Our
Savior’s Lutheran Church
Camdenton,
MO
June
27, 2010
"Faithfulness
or
Fanaticism”
I. It is
hard to get our minds around some of these scriptural
stories. If you listen really closely to Jesus
in this Lukan
text, it sounds like his call for radical allegiance
rings
true with some of the extremist stuff we are hearing
on
many sides today:
A) There is a higher calling than family or
any other
bond…and that is
God…or the cause.
B) Anyone who does not sever themselves from
their
past life and familial
associations to serve the
cause is not “worthy”.
C) Woe be it to the one who sets his hand to
the
task…and then wavers or
looks back…this
is the ultimate betrayal.
II. If you took this out of context and divorced it from the fact
that Jesus is voicing such concerns….then it
would indeed
sound like an on-line bit of propaganda for young
men who
are urged to ally themselves to a cause which will
provide
them the training to “call down fire”
upon the enemies of
God.
A) When we can even twist the arm of the text
a little to
sound like this, are we surprised
that many people,
Christians and people of other
faiths, don’t consider
themselves or others faithful
unless they are doing
things full bore….with no
concern for self….only
for the movement and the honor of
God?… This is
when faith…which should
bring peace and justice
to life….can instead bleed
over into fanaticism…
A blind faith…with only
one way to walk…and
2)
blinders to either side of the
road.
B) Actually, I do not believe this is what
Jesus is saying
to us in this passage.
There is an urgency to the
mission of Jesus himself.
He has nowhere to lay
his head. He has a date
with destiny in Jerusalem.
Not even the twelve are called to
follow that mission
full bore. Only Jesus can
fulfill the mission of
salvation upon the cross.
Those who are left behind
will be faced with the urgency of
getting around all
the many excuses we can find for
going out and
making sure that the message of
love and salvation
lives in and through
us. “Let the dead bury their own
dead…as for you…you
proclaim the reign of God!”
III. There are some differences in the Elisha story and the Jesus
story that we should examine more
carefully. You see that
Elijah after his confrontation with the Baal
prophets and
King Ahab and Queen Jezebel holes up on Horeb and
is sort of “crying in his beer”.
Luther does a particularly
wonderful dramatization of this in one of his
sermons.
Elijah beats his breast an complains to
God…”look….
all who were faithful are gone…and
now…I, I alone am
left…why don’t you just take me
now!”. God speaks in
the still, small voice after the storm to remind
Elijah that
in spite of all the rough going…he still has
things ahead
of him. He will restore order in the
royal house…he will
cast his mantle over Elisha and anoint him as
prophet to
succeed him.
A) When Elisha gets the
call…he first decides to go
home and say
his farewells. He then uses his
means of
livelihood…plowing in the fields…to
provide a
great farewell feast for the people.
Elijah does
not doubt his commitment because
he cannot come
“right then”. But, Elisha does
show that
things will be forever different…the
plow is burned
up in order to barbeque the
3)
oxen on the spit….he can
never go back again to
what he was doing.
That might reflect commitment…
but not necessarily a
fanatic’s way of showing it.
B) The disciples, however, in the Jesus story,
would like to
take a page out of Elisha’s
later playbook. They
remembered how the prophet called
down fire of
heaven to consume these
“half-breed heretics”.
Of
course, the Samaritans do not respond to Jesus
because he is on the way to their
arch-rivals’
stronghold and place of
worship….mount Zion,
and Jerusalem. The
disciples recommend a similar
retribution for these Samaritans
who also seem to
be resistant to the clear truth.
We see, ironically, that Jesus
rejects the Elisha
solution, and some ancient texts
add another
sentence after Luke 9: 56:
“And Jesus said to
them: ‘You do not know what
kind of spirit you are of,
for the Son of Man did not come
to destroy men’s
lives, but to save
them.’”
IV. Once again in our own time, we see that on so many levels,
we are being divided into
parties….us…versus “them”.
We fear fanatics who plot against our
lives…both
here and abroad. We seem prone to see more and
more
“differences” than
commonalities. Ugly discussions have
gained ground in some quarters about who are the
“real”
Americans…and those who are not.
In a time of war,
natural, and national disasters, and economic
uncertainties, racist, classist, nationalist, and
zealot language of all kinds has boiled back to the
surface….and perhaps we are not as able to
love as we once thought.
A) People are being called to become
“true believers” by
espousing one or more ideologies
while closing
their eyes and ears to anything
that does not
4)
fit that worldview. Once
again…we are encouraged
to put on the horse
blinders…to look neither to one
side or the other….or
behind…but to plow straight
ahead….no matter the
cost…toward whatever it
is that has taken the seat of God
within our hearts.
Whatever that other
“god” may be….we are told
that if we
waver…reconsider…look back in any
way…we are not
“worthy”….and we will be adrift
in a valueless and treacherous
desert.
B) Rather than such a call…which can
only lead to a
more narrowing view of
life…there is another
approach that I feel incorporates
this image of
plowing the field.
First, Jesus tells us that
our rows will be tough to
plough…but that we
will keep straight if we look to
the end of the
horizon and keep Jesus fixed in
our view. Like
Elisha, we may be called to make
some decisions
that do not make it possible to
go back…but only
to move forward. The
old wineskins that formerly
held our ideas of faith would
burst unless we look
to Jesus to inform the new day.
V. The familiar lesson from Galatians 5 clearly describes in
Paul’s mind what constitutes “looking
back” to former
ways…and looking forward to the call of
Christ’s
Spirit:
. {19} Now the works of the flesh are obvious: fornication, impurity,
licentiousness, {20} idolatry, sorcery, enmities, strife, jealousy,
anger, quarrels, dissensions, factions, {21} envy, drunkenness,
carousing, and things like these. I am warning you, as I warned you
before: those who do such things will not inherit the kingdom of God.
{22} By contrast, the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace,
patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, {23} gentleness, and
self-control. There is no law against such things. {24} And those who
belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and
desires. {25} If we live by the Spirit, let us also be guided by the
Spirit.
Why would we desire to turn back….to take up
the old yoke
of past slavery as Paul suggests? The
future is scary.
I would like some simple answers and
solutions…a key
5)
to who is wrong…who is
right….something concrete. In a
time when more and more we will be called to make
hard decisions and expand our faith, the call
of Jesus will
be to burn the yokes that hold us….to fix our
eyes on Him
who has walked ahead of us in the
furrow….even when
the furrow seems to waver. Don’t look
back…he will
lead us straight.
AMEN.
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