In today’s Gospel, Jesus speaks harshly, acting cold and indifferent to the responsibilities of family and work. But more than being cranky, I think Jesus is giving us a primer on the cost of discipleship.
As we meet up with Jesus today, he James and John are traveling through a Samaritan area, a region considered unsafe, inhospitable and unclean to any self respecting Judean Jew. The Samaritans had no use for the Jews and the Jews, for the most part, had no use for the Samaritans…. So… of course… Jesus seeks shelter and hospitality there. And, of course, he doesn’t get it. Appalled at the rude treatment, John and James offer to take a page out of the Old Covenant prophet book and rain hellfire down upon them—kind of an “if they don’t love you and treat you with the respect we feel is due you, then we will obliterate them from the face of the earth. An eye for an eye. This must have exasperated Jesus….the old way was the exact thing he was trying to change. The old way of rules and regulations, had, instead of bringing people closer to God, taken God’s beloved even farther away. Jesus was sent to turn the whole thing upside down. And yet, still, they don’t get it?
Perhaps seeing this time of frustration with his ardent supporters as an opportunity, a couple of people make their pitch to Jesus about how they would be great disciples.
But, Jesus tells them, being my followers is not that easy, for to be a true disciple means carrying a heavy load, it means giving up some things which you hold dear, it means, risking an awful lot.
While the words Jesus uses are harsh-- the message is clear: if you follow me, you will lose much of what you hold dear. Following me is going to hurt.
Being a disciple, following the way of Jesus is not easy, it can be confusing and often it is very unsettling.
It can be scary.
This difficult stage is set at the outset of our Gospel when we hear: “when the days drew near for Jesus to be taken up, he set his face to Jerusalem.”
That sentence, no matter how many times I read it, sends shivers down my spine. Whether it is close to Holy Week or on a lazy summer morning in late June, Jesus setting his face for Jerusalem is unnerving and I want to shout “NO, don’t do it. “
Don’t do it.
For we know what this means---he is heading to his death. That this God in the Flesh sent to us by an adoring God will be rejected, betrayed, tortured and killed.
You know, some days its all too much-----days like today when we’ve had a successful Strawberry Festival, we’re out of school and we’re packing for vacation--and we want to skip the betrayal .the trial, the agony and the death and just get right to the empty tomb, to the glories of Easter.
The disciples, on some level, must have felt the same way.
John and James knew that once he set his face for Jerusalem all the talk about loving your neighbor as yourself and blessing the peacemakers would be put to the test…
They figured, once Jesus set his face to Jerusalem, the only thing that was going to get them through was a miracle.
But Jesus knew differently, he knew that the only thing which would save anyone---himself or his followers -----wasn’t a miracle, but faith.
And it was his efforts to get his followers to deepen their faith which made him sound so harsh. But he knew the only way to get through the worst of times was to have a sturdy and abiding faith. [PAUSE]
Faith. That’s the key. Faith.
Faith is not about sitting in this beautiful setting among wonderful people praising a gracious and loving God.
That’s worship.
Worship is what fuels us as we go out to do the work God has given us to do.
And that work?
That work is faith.
Faith is what makes people volunteer at the Food Pantry. Faith is what makes people say yes when asked to serve on Vestry or coordinate the Strawberry Festival or attend Episcopal Peace Fellowship Meetings.
Faith is what all of you do every single day.
Faith is what makes us greet “the other “in our midst even when it may be uncomfortable or unsettling.
Faith is when we stand up and say no to injustice, intolerance and inhumanity.
Faith is when we tell others the things they don’t want to hear.
[Faith is when we take the strength garnered through worship, the nourishment taken from this altar and go out into the world living life as a follower of Jesus.
Living a life that may not win us friends, but will garner us brothers and sisters. ]
Living a life of faith is being scared, unsure and confused yet doing it anyway.
Faith is believing that God so loves us that God will never leave us. Faith is saying, God loves me so much that I am going to step out into the world determined to leave this earth a better place than how I found it.
Faith doesn’t make the journey any less painful.
The faith of James and John couldn’t stop the events of Jerusalem—the crucifixion---just as our own faith can’t stop the cruelty and injustice which surrounds us every day.
What faith does do, though, is make those injustices intolerable to us.
What faith does do is give us the courage to stand up to those injustices—wherever we see them and say, this is not ok.
James and John didn’t want to go to Jerusalem, they knew what awaited Jesus there. But their faith in Jesus propelled them to follow him. All the way to the cross.
Their faith couldn’t stop him, neither can ours. Jesus will go to
Jerusalem-- but faith, when we really trust it and when we really let it have its way within us--- gives us the courage and the stamina to make it to the empty tomb.
Jesus knew that following him was costly.
But he also knew that it was worth it. +
No comments:
Post a Comment