Tame Jesus - Redeemer Episcopal Church (3 Pentecost)

You may read the sermon below of listen to it at this link.

Luke 9:51-62

New Revised Standard Version Updated Edition

A Samaritan Village Refuses to Receive Jesus

51 When the days drew near for him to be taken up, he set his face to go to Jerusalem. 52 And he sent messengers ahead of him. On their way they entered a village of the Samaritans to prepare for his arrival, 53 but they did not receive him because his face was set toward Jerusalem. 54 When his disciples James and John saw this, they said, “Lord, do you want us to command fire to come down from heaven and consume them?” 55 But he turned and rebuked them. 56 Then they went on to another village.

Would-Be Followers of Jesus

57 As they were going along the road, someone said to him, “I will follow you wherever you go.” 58 And Jesus said to him, “Foxes have holes, and birds of the air have nests, but the Son of Man has nowhere to lay his head.” 59 To another he said, “Follow me.” But he said, “Lord, first let me go and bury my father.” 60 And Jesus[c] said to him, “Let the dead bury their own dead, but as for you, go and proclaim the kingdom of God.” 61 Another said, “I will follow you, Lord, but let me first say farewell to those at my home.” 62 And Jesus said to him, “No one who puts a hand to the plow and looks back is fit for the kingdom of God.”

I’ll be completely and totally honest with you this morning— this is not the kind of Jesus story I really like. 

I like the stories of tame Jesus. I like the stories of Jesus feeding people. And the stories of Jesus healing people. I would even much rather the story of Jesus putting a legion of demons into a whole herd of pigs. 

Even give me the story of Jesus cursing a fig tree or clearing sinful people out of the temple. I’m okay with all of those kinds of stories of Jesus. They are tame… or if they aren’t tame, they seem to target the most powerful and sinful of the people Jesus encounters. And surely that’s not me, right? 

But this story… this story is convicting and makes me uncomfortable. Not because of my wealth or my status in society, but because of my faith life— because of the way I walk with Jesus. 

Perhaps I have been here at Redeemer too long, because when I read this story, I could hear Father Wiley say that he is not interested in ethical questions of good vs evil. It’s when we start to think about good vs good is when things start to get really interesting. 

That’s what we hear this morning. That’s why this story is so very convicting and makes me so very uncomfortable. 

First half is about Jesus’ mercy to people who really have no intention of following him in the first place. 

Jesus and his disciples are on their way to Jerusalem and are passing through a village of Samaria. The people there had maybe heard of Jesus, but knew he was on his way to Jerusalem, so they didn’t have any interest in even receiving him and his disciples into their village. 

The disciples are eager to teach the Samaritans a lesson and ask if Jesus wants them to bring down fire from heaven to consume the people there. The disciples lack faith in so many different ways, but as soon as they see someone snub Jesus, they think they can bring down fire from heaven to avenge him. The disciples are such an interesting bunch. 

But Jesus says no, and continues on his way. He extends mercy to the Samaritans, even though they wouldn’t welcome him into their village. 

But then Jesus talks to some other people along the road. These folks are different than the Samaritans because they are already there with Jesus, walking with him to Jerusalem. 

“I will follow you wherever you go.” One of them says. Jesus replies with a sort of coded message, “Foxes have holes, and birds of the air have nests, but the Son of Man has nowhere to lay his head.” He seems to be saying, “you say you’ll follow me wherever I’ll go, but you don’t know where I’m going. I don’t have a palace somewhere and I have nowhere to keep you safe once we get to Jerusalem.” 

“Are you sure?” Jesus seems to be saying to this follower. 

To another person, Jesus said, “Follow me.” 

But the man said, “Lord, first let me go and bury my father.” 

And Jesus said to him, “Let the dead bury their own dead, but as for you, go and proclaim the kingdom of God.” 

Another said, “I will follow you, Lord, but let me first say farewell to those at my home.” 

And Jesus said to him, “No one who puts a hand to the plow and looks back is fit for the kingdom of God.”

This is why this story of Jesus makes me so uncomfortable. It makes me shift in my chair a bit as I read it. I don’t *like* this version of Jesus. I don’t want to follow someone who would say something that seems so callous and unloving. 

But then I remember again what Father Wiley says. The questions of good versus good are so much more interesting. I don’t think that Jesus is saying that it is a bad thing for people to want to go back and bury their loved ones. I don’t think Jesus is saying that it is a bad thing that this follower wants to go and say farewell to the people that he loves. 

But Jesus has set his face toward Jerusalem and nothing is going to stop him from doing what he was sent to earth to do. He expects his followers to have the same kind of determination that he does. Perhaps that was unfair to some of his followers at the time— after all, they didn’t know how the story would turn out. They don’t have the same privilege that we do, knowing that the end of the story with Jesus’ death was only really the beginning of the story of the Kingdom of God. 

But we do. 

There will always be things that divert our attention away from the gospel. There will always be excuses that we come up with— even good, valid, and important excuses— as to why we cannot follow Christ right now. 

There will always be reasons why it would be easier to just catch up with him later, when it’s more convenient. 

There will always be times when we have to choose between what is good and what is the most important and pressing thing to God and the Kingdom RIGHT NOW. 

And I don’t think these choices are going to get any easier. Over this summer, we will spend time going all the way through Luke’s gospel and what I think we are going to find is that the longer people follow Jesus, the most difficult it is to choose between good and the gospel. I think we will find that as well. Things are not going to get easier. They may, in fact, get much more difficult for us as people of God. 

But we have the promise of the Holy Spirit in the baptismal waters. We have the promise of the feast to come in the Kingdom of God in this holy meal. We have a cloud of witnesses before us and a community of saints among us to help us understand and discern exactly what it means to follow Jesus in these times. Like I said, it’s not going to be easy. And there will be people who are bent on distracting you from resurrection and restoration. There will be so many reasons to choose the easier path, to make excuses why it is just too risky to do it right now. But as for you, go and proclaim the kingdom of God. Christ is with you. Amen. 

Radical Hospitality - Redeemer Episcopal Church (Holy Trinity Sunday)

You may listen to the sermon audio here or read it below. 

Lord, may the words of my mouth and the mediation of each heart here before you be acceptable in your sight. Amen. 

I have told you stories of our radical hospitality in campus ministry before, but I want to share another one because my students continue to surprise and delight me. 

We had one student graduate from UNF this past spring semester. She is one of our most outgoing and talented students, with lots of friends at the university and in the community. She was having a hard time finding a venue for her graduation party, so finally we just decided we would host her party on the final night of Food for Thought on the Tuesday before graduation. 

We rented out part of the ballroom, decorated it, and had some incredible lasagna along with traditional Egyptian food that our student’s mom brought in. Around 6:15pm a student hesitantly walked into the room and quietly asked if she was in the right place for Food for Thought. I began to explain that this is a different gathering than usual because we were celebrating Khalifa, our graduate. 

I looked over to Khalifa for a cue of some sort to see if she knew her and Khalifa swept her up in a hug, exclaimed “YOU ARE WELCOME HERE!”, and put a plate of food in front of her. No one had ever seen her before, but immediately, she was brought in to be a part of this weird and wonderful community. I don’t know if we will ever see her again, but that night she was fed and loved like she’d been with us for the whole year. 

“You are welcome here.” That can be a powerful invitation. In a time when we can find almost anything to divide ourselves up, we seem to insist that we are even more unique than the next person, and we aren’t as good about gathering socially as we once were… “You are welcome here” can be some of the most life giving words we can hear today. 

You see, we long to be in community. Despite what people might say about social media, it really is all about belonging. We want to be even more connected in a world that seems so distant and disconnected all the time. We crave a community that understands us and invites us into the real “stuff” of life. We long for people who say, “hey, I’m struggling with that too.” Or “I totally understand what that feels like.” We need that. It’s a part of what makes us human beings. In Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, it’s right there in the middle— we need love and belonging in order to feel as if our lives have meaning and purpose. 

I substitute taught in the middle schools around Jacksonville before I started working here at Redeemer. And wow they taught me a lot about the need and innate desire for belonging. 

I remember watching as a group of students debated whether they would play basketball or volleyball. It all revolved around what everyone else wanted to do. No one wanted to be the one to make the decision because no one wanted to be the odd one out— to make the wrong choice. 

This doesn’t stop in middle school. The college students I work with are constantly weighing different opportunities on campus with who is attending, how they might be perceived, or if they will be welcomed. 

I recently heard a quote from Martin Luther and he’s supposed to have said that we are all mere beggars, going and telling other beggars where we found bread. That’s what campus ministry feels like to me— we are all craving connection and community, and we are all going and telling others where we found it. And that’s exactly how our ministry grows. It’s not me— it’s our students who understand our commitment to hospitality and invite more students to be a part of this relationship. 

…

Today is Trinity Sunday, and instead of trying to understand the theological implications of the Trinity, we simply need to understand the relational implications of it. And that’s it. Belonging. A belonging so deep and intricate and binding that nothing can separate it. A relationship between Father, Son, and Holy Spirit— but also a relationship between God, humanity, and all of creation. The trinity is a relationship that we are invited into. 

That’s what makes the truth that we proclaim in this place so different. That’s what makes the gospel so different. When we choose to proclaim this truth— that we are invited into relationship with our God— it can be life changing. That’s what campus ministry does for college students and that’s what this congregation does for the community surrounding it. We open our doors and say, “you are welcome here, we want you here, and God wants you here” because that’s what the gospel says. 

And the really remarkable part is that there is no question of whether or not we belong in this community, there is no question about whether someone is in or someone is out. Paul tells us that we are all children of God because, as we heard just last week on Pentecost Sunday, the Spirit was poured out on everyone. Everyone— children, women, men, widows, young, old— there was no discrimination of the Spirit. She poured her power out on to everyone who was gathered, regardless of who they loved, what they looked like, or where they came from. 

That’s what makes this community, this relationship, different than anything else in this world. And we don’t quite understand it, do we? It’s almost impossible to wrap our heads around the promise that we are a part of this relationship, fellow dancers in the Trinity… God’s children— and there is truly and simply nothing we can do to change that. Do we believe that?

When we say, “come Holy Spirit,” whether in baptism or in prayers or before communion, we are asking that all of our other identities be washed away. We are asking to be adopted into God’s family. We are asking for a new reality, a new creation to overtake this one. 

As we invite the Spirit into our lives, into this community, into our colleges and universities, the Spirit is inviting us into the relationship of the Trinity— the relationship that turns the whole world inside out and upside down. The relationship that heals the sick, and comforts the crying, lifts up the poor, and casts down the rich. 

We are invited into this incredible relationship and we are called to go out into the world and tell them where we found it. We are all beggars, telling other beggars where we found bread. Amen.