June 30, 2013 – Galatians 5:1, 13-25; Luke 9:51-62
Galatians 5:1, 13-25; Luke 9:51-62
Out of Control with Jesus
6th Sunday after Pentecost [Lectionary 13] – June 30, 2013
First Lutheran Church – Winnipeg, MB
Isn’t it funny how on this gorgeous summer Sunday you come to worship and
here you find Jesus telling you all about the hard demands of discipleship!
As the preacher William Willimon notes this week, “Ain’t it fun to be a gospel preacher!”
(http://www.logosproductions.com/content/june-30-2013-spite-demands-jesus-here-we-are)
This week Jesus resolutely sets his face toward Jerusalem.
He’s been meandering around Galilee for some time, doing his thing,
and now he sets his face toward Jerusalem: and we all know what happens in Jerusalem!
And as he goes, he has some words for those who follow him.
When the Samaritans – those cousins of the Jews who are in a family feud with them – when
the Samaritans reject Jesus,
the disciples are all for raining fire down on them from heaven.
But Jesus will have none of it: he did not come to destroy, but to save,
as some ancient scribe tried to add to Luke at this point.
In Jesus’ world, and in the biblical world, God has a soft spot for the outsider,
and often works through them when the insiders refuse to do God’s work,
a point Jesus will make in the next chapter, where a Samaritan becomes the
unlikely hero of the story.
The disciples want to be in control, but Jesus says, “Let them be.”
Then, to a would be disciple, Jesus says, “This is going to be hard. You will be homeless
and dependant on the generosity of strangers.
You will no longer be in control of your life.”
To another would be disciple who wants to honour his father as biblically commanded by
giving him a decent burial, Jesus says somewhat callously,
“Let the dead bury their own dead.”
And to another who wants to say goodbye to the folks back home before he takes up with Jesus,
he says, “Forget it! Either following me is more important than anything else, or it’s not.
No one who puts a hand to the plow and looks back is fit to follow me.”
Well, we know by now that Jesus loves speaking in hyperbole and exaggeration, but still:
these are hard words for a gentle summer Sunday!
These disciples and would be disciples want to keep some kind of control of their lives and
follow Jesus.
But Jesus is telling them this morning – and Jesus is telling us –
that you can’t have your cake and eat it too.
You can’t keep some kind of control of your life and at the same time be a disciple of Jesus.
I think Jesus is telling the disciples and the would be disciples this because
he knows where he is going.
He’s going to a place where things will be completely out of control.
As the professor of preaching David Lose notes,
Jesus doesn’t go to Jerusalem to assume command or take charge.
Rather he goes to Jerusalem to thrust himself fully and completely into our out-of-control lives. . . . [The Good News] is that God in Jesus join us in our out-of-controlness, holds onto us, and brings us to the other side. (https://www.workingpreacher.org/craft.aspx?post=2614)
Jesus goes to Jerusalem to thrust himself into lies, and deceit, and corruption, and injustice.
And on the way there he’ll thrust himself into illness, and hunger, and grief, and death.
And in all those places he’ll hang on to us. He’ll be with us. He’ll refuse to let us go.
In Jesus, God shows how much God loves us by entering into our out of control lives,
and staying with us, abiding with us,
journeying with us through the valley of the shadow of death.
Not magically making the valley of the shadow of death disappear,
but loving us enough to walk through it with us.
Being a disciple of Jesus isn’t about being in control.
And being a disciple of Jesus isn’t about letting God be in control, as pious as that sounds.
Being a disciple is about trusting Jesus.
First of all it’s trusting that Jesus continues to enter into our out-of-control lives,
into the messy places of our lives, even into our sinfulness, and holds on to us,
knowing that nothing – absolutely nothing! – can separate us from his love,
And second of all being a disciple of Jesus is about trusting Jesus enough to follow him
into those out of control places of our world, where there is hunger, and illness, and
addiction, and brokenness, and injustice and to bear him there.
It’s about taking a casserole to a house filled with grief.
It’s about taking sandbags to the place of flooding.
It’s about taking a listening ear to a home where there is brokenness.
It’s about taking a prayer to a hospital room.
It’s about taking some hope into a hopeless situation.
It’s about entering the turbulence of other’s lives, not in order to take control,
but in order to bear the God of all grace, trusting that God will join us in the venture.
There’s a lot of freedom in the universe.
The weather seems pretty free this year!
And let’s face it: the weather is pretty free every year: just ask a farmer!
God created this world with its own freedom and its own integrity,
and that is both a good thing and a frightening thing.
Genes have the freedom to mutate so that species can evolve and adapt to their environments,
and that’s a good thing.
But the same freedom to mutate allows some cells to become cancerous,
and that is a difficult and tragic thing.
My sister-in-law, my brother’s wife, is dying of cancer in Regina.
But the same freedom at work in the universe allows me and my wife and my boy Theo to
go and see her, to take her some love, to enter into this out of control thing with her and
my brother, to take her some prayer.
For this kind of freedom Christ has set us free, writes Paul to the Galatians this morning:
the freedom to enter into our neighbour’s suffering.
The freedom to hang on to each other there.
The freedom not to be afraid of the turbulence, but to enter into it with each other confident that
just as Jesus set his face resolutely to go to Jerusalem all those years ago,
so Jesus sets his face each and every day to go to the hospital room,
and the funeral chapel, and the jail cell, and every place of no hope.
The freedom we have been given in this universe that God created with a lot of freedom
is the same freedom that Jesus had:
the freedom to enter into one another’s out of control lives and
hang on to one another for dear life – until it’s over
and we see each other through to the other side.
My sister-in-law confided to me that she just wanted it to be over.
And who can blame her?
She’s confident that God can bring life even from this death, that God will be there at the end.
So we prayed, and my last words to her were, “I’ll see you on the other side.”
Jesus calls us to follow him to Jerusalem, to every out-of-control place where people suffer.
The good news is that though this universe has been created with lots of freedom,
you have the freedom to enter into your neighbour’s difficulties.
The good news is that Jesus enters into that turbulence,
and the good news is that you have the freedom to enter that turbulence too.
You have the freedom to follow him.
And you do.
Many of you voluntarily entered into your neighbours’ hunger this year by preparing and
serving community meals.
You were free enough to do that.
Free enough to spend the time, free enough to prioritize and spend the money.
For this kind of freedom Christ has set you free.
You have the freedom to follow him, and you do.
These are hard words from Jesus on a gentle summer Sunday and yet – here you are!
Sure: there are good reasons for turning away from Jesus – let’s face it!
Many have in fact turned away, but you, dears ones, have turned toward him.
You know I don’t shy away from preaching the difficult Jesus,
because to do otherwise would not be honest.
Years ago, Bishop Ray Schultz, who was a member of this congregation,
was amazed that there was anyone here at all on a Sunday morning!
But what I really think is that you want to be challenged.
You want to know Jesus, the full Jesus, in all his compassion and in all his challenge.
I think you want to know what Jesus expects of you as much as you want to know
the lengths to which Jesus has gone for you, for the sick, for the hungry, and all the rest.
I think you want being a Christian, being a follower of Jesus,
to make a difference to the way you live.
I think that in Jesus and in what Jesus asks of you,
you have found something worth giving your life to.
And for that – as a preacher and as a pastor – I am very, very grateful.
May you continue to follow him deeper into the places he leads you,
no matter how out of control, confident that he is with us.
Let’s pray a favourite prayer from Evangelical Lutheran Worship:
Lord God, you have called your servants to ventures of which we cannot see the ending, by paths as yet untrodden, through perils unknown. Give us faith to go out with courage, not knowing where we go, but only that your hand is leading us and your love supporting us. Through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen
Pastor Michael Kurtz
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