PENTECOST 4

May my words and my thoughts be acceptable to you, O Lord, my refuge and my redeemer. (Psalm 19:14)

SEASON: PENTECOST 4
PROPER: 8C
PLACE: St. John's Parish, Kingsville
DATE: July 1, 2001

TEXT: Luke 9:51-62 – Another said, “I will follow you Lord; but let me first say farewell to those at home.” Jesus said to him, “No one who puts a hand to the plow and looks back is fit for the kingdom of God.”

See also:
I Kings 19:15-16, 19-21 – Elijah casts his mantle on Elisha.

Galatians 5:1,13-25 – There is no law against the fruit of the Spirit: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control.

ISSUE: There is no escaping the fact that the Gospel of Jesus is quite radical. There’s just no turning back; the embracing of the message of Christ and the Spirit of God has urgency in the world we live in. We need to release ourselves from the ties and bondages and boldly follow Jesus Christ.

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This is the season when we Americans give thanks and rejoice in the revolutionary spirit of our forefathers. We celebrate our Declaration of Independence from oppression and tyranny. We cherish our freedom and long to be forever free. We celebrate a great country, as well we should. The longing to be free is rooted in our history, as well as in our Judaic-Christian tradition. You’ve probably heard it said that we should not mix religion and politics. We quickly forget that much of the Hebrew Scriptures were related to the politics of the time: Moses delivers his people from oppression and bondage. Both prophets Samuel and Nathan influence the political reign of King David. Jesus himself challenged the politics and political leaders of his time. It was the political leaders, you will recall, that condemned him to crucifixion. Jesus was radical in his time, a fact often suppressed by sentimental religion that makes Jesus too saccharine. We turn him too much into a protestant personal savior, and miss the real impact Jesus had on the community as a whole, and savior of the world.
Look first at the reading this morning from I Kings (19:15-16,19-21). The great Hebrew prophet is called to an intervention into the politics of his time. God directs Elijah to anoint rulers, Hazael as king over Aram, and Jehu as king over Israel. He also appoints a successor for himself to continue the prophetic ministry. Actually, it is actually the successor to Elijah, Elisha, who will make the political anointing. It is actually the prophets of God involved in revolution to remove pagan, corrupt, and oppressive governments for the benefit of God’s people.
There’s an interesting contrast between our Hebrew Scripture reading this morning and the Christian reading from Luke (9:51-62). When Elijah appoints Elisha as the successor prophet, Elisha asks permission to kiss father and mother goodbye. Permission is granted, and Elisha returns to his family and offers a great sacrifice of his twelve oxen, which indicates that Elisha is well off, and has much to leave behind. Sacrificing the oxen, he gives the meat to the people, and becomes the servant of his prophet mentor Elijah. As prophet of God with Elijah he participates in the liberation movement.
In the Christian Scripture from Luke, we have Jesus prepared to go to Jerusalem, the religious-political center of the land. His urgency is striking in his attempt to go through Samaritan territory, where no hospitality will be extended. His disciples are ready to call down fire and brimstone upon the Samaritans for their insult, but Jesus is not out for revenge. He is intent on Jerusalem. Someone offers to go with him, and he reminds the man that foxes have holes, and birds their nests, but the Son of Man will have no place to lay his head in this difficult time. To another person Jesus says, “Follow me.” (Interesting that he doesn’t say, “Would you like to be a volunteer in my movement.”) It is the urgent imperative, “Follow me.” To those he calls, not unlike Elisha, they want to return home first to make arrangements for their parents, and to say farewell. Yet from Jesus you get a very radical reply, “Let the dead bury their own dead; but as for you, go and proclaim the kingdom of God.”. . . . . . “No one who puts a hand to the plow and looks back is fit for the kingdom of God.” This statement was very radical in the sense that the Commandment to honor father and mother implied their appropriate burial. For Jesus, for the early church, there was the imperative to set oppressed people spiritually free, to long for justice, to hunger and thirst for righteousness and justice, to enable them to realize their dignity in the sight and eyes of God. Please don’t get hung up on this saying from a literal interpretation. The radical issue is the Kingdom of God is different, unique, and unlike the world and its binding traditions and anti-religious cultures. We don’t turn back, because the cause of Christ, the coming of the Realm of God is embraced with urgency and undivided attention.
The mission of Jesus is to bring the expendable people, the lost and alienated back into a relationship with the God of Love and forgiveness. He rejected the aspects of the culture and religious life that hampered or got in the way of that mission. Personal success, i.e. a place to lay your head, when others had no place to lay theirs either called for an imperative and urgent mission. Oral traditions and rules that prevented people from a potential relationship with God were to be abandoned.
St. Paul in the Galations (5:1, 13-25) picks up on this theme: “For freedom, Christ has set us free.” In a world where be fight and bite and involve themselves in all forms of violence and hostility, greed, and constant self-gratification you nothing more than a constant consumption of one another, a spiritual cannibalism. There is a great need for the spiritual realm of God where Spiritual things abide that are not against the law: love, gentleness, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. These are the things of which the Kingdom of God is made, and are urgently needed. Christ call the world to freedom, freedom from all that destroys and oppresses us, that makes us less than human, and less than being in the image of God. Freedom requires responsibility, faith, trust, loyalty, and self-control or self-involvement in the mission of Jesus Christ. All else is bondage to the past, to the world’s way of thinking, to eye for eye mentality, to spiritual emptiness.
Most of us Americans think of ourselves as blessed. In many ways we are. We are relatively secure. We possess considerable power among the nations of the world. We are rich as a country. Even poverty in this country is not poverty like in other nations around the world. We have one of the best forms of democratic government. We are free to worship. And we are a relatively free people. But we are not perfect. Our government is not perfect, and neither is our Episcopal Church. Some of our so-called blessings may in fact lull us into a most unfortunate complacency and apathy. We are surrounded by the sickness of drug abuse. Family life is threatened. Racism and significant hostility with people who differ from us abounds in our society. These kinds of evil impoverish us spiritually and keep us in fear and bondage. If our systems, our traditions, our laws, our culture perpetuate such conditions, then changes must be made. Jesus was calling for a breaking free, free from the bondages and the fears of the world and make urgent and bold leap of faith into the future, and to the change that resonates with God’s Kingdom. For Jesus and the early church the need was urgent. Such urgency for the Christian and for the church of today has not gone away.
We must guard against, as a church and as individuals, complacency and minimal generosity that keep us personally comfortable and that keeps us arranging things for our own personal families, personal lives, and benefits. By our baptisms we were made a part of a much larger family, the Family of God. Some of the most difficult passages of the Christian Scriptures deal with how Jesus dealt with his own family. He seemed removed from them. At the very least he saw the potential for reclaiming the Kingdom of God, a community of power that embraced the love of God for all people, and turned all people into his brothers and sisters. He had such a broad and hopeful confident vision that he himself embraced with urgent mission. Servanthood with Christ Jesus is the real liberation, the perfect freedom that sets us free from an otherwise oppressive world.
Everyone today is familiar with the number 911. Even some of the smallest children can dial up 911 in an emergency. When we see trouble, an accident, an injury, most of us respond promptly by dialing 911 to get help. It is the human thing to do. Think of what it is like if you are the person in need. When you’re hurting you want quick relief. In an emergency, it is best that on lookers act quickly and responsibly. You don’t want them to say, let me check at home first, or get the kids off to school first. Jesus saw a world in urgent need for a new way, for God’s spiritual presence. For him it was urgent and he didn’t ask for help much or for volunteers. He appointed it: “Follow me and keep your hand to the plow and the human need that lies ahead, and be fit and trim for the real world, The Kingdom of God.