After Thoughts: Sixth Sunday after Pentecost

Luke 9:51-62

Every time I hear this reading from Luke, I think about Dad. Well, to be honest, I think about him a lot. But there is a specific memory attached to this portion of Luke 9. It was at least 45 years ago, in the ride home from church, he said the pastor’s message that day had been helpful because this particular passage was a challenge for him. You see, Dad loved his parents and could not imagine anything less than total care and support for them. For Jesus to say “let the dead bury their dead” seemed out of line with the Jesus he knew. So what was this all about? I can’t recall what the pastor said that day, only my dad’s ongoing working-out of his own relationship with God through the Son through the Bible.

All these years on, like Dad, I’m still mystified and challenged by the Bible. It pushes me outside my comfort zone. And that is a good thing indeed! So, on this Tuesday morning, as I reflect on this week’s Gospel lesson, here’s what I’m pondering.

The first of the three encounters Jesus has in this passage is with a volunteer. Someone walks up and says “I’ll follow you.” To which Jesus gives a strange reply about foxes and birds and holes and nests. The person had said “wherever you go” as if there’s a destination in the near future. But following Jesus is more about the journey which may have no clear path and no clear terminus here on planet earth. It won’t be easy. Jesus followers will be aliens, without homes, nomads.

Pushing the idea of homelessness even further, Jesus may be telling us that once he comes to live in our hearts, there will be no room left for our egos and our own selfish desires. No ‘prosperity’ Gospel here. We have to die to ourselves and give up our real estate so that the Spirit can move in.

The second encounter is the one that Dad wrestled with. Jesus calls someone to follow him and the person asks first to go back and bury his father. Jesus replies, “Let the dead bury their own dead; but as for you, go and proclaim the kingdom of God.” This makes me think about all the rituals we have devised for ourselves, including weddings, funerals, baptisms, and even church attendance. These things may make us feel holy and we may find comfort in the certainty of knowing how to worship God, but what if the kingdom of God is elsewhere?

The third encounter is when the person called asks to return to his family and wrap things up there before heading out. Reading the Old Testament verses that accompany this Gospel lesson is insightful. In this passage from I Kings (19:15-16, 19-21), Elijah calls Elisha by throwing his mantle over him. Then Elisha asks if he can say goodbye to his family first. And so he does. He burns the oxen that he had been working, along with the equipment, feeds the flesh to the people, says goodbye, and follows Elijah. All of the old is relinquished completely as Elisha embarks on this new calling. The oxen, a sign of his economic security – gone, burned up. The family – a sign of his social security – gone, left behind. He has a new vision, a new calling, and this requires that he only look to the future, not the past.

While I don’t think this means to literally burn up our computers, whiteboards, and other tools of economy, what if it means to sacrifice them to Jesus? To see our job, whatever it may be, as a way of proclaiming the kingdom? To see all people, not just our family, as God’s people who we are called to care for? Maybe, as Jesus makes a home in our hearts, he will call us from empty ritual to forward plowing that moves us out of the past into the future. The kingdom is here. The kingdom is now.