Sermon by Michael R. Martin, Certified Lay Speaker
First United Methodist Church of Saranac Lake, NY
Our reading in Luke introduces the start of Jesus’ journey to Jerusalem:
Luke is not clear concerning the intentions of Jesus' messengers. We don’t know if they were sent ahead to Samaria to make travel arrangements or to prepare the Samarians for Jesus’ ministry. Either way, the Samaritans would have no part of it. After all, Jesus had set a course for Jerusalem, which to them was a center of false religion. They surely resented the fact that Jesus was going there rather than Mount Gerazim.
When James and John learned of the Samarians refusal of hospitality, the offered to command fire to come down and consume them. Jesus had named James and John the Sons of Thunder, presumably because of their noisy, violent personalities. They were surely familiar with story in which Elijah called down fire from heaven to consume Samaritans. If Jesus would just give the word, they would repeat that action.
VERSES 57-62: WOULD-BE DISCIPLES
As the Gospel continues, Jesus demonstrates that discipleship will be no easy task as Jesus encounters those who might become disciples. In these verses, Jesus clarifies the extreme nature of this call. Those who would follow him must first count the cost, because they will share Christ's suffering. They must not give anything priority over Jesus – not even good things. Jesus never said to choose him over the devil but to choose him over all, including family.
We are told of these two men whom Jesus asked to follow him, and both gave an excuse rather than jump right in. But Jesus takes these excuses in stride, and does not rebuke the Would Be Disciples, but rather explains to them that their time to disciple is now and nothing takes precedence over His calling.
How many times have you asked someone for help and gotten what surely was a lame excuse? How often have YOU given an excuse to avoid having to do something you just didn’t want to do at the time? I can talk because I am the King of excuses . . . well, at the very least a Prince. Overwhelmed with things to do, exacerbated by my own procrastination, my natural response to being asked to do ANYTHING is to say NO. “Say No, ask questions later” – that is my usual modus operandi. In fact, when Susan Waters first approached me about preparing this very Sunday service, I said no. And it’s not a lie to say I am too busy, because, after all, who ISN’T these days? But I thought about it some, and changed my mind, which also seems to be part of my typical response. I’ve even come to recognize that this is the way I am and TRY, when asked to do some thing or another, TRY to say “let me think about it and get back to you.” But I will also admit there are times when I have committed to something where I bemoan having agreed to do it, whatever IT might be.
We should be slow to condemn those who offer excuses. Who among us hasn’t done the same? We all lead busy lives and experience all sorts of demands for our time. And even some of the giants of our faith first offered excuses before they finally accepted God's call.
• In Exodus, Moses protested, "Who am I that I should go to Pharaoh, and bring the Israelites out of Egypt?" He argued, "O my Lord, I have never been eloquent, neither in the past nor even now that you have spoken to your servant; but I am slow of speech and slow of tongue".
• Gideon pleaded, "But sir, how can I deliver Israel? My clan is the weakest in Manasseh, and I am the least in my family."
• Jeremiah protested, "Ah, Lord God! Truly I do not know how to speak, for I am only a boy"
• Isaiah said: "Woe is me! I am lost, for I am a man of unclean lips, and I live among a people of unclean lips…!"
And yet each of these people, however reluctantly, did what God asked, and God blessed their reluctant discipleship. This is Good News, because it means that God does not put a big X through our name when we sin or protest or offer excuses. Every failure is an invitation to repentance and blessing. Did any of the three men in our Gospel lesson dropped their excuses and followed Jesus? We do not know for sure, but I am fairly certain they did, since Luke later states that Jesus sent 72 OTHERS ahead of him. It doesn’t really change the lesson either way.
My message last week at the 8:30 Praise Service was that God WILL call you to service if you only seek quiet and listen. To that, this week, I ask “What will you do when you hear that call?” Remember, you may be asked to serve in ways you least expect it, but ALL you do for good is service to God. As we are instructed in Galatians: “serve one another in love. . . . Love your neighbor as yourself."
How can we prepare ourselves, heart and soul, to serve, to be a disciple? Start by reading the Bible. Each week we are given readings, called the lectionary readings, which include text from the Old Testament, the Psalms, and the New Testament. They are read to you here in Church, but take the time to read beyond the text on your own. Read the whole Chapter and perhaps the Chapter before and after, not just the few verses specified by the lectionary. For my birthday, I received the Bible on CDs, read in dramatic fashion, and I have found it enjoyable and enlightening to listen to these while I travel. It really is amazing the stuff that is in the bible when you go beyond the little bit we get exposed to in church. If you find the traditional bible to dense, try reading a different interpretation, such as The Message, which presents the scripture in literary form.
In addition to the bible, read a daily devotional, which offer scriptures, prayers, and modern-life stories as illustration. The Upper Room Daily Devotional Guide is available out front, in the church vestibule. The daily devotional I really like is called Our Daily Bread by RBC Ministries. If you are so inclined, go online – the United Methodist General Board of Discipleship (GBOD for short) has excellent online resources for making sense of the lectionary readings (www.gbod.org). Most importantly, make some time for yourself to focus on the Word – think about what it means to you, how does it apply in your life?
I believe that we are all asked to serve as disciples in some fashion, big or small. Sometimes it is just discipleship by example, in the way you live, the way you treat others, sometimes it’s being there for a friend in need, or a stranger in need. What WILL you do when presented with the opportunity to be Christ’s disciple? Will you offer up excuses like the Would Be Disciples in Luke Chapter 9, or will you offer up yourself in service? Who will you put first? Your job? Your family? Yourself? Or Christ?
There is only one right answer. Prepare yourself for His call. Be a disciple for Christ.
Michael R. Martin – June 27, 2004
First UMC of Saranac Lake, 8:30AM & 10:00AM
First United Methodist Church of Saranac Lake, NY
2 Kings 2:1-2, 6-14 • Psalm 77:1-2, 11-20 (UMH 798) • Galatians 5:1, 13-25 • Luke 9:51-62
Our reading in Luke introduces the start of Jesus’ journey to Jerusalem:
When the days drew near for him to be taken up, he set his face to go to Jerusalem. And he sent messengers ahead of him. On their way they entered a village of the Samaritans to make ready for him; but they did not receive him, because his face was set toward Jerusalem.At that time, Jews and Samaritans despised each other. This animosity dated to the eighth century B.C., and arose out of the Assyrian conquest of the Jews. Samaritans claimed to have maintained proper worship in their land while other Jews were being compromised in exile. Mount Gerazim was the center of their religious life. Jews, on the other hand, accused Samaritans of losing their religious identity through intermarriage with pagan neighbors. The Jerusalem Temple was the center of their religious life. Samaria's location between Galilee and Judea, exacerbated the situation. To get to Jerusalem, Galileans had either to go through Samaria or to take a longer, more difficult route east of the Jordan River. Always tense, the relationship between Samaritans and Jews sometimes broke out in violence.
Luke is not clear concerning the intentions of Jesus' messengers. We don’t know if they were sent ahead to Samaria to make travel arrangements or to prepare the Samarians for Jesus’ ministry. Either way, the Samaritans would have no part of it. After all, Jesus had set a course for Jerusalem, which to them was a center of false religion. They surely resented the fact that Jesus was going there rather than Mount Gerazim.
When James and John learned of the Samarians refusal of hospitality, the offered to command fire to come down and consume them. Jesus had named James and John the Sons of Thunder, presumably because of their noisy, violent personalities. They were surely familiar with story in which Elijah called down fire from heaven to consume Samaritans. If Jesus would just give the word, they would repeat that action.
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?" But he turned and rebuked them. Then they went on to another village.Jesus’ response to the punishment suggested by James and John is stern and swift. He REBUKED them. Rebuked (epetimesen in Hebrew) is a strong word. Elsewhere in Luke’s Gospel Jesus rebukes demons, fevers, and storms, but never disciples. Jesus responds so strongly to James and John because he had instructed them to love their enemies, not to judge others, and to shake dust from their feet as a response to rejection. James and John had failed to listen. As closely as Jesus' ministry might have paralleled that of the prophet Elijah, Jesus was not Elijah and his mission was not to destroy but to save and reconcile. God will judge those who reject Jesus in due time, but disciples are to leave judgment in God's hands. By simply continuing on to another village, Jesus models the behavior that he expects of the disciples when they experience rejection.
VERSES 57-62: WOULD-BE DISCIPLES
As the Gospel continues, Jesus demonstrates that discipleship will be no easy task as Jesus encounters those who might become disciples. In these verses, Jesus clarifies the extreme nature of this call. Those who would follow him must first count the cost, because they will share Christ's suffering. They must not give anything priority over Jesus – not even good things. Jesus never said to choose him over the devil but to choose him over all, including family.
As they were going along the road, someone said to him, "I will follow you wherever you go." 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."It is thought that perhaps this man saw Jesus as a man who was “going somewhere” and wanted to ride along on his coattails. And so Jesus’ reply to the man who offered to follow him everywhere was that He, Jesus, was going nowhere. Jesus’ ministry was not to be King of All but servant of all. Jesus was on his way to Crucifixion and the Cross.
To another he said, "Follow me." But he said, "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."In those times, an unburied body was a mark of disgrace, and the burial of one's father or mother was an important part of honoring them in accordance with the Law. Perhaps the man’s father was not yet dead, and he was asking for time to care for his aged parent, which was also an import part of honoring them in accordance with the Law. Perhaps this was the man’s excuse to buy him time to consider discipleship, maybe later to come up with another excuse not to follow. Whether the father be dead or alive, Jesus' call is unequivocal. Let those who are spiritually dead bury the physically dead. Those with a spark of spiritual life have a responsibility to those who are still alive – those whose lives can still be redeemed – who are still able to decide for or against Christ.
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."This recalls the Old Testament story with which Jesus' audience would have been familiar. Elisha was plowing with his oxen when Elijah called him. He asked, "Let me kiss my father and my mother, and then I will follow you." In the end Elisha committed fully to Elijah, for he slaughtered the oxen with which he had been plowing and used the yoke and harness as fuel to cook the oxen for neighbors to eat.
"Jesus said to him, 'No one who puts a hand to the plow and looks back is fit for the kingdom of God' ".Having mostly lost our agricultural roots, this imagery might be lost on us. A farmer plowing with an animal must watch a fixed point ahead to plow a straight line. Looking back causes the farmer to swerve, plowing a crooked line, the mark of an amateur. The crooked line will be there for all to see for a full year – until the next plowing. The farmer who plows a crooked line will be the butt of many jokes during the year, and will try his/her best to plow straight lines next year. An Adirondack example that would be familiar to any one who has paddled a canoe or kayak across a lake or pond – If you don’t fix on a point on the opposite shoreline, but look around and back, you will “plow a crooked course” through the water, leaving a very obvious trail behind you as you go. So Jesus is saying if you will come with me, you must commit to the course and not look back.
We are told of these two men whom Jesus asked to follow him, and both gave an excuse rather than jump right in. But Jesus takes these excuses in stride, and does not rebuke the Would Be Disciples, but rather explains to them that their time to disciple is now and nothing takes precedence over His calling.
How many times have you asked someone for help and gotten what surely was a lame excuse? How often have YOU given an excuse to avoid having to do something you just didn’t want to do at the time? I can talk because I am the King of excuses . . . well, at the very least a Prince. Overwhelmed with things to do, exacerbated by my own procrastination, my natural response to being asked to do ANYTHING is to say NO. “Say No, ask questions later” – that is my usual modus operandi. In fact, when Susan Waters first approached me about preparing this very Sunday service, I said no. And it’s not a lie to say I am too busy, because, after all, who ISN’T these days? But I thought about it some, and changed my mind, which also seems to be part of my typical response. I’ve even come to recognize that this is the way I am and TRY, when asked to do some thing or another, TRY to say “let me think about it and get back to you.” But I will also admit there are times when I have committed to something where I bemoan having agreed to do it, whatever IT might be.
We should be slow to condemn those who offer excuses. Who among us hasn’t done the same? We all lead busy lives and experience all sorts of demands for our time. And even some of the giants of our faith first offered excuses before they finally accepted God's call.
• In Exodus, Moses protested, "Who am I that I should go to Pharaoh, and bring the Israelites out of Egypt?" He argued, "O my Lord, I have never been eloquent, neither in the past nor even now that you have spoken to your servant; but I am slow of speech and slow of tongue".
• Gideon pleaded, "But sir, how can I deliver Israel? My clan is the weakest in Manasseh, and I am the least in my family."
• Jeremiah protested, "Ah, Lord God! Truly I do not know how to speak, for I am only a boy"
• Isaiah said: "Woe is me! I am lost, for I am a man of unclean lips, and I live among a people of unclean lips…!"
And yet each of these people, however reluctantly, did what God asked, and God blessed their reluctant discipleship. This is Good News, because it means that God does not put a big X through our name when we sin or protest or offer excuses. Every failure is an invitation to repentance and blessing. Did any of the three men in our Gospel lesson dropped their excuses and followed Jesus? We do not know for sure, but I am fairly certain they did, since Luke later states that Jesus sent 72 OTHERS ahead of him. It doesn’t really change the lesson either way.
My message last week at the 8:30 Praise Service was that God WILL call you to service if you only seek quiet and listen. To that, this week, I ask “What will you do when you hear that call?” Remember, you may be asked to serve in ways you least expect it, but ALL you do for good is service to God. As we are instructed in Galatians: “serve one another in love. . . . Love your neighbor as yourself."
How can we prepare ourselves, heart and soul, to serve, to be a disciple? Start by reading the Bible. Each week we are given readings, called the lectionary readings, which include text from the Old Testament, the Psalms, and the New Testament. They are read to you here in Church, but take the time to read beyond the text on your own. Read the whole Chapter and perhaps the Chapter before and after, not just the few verses specified by the lectionary. For my birthday, I received the Bible on CDs, read in dramatic fashion, and I have found it enjoyable and enlightening to listen to these while I travel. It really is amazing the stuff that is in the bible when you go beyond the little bit we get exposed to in church. If you find the traditional bible to dense, try reading a different interpretation, such as The Message, which presents the scripture in literary form.
In addition to the bible, read a daily devotional, which offer scriptures, prayers, and modern-life stories as illustration. The Upper Room Daily Devotional Guide is available out front, in the church vestibule. The daily devotional I really like is called Our Daily Bread by RBC Ministries. If you are so inclined, go online – the United Methodist General Board of Discipleship (GBOD for short) has excellent online resources for making sense of the lectionary readings (www.gbod.org). Most importantly, make some time for yourself to focus on the Word – think about what it means to you, how does it apply in your life?
I believe that we are all asked to serve as disciples in some fashion, big or small. Sometimes it is just discipleship by example, in the way you live, the way you treat others, sometimes it’s being there for a friend in need, or a stranger in need. What WILL you do when presented with the opportunity to be Christ’s disciple? Will you offer up excuses like the Would Be Disciples in Luke Chapter 9, or will you offer up yourself in service? Who will you put first? Your job? Your family? Yourself? Or Christ?
There is only one right answer. Prepare yourself for His call. Be a disciple for Christ.
Michael R. Martin – June 27, 2004
First UMC of Saranac Lake, 8:30AM & 10:00AM
No comments:
Post a Comment