits. Looking back, even at the best things, destroys all momentum.
In high school, I was not an impressive runner; maybe a B or B-. Yet if I saw a runner look back at me, I knew that he was mine. I knew that I would catch him before the race was over. My competitor was more concerned with what was behind rather than focused on his goal. As Hall of Fame pitcher Satchel Paige once said, "Don't look back. Something might be gaining on you." Like Jesus, we have to set our face forward lest the things that drag us down gain ground. If we are to truly follow Jesus then all else must be secondary.
So I have a confession to make: I am not a good person to preach this sermon. Despite having made a profession of faith at the age of 7, despite being around church and ministry my entire life, and despite earning a degree from seminary, I am frequently a person who looks back. I will fix my eyes on the angels and devils behind me that I know rather than following Jesus on his quest out into the unknown. It's so much easier to do so and if you're good enough at it, you can trick yourself into thinking that looking back is what you were supposed to do.
Let me give an example. Each summer growing up, I had the wonderful privilege to be at and then later work at a church youth camp run by my parents. I got to spend time with college and seminary students who loved Jesus and even took interest in a dorky kid like me. Those summers were invaluable to my spiritual development. But when I returned home for the fall, I always wanted to go back. I wanted to go back to the comfort, a place where I believed that I was loved. Those camps were a good place. I believed that by looking back I was aiming to hold on to the spirituality that was alive in that place. But yearning to go back kept me many times from fully living out my life in the present. I was reaching back for a holy ground that was gone and was missing the sacred places in my midst.
Why is the pull to look back so strong? We look back because it is a known quantity. There's safety in that and we crave that security. Even when bad things are back there, we'll opt for its familiarity. Too often we'd rather roll around in the wreckage, reopening the same wounds again and again rather than follow Jesus into a resurrected life. Sometimes I think we choose the struggle over following because it gives us ample excuse to not be about what God is doing in the world. I know there are many times in my life where that has been true.
So I can see myself in these potential followers and I suspect most of us in this room can do the same. "Jesus, I'll follow you, but first let me deal with this massive insecurity that I have around people. I am scared about what others think about me or whether they like me, so let me get that straight and then I'll follow you." "I'll follow you, Jesus, but first let me finish school. Then I need to get a job. Then I want to meet someone, start a family, and raise that family." Jesus, I'll follow you but first...fill in the blank. I'm angry and I want to sit in that. I want to have fun right now. I have to find the right fit for me. I have this hang up, this responsibility, this want, this sin. I've got to go back and deal with that first.
Yet here Jesus is telling us that we cannot look back. Now this doesn't mean that once we follow Jesus that the past vanishes, our hurts are magically healed, or there won't be repercussions. We can learn from the past, even celebrate it. We can build off its foundation. We remember what has gone before us. But if we are to follow God then our eyes must be firmly fixed ahead of us.
As the writer of Hebrew puts it, "Since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight and the sin that clings so closely and let us run with perseverance the race that is set before us looking to Jesus the pioneer and perfected of our faith, who for the sake of the joy that was set before him endured the cross, disregarding its shame, and has taken his seat at the right hand of the throne of God."
God is ever calling us forward to share the love overflowing from the Gospel in all that we say and do. This quest is difficult and littered with obstacles. There is pain, abandonment, and rejection that lies ahead. We will be asked to sacrifice many things. We will encounter new people and new situations. We will be uncomfortable and want to go back to our safe familiarity. But we cannot go back. We cannot look back.
Luke never tells us what became of these three potential followers. They may have gone after Jesus. They may have retreated home. We don't know. By leaving the story open-ended, Luke slides the question across the table to the reader. To you. To me. To this church. Will we follow Jesus and not look back?
