Sermon by Stuart Pike

Photo Credit: Sandy Darling

Sermon Text:

Today’s Gospel lesson marks a pivotal change in the Gospel of Luke. Up until now Jesus has been teaching and healing and performing miracles. His fame has grown and he has developed quite a reputation. One commentator I heard says that if this Gospel were cinematic, at this point in the film, the rooster on top of the barn would change direction.

From now on, Jesus is facing a new direction. Luke’s code language is telling: “he set his face to go to Jerusalem.” It doesn’t just mean he’s heading to the big city, it means all that will happen when he has gone there for the last time. It means he is heading for his long journey of self-sacrifice – even to the point of death, and beyond. It means he has accepted what he has to do, and he is choosing this difficult path.

Many of the stories up until now have been stories that we get in other Gospels. They might have a different take, a different emphasis, but we can recognize them. Now, however, most of the stories going forward are ones only covered in the Gospel of Luke. There are themes of hospitality, going forward, as well as themes of either reception and acceptance, or rejection of Jesus.

This theme of hospitality (or lack of it) and reception vs rejection is illustrated at the beginning of the Gospel.

Because Jesus has set his face to go to Jerusalem the people of the Samaritan village reject Jesus; they will not offer him hospitality. The immediate response of the disciples, James and John is amazing and alarming! “Shall we call down fire upon the town? they ask.”

Have these disciples learned anything about Jesus in the time that they have been with him? You really don’t want to mess with these guys. No wonder Jesus, elsewhere, calls these two the Sons of Thunder. If these two wer in the movie Apocalypse Now, they would be the ones to say, “I love the smell of napalm in the morning.”

Fortunately Jesus is more tolerant than they.

What follows next is a series of interchanges that Jesus has with several people who meet him along the road – as his face is set to go to Jerusalem. All these interchanges are about following Jesus. They are either telling Jesus that they will follow him, or he is calling them to follow.And here’s this pivotal change again. There’s such a sense of urgency. But just what is the big deal here? There are still going to be 10 more chapters until the end of Luke. Why does Jesus respond with such urgency here?

At first look, it seems like Jesus is having a bad hair day – like he’s grumpy or something. Someone is keen enough to say he will follow him wherever he goes, and Jesus just responds with an enigmatic: ““Foxes have holes, and birds of the air have nests; but the Son of Man has nowhere to lay his head.”

He tells another to follow him and when he says he just has to bury his father first, he responds with, ““Let the dead bury their own dead; but as for you, go and proclaim the kingdom of God.” I must say that in all of my 25 years of ministering to the dying and the dead and the bereaved, I have never tried this pastoral approach! And I don’t think I’m going to try it either!

And then, finally the last one who says that he will follow him, but first he just wants to say goodbye to his family and his friends, Jesus says, “No one who puts a hand to the plow and looks back is fit for the kingdom of God.” Ouch! Isn’t that a little harsh, Jesus? What is the urgency? Isn’t this the same Jesus who said that his burden is easy and his yoke is light?

And what does his message in today’s Gospel have to do with us. What kind of meaning does this have for our lives?