Pentecost 10: 1 August Luke 12:13-21
The passage begins with the exchange about inheritance which serves as an introduction to Jesus’ warnings about greed (12:13-15). We might imagine that the reasons for attacking greed are because it deprives others. These are reasons enough. Here, however, the focus is what makes for a meaningful life. What is abundance in life?
The parable (12:16-21) continues the theme from a slightly different angle. Again the focus is not on depriving others, but on the behaviour of greed and its consequences for the person. It is attacking an assumption that storing up resources is a guarantee of life into the future. It states the well known reality: death can come at any time. What are all those resources worth then? You cannot take them with you to the grave. It is at one level straightforward secular wisdom with God as the tutor, as it were. There is nothing about judgement in the life to come, reward or punishment. We find that in the parable of the rich man and Lazarus, but not here.
This secular wisdom has many parallels in literature of the time. Such advice frequently takes the form of recommending a lifestyle which is comfortable and not constantly stressed by wanting more and more. It seems sensible. Why die of a heart attack, work all hours of the day and night, only to find oneself burnt out? It is too late then to have time for the children. They have grown up and flown the nest. At most you may have energy for the grandchildren, but your life has left you very limited in what you can do and give if, that is, you have not already succumbed. This kind of madness plagues our society. For ourselves and for others we need to take control of the options and not be caught up blindly into the rat race of success and profit.
Much of the above needs to be said over and over again. It is all true, but it is not all the truth. Our society may be harmed just as much by people withdrawn into self-satisfying low stress lifestyles as it is by those driven by the pursuit of gain. Yet it may seem almost offensive that the discussion leaves out of account those who suffer as a result of greed and has God only at the margins of the story. This focus returns somewhat in the closing declaration that the man was ‘not rich towards God’.
‘Rich towards God’ could mean having credit in one’s God account which will pay off any misdemeanours and ensure a place in the divine rest home. More likely it means living the kind of life which God values whether there is reward in or not – or which is its own reward. The passage assumes that ‘life’ (12:15) and ‘being rich towards God’ (12:21) coincide. If we listen to the passage in the context of the whole story, it is clear that ‘life’ means God’s life, sharing God’s life, being what we were made to be. When the lawyer asked about ‘eternal life’ and pressed the point he heard a parable about a Samaritan. Such life is life towards God because it is life lived in the spirit of God. It is breathing the life breathed into mud model of human existence in the beginning.
Or is ‘life’ to be equated with happiness? Western society abounds with seductive invitations to happy lifestyle, usually promoting new products and promising that ‘good feeling’. Markets manipulate the modes so that regular dissatisfactions can be exploited as people just must have the latest. For some the problem is blindly building bigger barns. For others it is building bigger wardrobes, possessing fancier gadgets, sporting flashier cars.
It is easy to miss the point by focusing on the extremes. There is a deep human anxiety about being worthwhile which reaches to the heart of the self. Many products are designed to sedate that fear. It is nevertheless real. The Christian claim that true contentment comes only in service is probably spurious. It is simply not the case that people without Christ are all very unhappy and vice versa. It is also not the case that we are to make ourselves happy through service. That is secular justification by works and becomes a tyrant for us and those around us - and those whom we ‘serve’. Sometimes it has to be a kind of Christian defiance which says: only in life towards God, a life participating in God’s life is peace. That will be a peace that weeps, knows anguish, sometimes does not know and does not have answers, but keeps believing in the worth God wants us to have and wants us to give and live towards others.
‘Is my life worthwhile?’ is for many a fearful question. It is no answer to moralise and command. Ultimately the answer is an act of healing. People need preaching which identifies the pain very clearly - and gently - and offers healing.
Epistle: Pentecost 10: 1 August Colossians 3:1-11
Pentecost 9: 25 July Luke 11:1-13
In today’s passage we have the shorter and probably earlier form of the Lord’s Prayer. Luke brings it in a context which teaches about prayer. It is just as much also teaching about God.
This is already the case in the simple way with which the Lord’s prayer begins: ‘Father’. Jesus was one of those who gave the formal designation of God as the great father in heaven and creator a familiar tone: ‘father’. Elsewhere we find traces of the common family term: ‘abba’. It is not baby talk, but it does reflect the kind of intimacy one might expect in a family. It assumes a parent who is not remote but accessible, not violent and overbearing, but supportive and caring. As verses 11-13 suggest, this is the kind of parent who is responsive. That is also the point of verses 9-10.
The kind of supportive relationship Jesus has with the Father is not exclusive, but rather a model of the relationship which all can have. That is made possible because of the kind of God God is. This is a theme repeated elsewhere, not least in the image of the father in the parable of the prodigal son. Compassion and caring are central.
Jesus would have known about abusive fathers, just as he knew about abusive rulers. He used the ambiguous images of king and father because they were part of the tradition in which he was nourished. He engaged that tradition critically, subverting its violence and asserting its love. The ambiguity of the traditional images of king and father has been reflected in the very diverse consequences which they have spawned throughout history. Interpreters of the tradition in every generation have a responsibility to engage these images critically, helping people perceive where they bring life and where they bring death. This ambiguity needs to be named, not least because among our hearers are many, both women and men, for whom the image of father is almost irrecoverably destructive.
Hallowing means respecting, treating as holy. This is fundamental to our relationship with God and to all other relationships. Acknowledging the holiness, the dignity, the otherness of the other, must not be reduced to a metaphor of cringing before one who is more powerful, even if that is dressed up respectably as obeisance before the almighty. For then it reinforces the assumption that might is right and the bigger and stronger is the better. Such thinking often results in abusive relationships. Parents emulate their god. People emulate their god. The victims are disempowered. There is, however, an awe in relationships which flows from profound respect and love. It is often when we are standing on our feet face-to-face or bowed, not the one before the other, but together in service and mutual care.
‘Your kingdom come’ remains in the realm of the same ambiguity and has been equally a source of life and death. Our eucharist remembers the image of that kingdom as a great feast where all are included, from east and west and north and south, where swords become ploughs, spears become pruning hooks. It is also a feast focused on a life broken and poured out in compassion. This is one of the central images and actions which has the capacity to control the ambiguity, if we make the connections. But even it is capable of subversion until it becomes a feast of exclusion and a trivialised appendage for people claiming privilege.
Day by day human need has a firm place in Jesus’ prayer. There can be no separation between visions and life here and now. The same need for food and forgiveness is fundamental to every human being. That is why it is also part of the vision of the kingdom. As the prayer continues, Jesus has no shame in abandoning the ideal of the hero; instead we are to pray not to have to face the hard times. This will be as much personal as it is linked with the adversity we are likely to face if we take the kingdom vision as our agenda and engage in all our relationships on the basis that the other is holy.
Embraced within the teaching about the Lord’s prayer in 11:1-4 and the assurances of being heard in 11:9-13 is a very down-to-earth parable in 11:5-8. As recent passages have highlighted, hospitality was of major importance in the ancient world. What happens when a friend arrives unexpectedly? There could be no question that hospitality would be expected and would be given. Even among friends it would be irksome to be woken in the night to be asked to help with some of tomorrow’s fresh bread. We might imagine that in a small Palestinian house a disruption would be quite major. The household would be disturbed, the secure gate would be unlocked. It is made to sound quite onerous and probably was. It was stretching friendship a bit far! But Jesus is realistic. The social pressure on people to respond to the requirements of hospitality was so great and the shame so great for all concerned when it was not provided, that the poor fellow would get up and respond to the request.
It is typical of Jesus to argue theology by using the paradigms (parables) of everyday life. It is a kind of theology of reasonableness. The argument works like this: ‘everyone knows’ that a friend will help another out in a situation like that, even if reluctantly. Why can’t you think of God being like that? The same logic is implicit in the parable of the prodigal son. ‘Everyone knows’ that this is what a father would (want to) do (even though it was in that case contrary to behavioural norms for a dignified father). Everyone knows something about compassion: why can’t you think about God like that?
It is a kind of secular theology in the sense that the argument is not from the great biblical tradition, citing the epics or the law. Instead it stands in the tradition of sages who employ the everyday to do theology, also rooted in biblical tradition. We should not imagine that Jesus played the one off against the other. Clearly his theology is informed by the great tradition, but it is also grounded in perceptions about human life and human relationships. The tradition has a way of being hijacked by the articulate and educated, and then employed in ways which reflect their agenda. That agenda is usually about holding onto power and privilege and creates a theology of God in those terms: the most powerful and therefore the most privileged. That easily becomes the basis for hierarchical control.
Instead, Jesus democratises the basis for doing theology, locating it in the human relations which we all know and experience, and where we all have some basic insight and understanding, whether we can articulate it in abstract or not. Do we know what it is like to love and be loved? Then we are well on the way to a sound theology. What is more, it is a sound basis for critical theology where you can then see through ‘father’ and ‘king’ or ‘kingdom’ to the qualities they are meant to represent and which they often stifle. God is not a ‘father’ and a ‘king’. God is not a male. God is not a claimer of privilege. God is like the mum or dad who really cares (and confronts us with reality), who is holy and makes you feel holy. So prayer is an activity of intimacy and awe and thus a model for all relationships; it is the language of the kingdom. It brings the gift of the Spirit.
Epistle: Pentecost 9: 25 July Colossians 2:6-15 (16-19)
Pentecost 8: 18 July Luke 10:38-42
This passage is wildly ambiguous. Is it giving Mary a male role and otherwise deprecating women’s work, represented in Martha? Is it lauding Mary the submissive female and dismissing the caring Martha? Is it praising impracticality? Is it feminist in orientation, making space for Mary beyond women’s traditional roles? Or is it the opposite?
The first step is surely to try to sense what it is saying and doing in Luke’s narrative. Notice that Martha appears to run the household. She is the one who offers hospitality (10:38). This is a positive role. Hospitality was important. Earlier in the chapter we saw that it played a vital role for the envoys of Jesus, as for Jesus, himself. So we are among the faithful.
Then quite suddenly Luke introduces her sister, Mary, describing her as sitting at Jesus’ feet, listening to what he was saying. This might seem odd to some, especially if they are of the view that such a posture is that of the disciple and that normally disciples of great teachers were male. It would make quite a difference to the interpretation because the underlying issue between the women would be whether one should be allowed to assume what was traditionally a male posture and role or not. Jesus would be defending the rights of Mary to be equally present with men and break free from stereotyped female roles. We shall return to this thought.
Whoever it might be, whatever the gender, Luke assumes that the most important response of the host is to receive Jesus’ word. Martha’s behaviour as host (I use the word in a genderless sense rather than use ‘hostess’ because of its ambiguity) is problematic. It appears that it is seen as problematic primarily because of the manner of Martha’s activity: she is fussing around. Luke uses three different words which depict her behaviour as being distracted, worrying and bothering. Luke does not appear to be attacking the practical roles which belong to being a good host, but the preoccupation with them. The fact that they are traditionally female roles may be irrelevant for the story.
Luke’s story is making a point about attitudes, which can be just as well male as female. It is when practical tasks assume dimensions which subvert best intentions. Being too worried about the arrangements may subvert the purpose of the visit. It is a close cousin to bureaucracy and legalism: being so worried about doing the right thing that what really needs to be done, is left undone or is done poorly. Martha might end up never hearing Jesus’ word.
There are many variants: they include; being so obsessed with the task of producing a new church building that the mission it is meant to service is left undone or given second place; being so worried about the form of the sermon that its real function is forgotten; being so preoccupied with keeping the commandments and remaining good, that no real good is achieved or done.
It would be silly to make the story into a model for behaviour, let alone for women’s behaviour! The story deserves the hearty protest it receives from all those practical people who know that someone has to cook the meal, make up the beds, make sure everything is adequately prepared, when it is understood in this way.
One might imagine that it came to Luke as an anecdote that people used to address a common problem in house churches (the only kind of churches there were!). The common problem would be about hospitality when the local church met in someone’s home. The story may go back earlier to when envoys (apostles) would arrive and could, as Luke reports, even have its origin in Jesus’ own ministry. It is not difficult to imagine the problem. Traditional values would have placed a heavy expectation on the woman of the house. Conflict might easily arise between those in a household who felt it their task to look after the practicalities and those who chose to participate fully in the community. The story is realistic: it would have been acute among family members.
The highest priority must be to listen to the word. The anecdote makes that plain. Martha is gently but firmly being told that she has got it wrong. How frustrating and offensive! She was doing the work, the practical caring and in the process giving herself fully to the task - which is then interpreted as fussing around. Poor Martha! It is time for Martha to go on strike!
In fact, it is time for Martha to go on strike. For part of the message of the word is that everyone is to be included and no one is to be left aside trapped in a role which prevents them from participation. Martha is being encouraged to abandon a role in which she is being held captive to serve the needs of others. She is being challenged to leave behind the stance which says, ‘If I don’t do it, no one else will!’. She doesn’t have to ‘play mother’. As long as she does, some people are not likely to grow up and she will be likely to carry a resentful sense of fulfilment. Not until she abandons that role will the community be challenged to take seriously that caring belongs to all and is not to be shunted off onto one particular person and usually one particular gender.
Some marriages only experience renewal when the women strike and the men are challenged to recognise the inequality that often exists in assumed roles. This is frequently acute when both spouses work and one is still expected to carry the traditional role unquestioned.
Such a story would potentially be liberating. Whether a male posture or not - probably not - Mary (and Martha) are invited to sit as equals at Jesus’ feet with all the rest. So let them all sit down with the gospel and on the same level reflect on what response to this word means in action at home and in the community and who can best exercise their gifts and where!
This story is nevertheless annoying, especially for people who are comfortable with established patterns and roles. They will hear it as pious impracticality and sometimes as an assault on what they value and what values them. I am sure someone cooked, prepared the table, served the bread and wine and the rest of the food, washed the dishes and cleaned up afterward. The extent to which the gospel had set them free would be reflected in the extent to which all owned these responsibilities and mutually decided who would do what. They would surely also have known the experience of finding that the gospel could easily be banished from practicalities and the same old people left to do all the work. The story is not told to punish these Marthas, though it is often used that way. In fact it heads in the opposite direction. Martha’s traditional roles are now thrown open for all and embraced in the word. The one who speaks will, a later gospel tells us, also wash the disciples’ feet.
Epistle: Pentecost 8: 18 July Colossians 1:15-28
Pentecost 7: 11 July Luke 10:25-37
The initial conversation has a familiar ring to it. It is probably a reworking of the episode found in Mark12:28-31, where the scribe asked which was the first commandment. Here it is an expert in the Law who asks the question. This means much the same as scribe, another term for describing such experts. The question he asks is different, but it is also familiar to us from Mark 10:17-21. It is the question of the rich man: ‘What must I do to inherit eternal life?’ The rich man in Luke also asks the same question (Luke 18:18).
The issue is fundamental: how do we inherit eternal life? ‘Inherit’ assumes inheritance, promise. It builds on the view that God wants us to have this life. It draws on the expectations raised by Jewish scripture. ‘Eternal life’ includes everlasting life, but its focus is quality rather than quantity. It is sharing in God’s life. This is the number one question and still is.
Jesus directs the man’s attention to the Law, Torah. This is not in order to declare it inadequate or obsolete. On the contrary, here, as in the encounter with the rich man in Luke 18:18-23, Jesus directs attention to scripture as the source of the answer to the man’s question. In Mark’s version of the story, Jesus, himself, cites both the first and the second greatest commandments. In Luke the man, himself, cites them. In the process Luke has merged the two into one as one single requirement. The two belong inextricably together.
Jesus affirms that to love God and to love one’s neighbour is indeed the correct answer. ‘Do this,’ he declares, ‘and you shall live’ (10:28). These words find their echo at the end of our passage in 10:37, ‘Go and do likewise.’ Doing this commandment is the way to eternal life.
This deserves further reflection. In some traditions this would be given low marks or even marked wrong. It sound too much like salvation by works. ‘Believe in the Lord Jesus Christ and you shall be saved’ (Acts 17:31) sounds much more Christian. Jesus’ answer here and in the encounter with the rich man is just good Judaism. Yet before we take Jesus off to enrol him in a course on appropriate evangelism, is there not something of fundamental importance here? Is it not the case that the relationship with God matters most? Jesus is not espousing that we keep the commandments as some kind of tit for tat, a deal on the basis of which we can claim something. He is talking about loving God and neighbour - actually doing it. His own status in the process is subordinate to that goal.
This raises a larger issue. What is the relation between the two commandments? In many religious communities, including Christian communities, there is a real tension between the two. ‘I want to care, but my prior loyalty must be to uphold what I believe.’ Or at worst: my devotion to Christ leads me to behaviour that is destructive for others. People devoutly committed to a god are often a cause of much evil in the world. History demonstrates that. Current problems on the international scene demonstrate it. Our experience in dealing with people’s pastoral problems has probably illustrated it as well. Do I love God or do I love my neighbour?
To resolve the dichotomy by explaining that I love my neighbour as part of loving God because God commands it is an unstable solution. It makes love for neighbour secondary and invites the possibility that when I love my neighbour I am not really doing so; I am really loving God. At worst I am keeping on good terms with God at the expense of loving my neighbour (and then often at my neighbour’s expense!).
The pieces come together differently when we think differently about God. If God is to be thought of as the projection of those human value systems which see power and control as primary, and which see the ideal life as one of ultimate self importance and adulation from others, then the problem is already in our theology, because such values are in conflict with love for neighbour. Unfortunately the language of worship too often reflects such values, despite our efforts to explain that the language of kingship and court deference is metaphorical. Where however our theology has an image of God whose being is loving and whose life is the creative and redeeming out pouring of such love, then loving one’s neighbour is not a secondary obligation ‘which the king requires’, but an invitation to participate in the life and being of God.
Luke was probably responsible for expanding the dialogue by having Jesus tell the famous parable about the Samaritan. It is profoundly theological in the sense which we have outlined above. The priest and Levite appear as those for whom the two commandments are so far apart that the first blocks the second commandment. This would be so if purity concerns were their motivation for neglect. It would be so in a different sense if they were just apathetic. Jesus’ story reflects criticism of the theological stance of the temple functionaries. Today we might want to ask about the system. We know how structures can so exhaust people that they end up failing at the most basic level of what was the original inspiration of the system. Jesus is also being typically subversive in having a despised Samaritan play the God role.
Luke takes up this subversive piece of theology in order to deal with the lawyer’s question: ‘Who is my neighbour?’ Are there limits? Is it to include only the people of my community, of Israel? Might it also include undesirables, Samaritans, Gentiles? Does it include women, people with disabilities, lepers and others frequently excluded? Ultimately it is a theological question: whom does God love? Luke has Jesus tell the parable and then neatly reverse the question: Who proved to be neighbour to the man who was beaten up (10:36)? This does two things: it makes us realise that in human community every human person is a neighbour and potentially a caring human being; and it breaks down the hierarchy of helper and helped.
But what about the bandits? Societies where there is oppression produce bandits. Societies which seek to bring dignity to all are less likely to produce bandits. The message of the kingdom was about a transformed society, but also about one that was liberated from structures which oppressed. This individual encounter belongs in that public arena if it is not to be trivialised into an exhortation to care just for individuals. Affirming one God is affirming that no aspect of reality is to be ignored; in all of life, in individuals, in community, in structure and organisation (not least, religious organisation), in creation God is God and God is love and God invites us to participate in and become God’s action in the world.
Epistle: Pentecost 7: 11 July Colossians 1:1-14
Pentecost 6: 4 July Luke 10:1-11, 16-20
Luke has already reported the sending out of the 12 in 9:1-6. There he is following Mark 6:7-13. Now in Luke 10 he is bringing similar material, this time drawing on Q, the source he shares with Matthew. Matthew chose to merge the two traditions together in 10:1-16. Luke retains the two separate reports. Last week we had the passage where Jesus sent messengers ahead of him into a Samaritan town which rejected him (9:52-53). That is barely 10 verses back when Jesus is pictured here sending out people again into every town and place he was going to visit (10:1). That is Luke’s way of linking this tradition to the great journey to Jerusalem. But when we look at the material in 10:1-12, it is not really about preparing people for the visit of Jesus, but rather about the mission of the disciples. Perhaps the figure 70 suggests the mission to the world of the 70 nations, but Luke does not see that happening until well after Easter.
The idea of mission is present in the image of the harvest. Harvest can be a positive and a negative image. John the Baptist is reported to have used the grain harvest to speak of judgement: burning up the chaff after saving the wheat. The idea of gathering in the harvest belongs to the expectation that when God’s reign is to begin, there will be a gathering of all God’s people for the new beginning. Many will come from east and west and north and south and feast with Abraham, Isaac and Jacob in the kingdom of God (Luke 13:28-29; Matt 8:11-12). Sometimes it also included the hope that the Gentiles would also come, like birds coming to make their nests under shrubs of mustard bush. Jesus told other parables about harvest, the best known being the parable of the sower, expressing a defiant optimism about what God would do, despite the apparent failure of so much seed to take root.
The early Christians saw themselves participating in this great climax of hope. Paul appears to have developed his strategy of visiting the cities of the world (of his time) and bringing an offering from the Gentiles to Jerusalem against this expectation. His apostleship was playing a role in the divine plan of bringing in the Gentiles. Q preserved the instructions which were to guide such endeavours, probably developed at a very early stage in the church’s life, if not already during Jesus’ ministry. It is important to imagine our way back into their setting, before we consider our own setting and the possible connections.
It is very likely that Jesus instructed his disciples to emulate his own pattern of activity. That entailed travel. He would come to a town or settlement, then would need to find a place to sleep and be looked after. The pattern he sets out for the disciples insists that they travel as poor people, but, unlike the wandering Cynic teachers of his day, not even to carry a begging bag. Instead they were to come only with who they were and await local response. Larger Palestinian houses were such that you could freely enter the front half of the house from outside - it was public space. These disciples would then face the owners with the choice of being part of the kingdom movement by offering hospitality and enjoying its benefits through healing and teaching or of turning away these uninvited would-be guests.
The ancient world had strong customs about hospitality. The mission used these. The result was quite confronting: you either welcomed these people or you turned them away. It was accepted that enemies should not be offered hospitality, but were these enemies or friends? They claimed to be envoys of peace and wholeness, including healing. They claimed to be announcing the reign of God and by their actions, bringing its reality into life in the here and now. To receive them was to receive the one who sent them and to receive him was to receive God, to be open to the kingdom. To reject someone who is not an enemy, to refuse to offer hospitality, was shameful. It brought disgrace and promised misfortune. That is the expectation here, too. Reject these messengers and you reject Jesus; reject Jesus and you reject God; reject God and you invite judgement. Shaking dust off the feet is probably symbolic of such judgement.
This was a deliberate strategy. The alternative of dropping in on friends on the way to say, ‘Hello’, was forbidden. It would have thwarted the plan. The approach was quite confrontational. The verses left out, 10:12-15, illustrate the severity of the threat. Notice that Sodom is mentioned in 10:12. Its notoriety was not homosexuality, as later generations made it, but failure to offer hospitality.
The action plan of the disciples and doubtless of Jesus, himself, made hospitality central, especially the shared meal. The response of faith was about willingness to share food, to be together in mutual acceptance and fellowship at a meal. This was also a central symbol of hope. In their radical way Jesus and his disciples after him were precipitating hope in meals in the here and now. These became celebrations of hope, but also of inclusion and healing.
When the disciples return, they have got a buzz from their successes. Using apocalyptic imagery, Jesus shifts their focus to the heavenly book of life in which their names are written. This is symbolic way of saying: what matters most is the close relationship you have with God which is its own reward beyond all the successes - because with it you can also live through the failures which inevitably come. He also speaks of Satan falling from heaven, another apocalyptic image used to depict the dethroning of the serpent or dragon at the end of time. Hope comes to fulfilment now when people are liberated from the powers that oppress them.
It is a long way from this strategy of mission to our modern day. The architecture of houses in most societies does not lend themselves to this plan. But I wonder if the invitation to join the movement of God’s kingdom does not sometimes work like this. It is not about selling a brand name (‘Christian’), but sharing a vision of change in such a way that means real participation in making it real in the here and now. I suspect that there are many times that a fellowship of solidarity in commitment and work for change has been created when people who love because of the influence of Jesus, join others who love. People who really care recognise others who really care.
Households (half public communities in themselves) committed to caring in the name of Jesus became church communities. The travellers became ‘apostles’ (envoys), the link people. Link people and locals were a loose movement for change, people for the poor, people convinced they were participating in God’s initiative to bring hope. It was all about being bearers of this hope. As the movement grew the link people spawned local leadership patterns, which evolved into structures for order, now reflected in formal orders of ministry. They were never meant to be above the locals, but rather to engage them in the same mission. Their lifestyle was a statement against prevailing values, a kind of protest which defied the normalcy which insisted people remained bound to their locality, family and station in life and treated it as their reward. The strangeness of these early patterns may be accounted for by the vast chasm of time and culture; it may, however, reflect a high level of estrangement on our part from the values which drove them.
Epistle: Pentecost 6: 4 July Galatians 6:(1-6) 7-16
Pentecost 5: 27 June Luke 9:51-62
At this point in his gospel Luke has been reworking Mark’s gospel and has reached Mark 10:1, where Mark tells us that Jesus set off for Judea. One chapter later in Mark Jesus enters Jerusalem and the temple. Not so in Luke. Ten chapters later Jesus reaches Jerusalem! Luke does not return to Mark until he reaches 18:14. In between Luke brings a wide range of stories and sayings not found in Mark, but either shared with Matthew (so from Q) or from his own unique sources. Together they become teaching which Jesus gives on the journey. They are also like teaching for the journey upon which all disciples embark.
Our passage deals with the beginning of the journey, especially the call to discipleship and what it means. But first Jesus must make his way through Samaria. Given the mutual hostility, it is credible that in some Samaritan villages Jews would not be welcome. Racism, whatever inspired it, catches up Jesus and his followers. Luke’s story also knows that Samaria was the territory of the northern kingdom of Israel, where Elijah and Elisha had been active. Its king, Ahaziah, had sent two sets of 50 men to arrest Elijah. Elijah had called down fire from heaven to destroy them (2 Kings 2:10,12). In the story James and John want Jesus to repeat the dose. Let’s stamp out racism! Let’s hate those who hate us! Jesus will have none of it.
It is an odd story. Is it being critical of Elijah’s act? This is less likely than that the author wants to show that Jesus is like Elijah but also someone more than Elijah. That theme will return in the following verses. Nevertheless violence is being set aside as a solution. Hating those who reject you is also a major religious theme, including a frame of reference for many in thinking about God and God’s future. The cycle of violence easily becomes a devout response. James and John loved Jesus. That was a problem - for them and others.
The next section has three encounters between Jesus and would be followers. Jesus did all the wrong things from a growth perspective. He was in danger of losing everyone if he carried on like that. Hanging alone on a cross is not success. ‘Son of Man’, the odd expression which the Greek foists upon us, means something like ‘the human being’ in Hebrew. So we have a contrast between this human being and the animals. ‘This human being’ seems closer to what is meant here. Jesus is speaking of himself. Daniel 7 also contrasts animals and one like a human being. Against that background, laced with political allusions, the saying of Jesus belongs in the context of the journey upon which he is embarked, a journey that will end on a cross - and then victory! It is the path of suffering which Jerusalem’s inhabitants knew when Antiochus Epiphanes crushed their spirits in 167 BCE and which only through the exploits of Judas Maccabeus carried them to deliverance and glory in 164BCE, the setting for the book of Daniel. To join Jesus is to join the march for freedom, the journey for liberation, the path through danger to hope.
The second encounter shocks our sensibilities and sounds like the counsel of fanaticism. It is extreme, it seems deliberately so. It makes us want to wheedle our way out of its embarrassment and embroider some hidden motives into the man’s request. Maybe his father was still alive? Hardly likely. Shock tactics can be offensive. This is doubtless meant to be offensive. It does not want to be explained and certainly not as a new way of treating parents. Its violence challenges family values with a higher claim of allegiance. It is not founding an institution or setting up a principle, but wresting control from cherished values so that we see another perspective. It asserts God, the reign of God, not as a manipulation of fanaticism, but as the highest value. Again, this is skewed if it is seen as a distraction from love by a self indulgent god, claiming rights to be adored. Then we are back with James and John's theology. Rather it can make sense as a call to radical compassion which may challenge all other calls to caring. Mostly it will generate all that caring in family which is so central, but love remains and sometimes it must break established priorities. Less dramatically, but just as relevant, people’s dedication to ‘family values’ frequently blinds them to real caring and at worst inspires hate and discrimination.
The first two encounters appear also in Matthew (8:19-22). The third encounter is unique to Luke and functions as a counter piece to the introductory story based on Elijah. For in 9:61-62 Luke is reminding us of Elijah’s call of Elisha (1 Kings 19:20). Elijah allowed Elisha to bid farewell to his folks. Not so Jesus! The image of the crooked furrow is graphic. A modern image might be what happens when people drive with their eyes glued to the rear vision mirror - the consequences are often more disastrous than crooked furrows.
Jesus is not driving a wedge between family and the kingdom of God, but he is indicating a conflict of interest. He often does so. Many people suffer because they need this kind of liberation, whether through external pressures or through internalised ones. Churches have often reinforced the values which have prevented people from growing up. It is not just a therapeutic issue for individuals - and that alone is worth a sermon about liberating grace and some exorcism. It is also what it does to our community and our world when local family values, systems and loyalties, even local racial and national loyalties, lead us to betray other people, usually those much worse off than ourselves. What are the shock tactics of today to free people from such seductions or simply to lift them beyond the limited horizons of their own legitimate caring? The point is not the tactics but the invitation to a new kind of journeying, a new way of setting one’s face for Jerusalem.