Reverend Ian Doescher

The Sixth Sunday of Pentecost

In the early 1900s, Ernest Shackleton had an ambitious plan: he wanted to attempt to make it to the south pole, which no one had ever done.  He led several expeditions to the south pole, none of which was entirely successful.  But when he planned a trip, Shackleton knew he would need major resources and a brave crew with him for this voyage.  On one occasion before a trip, he placed an ad in the newspaper—an ad for men to join him that has now become famous.  This is what the ad said: “Men wanted for hazardous journey, small wages, bitter cold, long months of complete darkness, constant danger, safe return doubtful, honor and recognition in case of success.  Ernest Shackleton.”

What would we do in order to follow Jesus?  In today’s gospel reading that I read a moment ago, Jesus gives some of the most difficult teachings of the whole Bible.  He has three encounters, and in each situation he gives a challenging answer, to say the least: “As they were walking along the road, a man said to him, ‘I will follow you wherever you go.’  Jesus replied, ‘Foxes have holes and birds of the air have nests, but the Son of Man has no place to lay his head.’”  The second encounter is perhaps more brutal, because Jesus initiates this conversation.  Jesus “said to another man, ‘Follow me.’  But the man replied, ‘Lord, first let me go and bury my father.’  Jesus said to him, ‘Let the dead bury their own dead, but you go and proclaim the Kingdom of God.’”  And finally “another said, ‘I will follow you, Lord; but first let me go back and say good-by to my family.’  Jesus replied, ‘No one who puts his hand to the plow and looks back is fit for service in the kingdom of God.’”

There are three ways we can approach these difficult answers Jesus gives.  The first way to handle them is to explain them away.  This is the approach several scholars and Christian interpreters have taken.  You see, to our modern ears, Jesus’ answers to these questions are actually unacceptably harsh.  We won’t accept that Jesus could possibly mean what he says in these responses, because we can’t imagine that our loving and gentle savior would say these things and mean them.  These people wanted to follow Jesus, after all, they were coming to him wanting to join his movement, and he was mean to them.  So we explain Jesus’ answers in such a way that makes them less harsh.  For instance, there’s the man who asks Jesus “Lord first let me go and bury my father,” to which Jesus responds, “Let the dead bury their own dead, but you go and proclaim the kingdom of God.”  Some commentators explain this away by suggesting the man’s father was not actually dead yet, so when he asked to bury his father he was potentially asking for a reprieve of years before he followed Jesus.  So when Jesus said no to him, it wasn’t because Jesus was mean but because the man wanted to wait several years.  Other commentators say that the man’s father may have been dead a long time, and that the issue was about, as biblical scholar Elaine Heath puts it, “the placement of the deceased father’s bones in an ossuary box long after the father’s death.”  The point is there have been many attempts to explain what’s going on here, attempts that try to soften what Jesus is saying in response to his questioners.

The second approach to these difficult answers is to put the blame on the questioners, and emphasize Jesus’ ability to know the truth of people’s hearts.  This is the approach that puts the story this way: Jesus knew that these people were bad apples, knew that these people didn’t have in them what it took to be disciples and live by the gospel, so he turned them away.  This reading of Jesus’ responses makes the case that Jesus is just doing what allowed everyone to save face: he could appear to have high standards and they could go their separate way, without ever having to be told that if they had actually joined up things wouldn’t have worked out.  This approach makes Jesus something like a benevolent human resources manager, who tells second-rate job candidates, “We’re sorry, we like your resume but we’ve actually changed the nature of the position, so good luck with your search somewhere else.”  The person goes away feeling disappointed that the job is different than they thought but not feeling bad about themselves, and the holy human resources manager isn’t stuck with a bad employee.  Maybe that’s why Jesus says what he does to these people.

Those are two approaches to Jesus’ difficult answers, but there’s a third approach I think is much truer to the gospel, and that is to take these statements at face value. “Foxes have holes and birds of the air have nests, but the Son of Man has no place to lay his head.”  “Let the dead bury their own dead, but you go and proclaim the Kingdom of God.”  “No one who puts his hand to the plow and looks back is fit for service in the kingdom of God.”  I think this third approach, taking these statements at face value, is the right one.  I think Jesus is drawing some serious lines in the sand.  I think Jesus was being just exactly as harsh as he sounds here.  But actually, when it comes down to it, I think maybe “harsh” is the wrong word.  Jesus is drawing lines, Jesus is actually saying no to people here.  But to call him harsh is wrong—he is merely stating the conditions of his mission, and saying what is and isn’t acceptable for people who want to follow him.  Why would he do that?  Well first of all, I think we have to look at the context here.  Remember that at the beginning of this passage, the gospel of Luke says, “As the time approached for him to be taken up to heaven, Jesus resolutely set out for Jerusalem.”  You’ve probably heard me say before that all of the action of the gospel of Luke is toward Jerusalem.  The geographical action in Luke is from outside of Jerusalem in, and then the action in the book of Acts, by the same author, is from the city of Jerusalem outward, as the early church expands.  But this moment, in Luke 9:51, is when Jesus is “resolutely set[ting] out for Jerusalem.”   If you have ever seen a sports movie—think Rocky, about down-and-out boxer Rocky Balboa, or The Karate Kid, about a small boy mentored in karate and life by a wise Chinese man, or Invictus, about the South African rugby team, or Miracle, Disney’s movie about the 1980 U.S. Olympic hockey team, or even sports comedies like Major League or Happy Gilmore—all of these movies have a similar plotline.  They all have about twenty minutes of setup, about an hour of what might be described as training and character building, thirty minutes of the big match or game or tournament, and then maybe five or ten minutes more of wrap-up.  This moment in Luke 9:51 is when the big game starts.  Jesus is done with his training, and now it is time to head to Jerusalem, where the real work begins.  The place where Jesus will lose by the world’s standards, but by God’s standards will win the greatest victory ever.  So once Jesus has “resolutely set out for Jerusalem,” he will not turn back and he starts letting people know what the true cost of following him is.  And the bigger lesson is: the message of Jesus is not for everyone, not everyone will be able to follow because not everyone’s heart is truly into it.  Yes, Jesus really said those things—“Foxes have holes and birds of the air have nests, but the Son of Man has no place to lay his head,” “let the dead bury their own dead, but you go and proclaim the Kingdom of God,” “no one who puts his hand to the plow and looks back is fit for service in the kingdom of God”—and I have to believe he meant every single one of them.

What does this mean for us, we who carry on Jesus’ message in the church that bears his name?  How do Christians reconcile these difficult answers with the idea that our churches should be completely and utterly welcoming?  I think we have to ask those questions faithfully and prayerfully, and ask them with the understanding that we may be surprised by what we discover.  I’m reading a book called The Tangible Kingdom by Hugh Halter right now.  Hugh is the pastor of a church in Colorado, but this church community has decided to do a very countercultural thing and make church more about service than it is about growth.  This means that the church is not for everyone, particularly not necessarily for Christians who are used to a model of church where you can come, get what you want out of church, and then leave.  This is what Hugh says about his church’s philosophy of how to treat newcomers to the community: “When Christians from other contexts come to visit…” he writes, “I usually take them out for coffee after their second visit.  I have to do this in order to be sure they understand what they’re getting into.  Just as Christians are coming to check us out, I also check them out… [to see if they’re] ‘pew sitters,’ people who know a lot of Bible verses, who like to be plugged in and go to classes.  They have bucketloads of ministry ideas and love to lead from the top and share their ideas from the top, but they really don’t want to live the life of a missional person, sacrificing in order to provide an inclusive community for others.  In other words, they are people who only want to experience community if it benefits them.  We usually have about a 50/50 ratio of individuals who leave after that first talk and those who go with us.  Although we could grow the church faster if I let the pew sitters enjoy our main gathering, we are committed to being faithful to this mission, and therefore we are more concerned about who is with us on mission rather than how many people show up on Sunday.”  Hugh and his congregation have made a bold choice—that not everyone is suited for their church, because not everyone may be willing to follow Jesus quite as boldly as they have chosen to do.  Not everyone may be able to hear the difficult answers, that following Jesus is sometimes more important than our own sense of comfort, our own societal expectations, our own idea of what it means to be disciples.

I hear stories of churches like Hugh’s, and I have to believe there is something deeply faithful going on there.  Let me be careful and clear here: Calvary is not in a position where we are going to start turning members away.  I’m not going to adopt a model of ministry quite as firm as Jesus in Luke 9, drawing lines in the sand.  And I don’t think we have to follow that exact example: the stakes were much higher for Jesus, on his way into Jerusalem to be accused, tried, convicted, sentenced and killed than they are for us in our corner of northeast Portland in a world where Christianity has become safe, has culturally become the norm.  Our situation is different than Jesus’, and I think it’s fair to recognize that and understand that we don’t have to be as strict about who’s in and who’s out as he was.

On the other hand, I think what we can take away from Jesus’ difficult answers is a challenge not only to newcomers but to ourselves as well, a challenge to remember that truly following Jesus usually requires more sacrifice, more challenge, more difficulty than we expect.  If we feel Christianity is a safe religion, we haven’t done a very good job of following Jesus’ example.  If we don’t think Christianity ever involves sacrifice, we’ve missed the message.  If we imagine there are never lines in the sand as far as Jesus is concerned, we have forgotten just how difficult and countercultural his message of love and his command for discipleship is.

When Ernest Shackleton put out his newspaper ad for his arctic expedition, he was painfully honest about what it would require of the men who joined up: “Men wanted for hazardous journey, small wages, bitter cold, long months of complete darkness, constant danger, safe return doubtful, honor and recognition in case of success.”  You know what happened?  Men flocked to join the expedition, and not only did they come to Shackleton in great numbers but they also knew the risks once they did.  Jesus gave some difficult answers, and people followed.  We are the inheritors of that tradition.  What would we do in order to follow Jesus?  “As they were walking along the road, a man said to him, ‘I will follow you wherever you go.’  Jesus replied, ‘Foxes have holes and birds of the air have nests, but the Son of Man has no place to lay his head.’  He said to another man, ‘Follow me.’  But the man replied, ‘Lord, first let me go and bury my father.’  Jesus said to him, ‘Let the dead bury their own dead, but you go and proclaim the Kingdom of God.’  Still another said, ‘I will follow you, Lord; but first let me go back and say good-by to my family.’  Jesus replied, ‘No one who puts his hand to the plow and looks back is fit for service in the kingdom of God.’”  May we be fit for service.  May we be found acceptable.  Amen.