LUKE 9: 52-62, 2010

In ancient Judaism, Jerusalem wasn’t just an important city.  It was the capital of a nation, yet it had an even greater significance – the cosmos itself was believed to turn on its pivot there. In the entire world there was one Jerusalem and one Temple.  Together they constituted what anthropologists call the axis-mundi – the center point that pulled everything else into its orbit.  All worldly reality revolved around this point and found its center of meaning there.  Moreover, the Temple and Jerusalem were the point where the heavens above, and the world of the dead below – future, present and past -- were joined in a singularity, a unique point of interchange between God and the world.  Thus, as Rabbi Nachmann, one of the greatest Hasidic rabbis would later say: “Wherever I go, I’m on the way to Jerusalem.”  Or as he was often paraphrased: “All roads lead to Jerusalem.” 

 So, as Jesus became more aware that the three years of his public ministry were approaching their fulfillment, we can nearly predict the words in today’s Gospel lesson from Luke: “When the days drew near for him to be taken up, he set his face to go to Jerusalem”. The four Gospels differ about how much Jesus foresaw of what was to come there.  While John portrays Jesus as foreknowing everything, Luke’s story is more ambiguous.  I’m not sure if Luke thought that Jesus knew he was about to be violently “taken up” onto a cross, or whether these words were simply Luke’s way of reminding us where we are in the story of Jesus.   What we do know is that Jesus was being drawn to Jerusalem, as if pulled by gravity.

When I try to picture Jesus in today’s Gospel, I see his jaw set, eyes focused, mirroring the determination that focused his heart and animated his feet.  With each step he looks more and more bent towards the holy city — like the scrub oaks along the Carolina Coast, twisted permanently in the direction of wind and sea.  But with the pull towards Jerusalem came a foretaste of danger.  Today’s lesson is the only recorded time in the Gospels that he sent two of his disciples ahead of him to check out the village where they were to stay the night, almost as if he anticipated trouble.  And sure enough, as Luke tells the story, ‘they did not receive him – because his face was set toward Jerusalem”.  The people saw the look of determination on his face and chose not to get in the way of this journey.  The intensity of his purpose convinced this unnamed Samaritan village of the wisdom that day of inhospitality.

We might have seen it coming, for the chapter in Luke immediately before today’s lesson is strewn with familiar and urgent admonitions of Jesus to his followers. “Take nothing for your journey, no staff, nor bag, nor bread, nor money—not even an extra tunic.” And on another occasion he gave the crowds that had begun following him this sobering advice: “If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross daily and follow me.” 

Those around him felt Jesus’ growing impatience with the crowds who met him everywhere he went, in spite of their being reported to be “astounded at the greatness of God,” and “amazed at all that Jesus was doing.”  Jesus did not, however, revel in the adulation.  Instead, he took his disciples aside to put it in perspective, saying: “Let these words sink into your ears: The Son of Man is going to be betrayed into human hands.”  Forget all the praise; this isn’t going to turn out well.  The disciples once again didn’t understand, for Luke reports that immediately an “argument arose among them as to which one of them was the greatest.”  Jesus’ frustration boils over; show me a child, he told them, and I will show you who is the greatest: “the least among all of you is the greatest.”  “Good grief,” you can almost hear Jesus huffing in frustration.  

So when his disciples suggested the nuclear option – to destroy the unnamed Samaritan town for its lack of hospitality – Jesus responded not by raining down fire like Yahweh at Sodom, but by rebuking his own followers.  Jesus had an intuitive sense that his own emotional and spiritual energy, and that of his disciples, needed to be focused on what awaited them in Jerusalem; and so they moved on.

You cannot help but feel for the disciples about now.  I’ve tried to picture myself in their company walking along next to Jesus.  I want my breathing to match his, and I want to be as determined as Jesus to ignore my thirst and push forward.  But the quickness of his rebuke, aimed not at the Samaritans but at my friends, and me is a solemn reminder of how far my own soul still needs to travel.   Suddenly, I’m relieved that our journey together is not yet over, that there’s still more walking that lies in front of us, more opportunity to share in the company of those I’ve come to know well and who know me.  I cherish our closeness, borne out of laboring and learning together — even being chastened and given another chance. 

                  My rhythm gets interrupted, however, when someone in the always-present crowd recognizes Jesus, walks right up to him, nudges in front of us and blurts out: “I will follow you wherever you go”!  “What arrogance!” I find myself saying.  Does this person have any idea what we’ve been through, how hard this journey is turning out to be?  I want to blurt out:  “Do you really think you can just raise your hand and say, ‘Heh —sign me up, here I am’?  But before I can say “get in the back of the line,” Jesus says the darndest thing:  “Foxes have holes, and birds of the air have nests; but the Son of Man has nowhere to lay his head.” 

At first I want to say, “You go, Jesus!” but then I realize I’m not even sure what Jesus means.  There’s a compelling tenderness in Jesus’ eyes, and his hand is outstretched towards the unknowing volunteer.  He is, as Julian of Norwich will one day remind us, always, “Our Courteous Lord.”  Jesus is letting this overenthusiastic stranger know how hard this journey is — how few rewards there are for the important labors of life together as followers of Christ.  He’s letting all of us know that sometimes we pass through several towns before we find ourselves welcomed for the night.  It’s been like this for Jesus his entire life.   He was born, so the story goes, in a borrowed manger; he and his parents had to flee for his life into Egypt, before later moving back to Nazareth, which he would call home.  Jesus seems always to have been on the move, living on borrowed time-- remaining true to the journey he was called to.

Over the next several miles there will be more encounters between Jesus and would-be travelers.  By this time, Jesus was well known, as a healer, a creative teacher, a faithful man of prayer and compassion.  Children adored him. Men of power despised him with equal intensity.  There was not much in-between about Jesus.  Trying to keep up with him was exhausting, and yet there was something that drew people in, despite their having little idea what it would mean and cost to become one of his followers.

We know what it’s like to hear Jesus saying, “Follow me,” but finding that life seems to get in the way.  We’re like the one who responded to Jesus’ invitation with earnestness: "Lord, first let me go and bury my father."  We find ourselves equally perplexed by Jesus’ response:  "Let the dead bury their own dead; but as for you, go and proclaim the kingdom of God."   What we do know is that life has many twists and turns, and the reign of God seems far away.  We mean to follow, but often falter.  Even so, sometimes we can screw up our courage and declare: "I will follow you, Lord; but let me first say farewell to those at my home."  Having in mind a farmer who knows from personal experience how hard it is to plow rough ground, much less to keep the furrows straight and avoid the rocks, Jesus gives us our rebuke, saying: "No one who puts a hand to the plow and looks back is fit for the kingdom of God."  If you’re going to follow me, as Martin Luther King, Jr. was fond of quoting the gospel hymn, “you’ve got to keep your eyes on the prize” -- or as another version of this civil rights favorite put it, “Keep Your Hand on the Plow.”  

The Kingdom of God isn’t a Washington tourist destination; it’s not a Delaware beach or a four-day federal holiday.  It’s the axis mundi-- the center of it all.  And even though all roads lead to Jerusalem, the one that Jesus is on is a road full of challenges--at times even dangerous.  And to be a disciple, a follower of Christ, is a costly calling.  It’s not for those who have to travel business, much less first-class, for on this road, the last are first, and the first last.  Those who live to save their lives end up losing them.  And only those who’re willing to take up their own crosses are invited to join Jesus on the journey towards his own.  

Jesus doesn’t look down, however, on those who don’t measure up.  Jesus just knows that those who prefer to stay busy arguing about whom among us is the greatest, are extra baggage, and Jesus travels light.  Jerusalem is pulling him to the center of which he is, the center of what he was created to be…the turning point, not just of his life, but also of history itself.  He can’t look back now.  And nothing else matters more.

To be a follower of Christ, in biblical times as now, is to choose to go on a journey with Jesus.  That may not be the language most of us use to describe what it means to be part of St. Thomas’ Parish.  And yet we, too, are called to take part in the journey towards the Reign of God that God has in store for us.  And so, in the midst of a hot, dry stretch of June, our vestry paused together just a week ago today to make a historic decision about where God’s calling us as a parish to go, and how urgent we believe it is for us to heed that call and to follow. The result was a prayerful decision to put our collective hand to the plow, and to move into the future without looking back, to build a new worship home for St. Thomas’ Parish.  The vestry chose, God willing, to set our eyes on the prize and stay faithful to our calling to create a place and community where all can find, and be found by God.  We decided to begin something today so that when our children’s children return to Dupont Circle seeking sanctuary and refreshment, courage and inspiration, comfort and forgiveness, St. Thomas’ Parish will have a place for them.   We have heard God saying to us, as St. Paul said to the young church in Galatia: “You were called to freedom, brothers and sisters, so do not use your freedom as an opportunity for self-indulgence, but become servants to one another, learning to love your neighbor as yourself.”   We’ve heard Jesus’ challenge to leave the past to the past, and take up his challenge to live into the future, to commit our time, talents and treasure to help make one small patch of the Dupont Circle neighborhood a place where God’s love reigns supreme, even in the midst of the dangers and violence of urban life. 

For as Christians, we know that although life began in a garden, it will find its true end in a city, the heavenly Jerusalem.  With God’s help, may we journey together, keeping our eyes on that prize.  For we’ve chosen to allow the future to have as large a claim on us as our past, confident that at the end of our road lies the freedom for each of us to fully become the creatures God so joyfully made us to be.  We journey in the confidence of a love so broad, and deep, and high, that female & male, Greek  & Jew, straight & gay, will one day fade away, as we become, one and all, neighbors in the Kingdom of God.  Meanwhile let us not forget that whatever path we follow today, or tomorrow or the day after, we’re on the way to Jerusalem, with God’s Holy Spirit as our Advocate and Guide.   And whatever we encounter along the road, let us never forget that Jesus, God’s Child, has gone ahead, preparing the way, journeying towards Jerusalem – towards God’s Reign, which is our future.