Say “Yes”

The Rev. Sandy Selby – St. Paul’s Episcopal Church

Proper 8, Year C – July 1, 2007

Text: Luke 9:51-62

Today we head off on a journey. Today we learn who will be leading us on our journey, and where that journey will take us. We’ve waited for this day for a long time. Who is this man that will lead us? What is he like? Where is he going? Will we want to follow him? These are questions that we ask today.

Luke answers some of those questions in the first sentence of the gospel reading. The man is Jesus. He is a prophet. And he’s going to Jerusalem. Will we want to follow him? That remains to be seen.

Today’s gospel reading begins the great journey to Jerusalem that we will be taking with Luke through the rest of the liturgical year. Jesus discussed this journey, this “exodus,” with Moses and Elijah at the Transfiguration on the mountaintop. “Now, Luke says, as the days are drawing near for him to be taken up, he sets his face to go to Jerusalem. And he sends messengers ahead of him”. These words—being “taken up” and “sending messengers ahead”--are clear references to the prophets Moses and Elijah. Luke tells us unambiguously that the man we are to follow is a prophet, and we know that prophets speak the word of God.

That is much of what Jesus does on the way toward Jerusalem. There will be some wonders along the way, an exorcism and a few healings. But mostly, on the way to Jerusalem, Jesus talks.

Who are the people that surround him on this journey? They pretty much sort themselves into three camps. The first is the people who reject him. This isn’t new, for the theme of rejection has been with Jesus all his life. When his parents took him to Jerusalem as an infant to be presented in the Temple, the prophet Simeon told Mary, “This child is destined for the falling and rising of many in Israel, and to be a sign that will be opposed so that the inner thoughts of many will be revealed” (Lk 2:35a).

At the start of his ministry, when Jesus announced his programmatic message of good news to the poor, release of the captives, sight to the blind, and freedom from oppression, he was rejected by the people in his hometown. On the road to Jerusalem, Jesus will have repeated confrontations with his opponents, the Pharisees and lawyers. Those who reject him are many in number.

The second camp contains “the crowd.” On the journey to Jerusalem Jesus will frequently exhort them to repentance and conversion.

And then there are the disciples. On the road to Jerusalem Jesus will continue the teaching that he began in Galilee, instructing them about what discipleship means. They have a lot to learn, for just recently they showed that they just don’t get it. On the day after the Transfiguration they had tried unsuccessfully to exorcise a demon from a child, and Jesus had to lament their lack of faith. When Jesus predicted his suffering and death, they didn’t understand what he was saying. When Jesus taught about humility all the disciples could do was argue about who was the greatest. And finally, Jesus had to reprimand them for their exclusivism. With that, he turned toward Jerusalem along with his clueless disciples.

With Jesus and the disciples heading out of town, it’s time for everyone else to decide whether to join them. Those who reject him wouldn’t miss it for the world, for they love a good fight. It’s the crowd, the people on the fence, who are the focus of Jesus’ attention. He has set his face toward Jerusalem, and all they want to do is start the negotiations.

“But what about my house?” one of them asks. “The landscapers are coming tomorrow! Can’t you just wait a few more days?”

“And Jesus says to him, ‘foxes have holes. And birds of the air have nests; but the Son of Man has nowhere to lay his head.’”

“To another Jesus says, ‘Follow me.’ And the man says, ‘My father’s funeral is tomorrow.’ Can’t you just wait a couple more days?”

But Jesus says to him, ‘Let the dead bury their own dead; but as for you, go and proclaim the kingdom of God.”

Another says to Jesus: “I have some stuff to do around the house. Go along ahead, and I’ll catch up in a few days.”

“Jesus says to him, ‘No one who puts a hand to the plow and looks back is fit for the kingdom of God.’”

Jesus makes it clear that there is no negotiating to be done, for “the days are drawing near for him to be taken up, (and) he has set his face to go to Jerusalem”. There are all kinds of reasons for us not to follow him, and none of them are good enough.

The German theologian and pastor Dietrich Bonhoeffer was one of the founders of the Confessing Church, which broke away from the established church in Germany in opposition to the Nazi regime. Accused of plotting against Hitler, he was imprisoned and ultimately executed. In his book The Cost of Discipleship Bonhoeffer said “we have been transformed into the image of Christ, and are therefore destined to be like him. He is the only ‘pattern’ we must follow.”

Perhaps we are the disciples heading out on the road with Jesus, trying to understand what the Christian life is all about. Or maybe we’re still trying to negotiate the terms of our engagement. But it’s time to get up and follow Jesus to Jerusalem. For it is there that he will suffer and die on the cross for our redemption and be raised on the third day. It is there that he will be “carried up into heaven” (Lk24:51). And it is there that we will be “clothed with power from on high” (Lk 24:49b) at Pentecost.

Paul says,” For freedom Christ has set us free” (Gal 5:1). But we don’t get that freedom by sitting around and waiting for something to happen. Nine months before he was executed Dietrich Bonhoeffer wrote a four-part poem that speaks of self-discipline, action, suffering, and death as the elements of Christian life. Here’s his section on “Action.”

Do and dare what is right, not swayed by the whim of the moment.

Bravely take hold of the real, not dallying now with what might be.

Not in the flight of ideas but only in action is freedom.

Make up your mind and come out into the tempest of living.

God’s command is enough and your faith in him to sustain you.

Then at last freedom will welcome your spirit amid great rejoicing.

Today we head off on a journey. Today we learn who will be leading us on our journey, and where that journey will take us. We’ve waited for this day for a long time. Who is this man that will lead us? What is he like? Where is he going? Will we want to follow him?

The answer to that is, “yes.”