A Good Guy with a Thunderbolt?

1 Kings 19:15-16; Psalm 16; Galatians 5:1, 13-25; Luke 9:51-62

“When the days drew near for Jesus to be taken up, he set his face to go to Jerusalem.”

As you probably know, the Scripture readings for our Sunday services come from what’s called a “lectionary,” a standard schedule of readings. In recent decades an ecumenical three-year lectionary has been used in many denominations, so that on any given Sunday, many congregations across a wide variety of traditions are hearing and reflecting on the same Scripture texts.

Because the lectionary cycle is three years long, the same readings come up together every three years. Normally three years is plenty of time for everyone to forget the sermon they heard on these texts three years ago. I personally consider it a victory if anyone can still remember the sermon at 3:00 on Sunday afternoon, never mind three years later. And even I have absolutely no idea what I said about these readings three years ago.

But when I first looked at the readings for this Sunday, it only took me a couple of second to remember that these were the readings on my first Sunday in a new congregation on June 28, 1992, at St. Thomas More Church in Darien, Connecticut. And probably because it was my first Sunday there, I actually remember my sermon on these texts from exactly 30 years ago.

But what I want to say today about these texts – what I think we all need to hear in these texts today – is not at all what struck me in these texts 30 years ago. And it’s not because of the difference in congregations – if you know anything about Thomas More, it will be obvious that St. Thomas More Church is not a Lutheran congregation. (Thomas More was a contemporary of Martin Luther’s, they knew of each other, and let’s just say that they did not have high opinions of one another.) And while I’m sure my own theology and reading of Scripture has evolved over the last 30 years, I don’t think that explains the difference.

I think the main difference between how I read and tried to preach on these texts 30 years ago and what I see in them today has more to do with how the world has changed over the last 30 years, and how the church has changed along with it. Let me explain.

When I considered these texts in 1992, what really struck me was the contrast between Elisha in the first reading and the various potential disciples of Jesus in the gospel passage. These potential disciples tell Jesus, “I’m willing to follow you, but I need to fit you into my schedule,” but when Elisha is called to become a prophet and the successor to Elijah, there is no reluctance or hesitation on Elisha’s part. When Elisha gets the call, he’s plowing the fields on his farm. And Elisha doesn’t put his farming equipment into storage or lend it to his neighbors, you know, just in case this prophet business doesn’t work out and he needs to go back to farming. No, Elisha takes his plows and makes a bonfire, cooks all his oxen, and throws a barbecue for the whole town. Elisha burns his bridges, there’s no going back. As a poker player might say, Elisha is “all in.” Just as Jesus is “all in” for us as he sets his face to go to Jerusalem.

That’s what I remember preaching on these texts 30 years ago. Elisha and Jesus went “all in” on doing God’s work, no excuses, no holding anything back. How much do we follow Jesus? All the way. And that’s not wrong – but what I took for granted then, but seems quite important to me today, is what does it even mean to follow Jesus. 30 years ago it didn’t seem important to ask what it means to follow Jesus, because we all knew back then what it meant. To follow Jesus meant to go to church on Sunday, to say your prayers, make sure your kids got baptized and went to Sunday school and got confirmed, maybe participate in social events at the church or do some service projects for the church or the community. There wasn’t much to elaborate on.

But everything that seems relevant to me in these texts today is not about how much we do or don’t follow Jesus, but what it means to be a follower of Jesus. So at the beginning of the gospel passage, James and John think Jesus is upset with a Samaritan village, and they ask Jesus, “Do you want us to call down fire from heaven to consume them?”

Now calling down fire from heaven to get the bad guys has a long history in the Bible – Elijah himself did it several times, even once to some Samaritans, which is probably where James and John got the idea from. Maybe that’s why Elisha was so enthusiastic when Elijah offered to make Elisha his successor – who wouldn’t want the power to call down fire from heaven against the bad guys? Have you ever wanted to just be able to zap somebody who deserved it? When bad guys are doing bad things, you need good guys with thunderbolts to take care of them.

Except that Jesus says no, and he rebukes James and John. Jesus is going to Jerusalem to take care of evil all right, but calling down fire from heaven is not his way, and it can’t be our way either. Over the last 30 years, as our society has become so much more polarized, there are more and more people ready to take the “call down fire from heaven” approach to their enemies. There’s a lot to be righteously indignant about in the world today. Yet the way of Jesus is not about calling down God’s judgment on others while standing outside that judgment ourselves. It seems much more important today than it did 30 years ago for us to remind ourselves that divinely sanctioned violence solves nothing, that using threats to force people to do what we think they should “or else” will earn us a rebuke from Jesus.

Next, the gospel passage tells us of someone Jesus meets who promises him, “I will follow you wherever you go.” And Jesus tells them, “Foxes have holes, the birds of the air have nests, but the Son of Man has nowhere to lay his head.” What does he mean? I think of the image I often quote from Pastor Nadia Bolz-Weber: Whenever we draw lines separating ourselves from other people, Jesus goes and stands on the other side of the line. So if we want to be with Jesus, the only way to do it is to stop drawing lines. And this means there is no place that Jesus calls home, where we can go and join him and then draw a circle around us and Jesus that leaves anyone on the outside – if we do, he will leave us and go to stand with them.

I suspect this potential disciple sees Jesus on his way to Jerusalem, to the center of power and influence. Someone says, That young man is going places! I’ll tag along and climb the ladder with him. And so Jesus has to make clear: That’s not how it works. If you are going to follow me wherever I go, be prepared for a very long journey, because I’m not “going” anywhere in particular. In fact, I will forever be homeless – I’ll be with everyone who gets excluded. The literally homeless, to be sure, but also with the spiritually homeless, those who have been kicked out of their homes, those who are restless and dissatisfied and hoping that somewhere there is more.

And then two more potential disciples of Jesus come on the scene. Each is willing to follow Jesus, but has an important duty they must perform first. One must bury his father – and what more important duty does a child have than to care for their parents and give them a proper burial at the end? The other wishes to say goodbye to family – and what’s more important than family? Even Elisha was allowed a farewell barbecue. These are not just reasonable requests, they are praiseworthy requests. And when Jesus tells them no, they are shocked – we are shocked, by how harshly Jesus dismisses their devotion to their familial obligations.

What Jesus says to them only makes sense in the light of what he is going to Jerusalem to do. You want to bury your father? I’m going to Jerusalem to destroy the power of death forever. You want to say farewell to your family? I’m going to Jerusalem to bring all human beings everywhere together into the family of God. You want to do what is right and proper, what any respectable person or upstanding citizen would do in this world – but this world is passing away, and I am going to Jerusalem to give birth to a new world where death is defeated and people are set free from every sacred duty and obligation – as Paul wrote in today’s letter to the Galatians – in order to live fully into peace and love and life without limit. Do you want to follow me to that new world, or do you just want to do your duty here in the old world that will soon be gone?

Thirty years ago the new preacher at St. Thomas More heard these texts as a call to follow Jesus more closely, with fewer reservations and conditions. Both he and his congregation thought they knew what following Jesus meant. Just as the potential disciples in the gospel text also thought they knew what following Jesus meant, and then discovered that they were doing it wrong. Today I hear in these texts a word calling us here at Epiphany to rethink what it means to follow Jesus, in this unique place and confusing time. And I take confidence that even though none of the disciples described in the text got it right, Jesus made it to Jerusalem anyway, and his offer to teach us and walk with us on the path of true discipleship still stands.