Bible Passages: Luke 9:51-62
Summary: The cost of following Jesus and being part of his kingdom means being willing to go out of our comfort zones, have different values than our families, and not use our faith as a weapon to judge or control others. God’s kingdom is like a pearl of great price, and the choices and sacrifices we make to give our ultimate allegiance to it are worth whatever it costs us.
Every spring we have a family of foxes who builds a den under our storage shed in the backyard. We’ve tried everything to keep them out, but they are persistent and always seem to succeed in building their den.
Our scripture today is about the cost of following Jesus, and one of the examples Jesus uses has to do with foxes. One has to do with families, and another with fire.
We’ll look at each one of these and what they mean in terms of what Jesus is asking of us, if Jesus really meant what he said here, and think about whether it’s really worth it to follow him. We’re going to start at the second part of the story and then go back to the first part which deals with fire.
Jesus talks about foxes after someone says to him: “I will follow you wherever you go.” Jesus responds by saying “foxes have dens, and birds have nests, but the Son of Man has nowhere to lay his head.”
I think that the cost that Jesus is getting at here is the willingness to giving up COMFORT. If we truly give our lives to following Jesus, it might lead to some discomfort, at least as our world sees it.
Sometimes the discomfort might be in the form of following Jesus to places and people who are outside our comfort zones.
I came into the Mennonite Church because I felt God calling me to live and serve among people who were less privileged than I was. After I graduated from college, I signed up for Mennonite Voluntary Service and was sent to live and work in a low-income Latino neighborhood or barrio in Denver, Colorado.
I found myself among what Jesus might say were “the least of these”—people who felt abandoned, hopeless, and caught in a cycle of poverty and violence. People with a totally different upbringing than I myself had.
I taught at an alternative school for kids who either dropped out or were kicked out of public schools. Many of them were on the verge of joining gangs or maybe already were part of one.
Sometimes I would come home from work and feel like I had gotten run over by a truck. Like the day that Ronnie Sanchez threw a chair at me in the classroom.
But in the midst of it all, I grew closer to God because I had to depend upon Him in ways I never had before.
And also, my eyes were opened to see the face of Jesus in the students and their families. These were the kind of people whom Jesus calls “blessed” in the Beatitudes, and they were a blessing to me in ways they weren’t even aware of.
Looking back, following Jesus to Denver was one of the most life-changing experiences I’ve had. And that’s not even including that’s where I met Karen.
Foxes always have their safe and comfortable dens, but Jesus didn’t always have a place to lay his head, and he purposely went to uncomfortable places outside the boundaries of where good Jewish people in his days dare not go.
But like he was doing in Samaria in our story today, he and his disciples were sharing the good news of God’s Kingdom—offering healing and hope to people in desperate need of it.
This first person he met in our story today said “I will follow you wherever you go”, and Jesus didn’t sugarcoat what it meant to follow him, but instead was honest with the reality that it might lead him farther outside his comfort zone than he imagined.
Jesus meets two other people on the road in our story, and both of them have family matters they want to take care of before the join up with Jesus and his crew. One of them wants to give a proper burial to his father, and the other just wants to say goodbye to his family.
We could say that here Jesus is calling people to leave behind their familiar community, to become part of a new community. In the stories of the early Anabaptists that I heard on our recent trip to Switzerland,
I discovered that some families were torn apart because some members joined the new Anabaptist movement, while others wanted to stay in the Catholic or Protestant churches.
Maybe some of you have gotten pushback from your families of origin for the choices you’ve made to be more faithful to Jesus. Some of my own family members haven’t been so keen about my Mennonite commitments to pacifism and separation of church and state.
And in our polarized society of today, I find myself on different sides than many of my family members on a bunch of issues because of my faith convictions.
Through my experience in churches in several different places, I have caught glimpses of Jesus’ and the Apostle Paul’s vision of the church being my new family, sharing life and common values together. Maybe you have experienced this new reality of family as well.
OK, let’s stop right here for a minute and be honest and realistic about what Jesus is saying to both the guy who Jesus said might not have a place to sleep at night, and the two people who wanted to show respect and loyalty to their families. I mean, a case could be made that Jesus was going a bit overboard here, right?
This passage could qualify as one of those places where Jesus uses hyperbole, right? Where he exaggerates in order to drive home a point.
There are some well-known places where Jesus uses hyperbole, like in Matthew 5 where he says: “If you eye causes you to sin; pluck it out; if you hand causes you to sin, cut it off.” (Matthew 5:29-30)
Or in Mark 10, where he says: “It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for someone who is rich to enter the kingdom of God.”
In the first one he’s emphasizing the seriousness of sin, and in the second he’s highlighting the dangers of wealth, and how both of these can be obstacles to following the way of Jesus.
Still, in our story here what the people are doing doesn’t seem to be very serious at all; in fact, they seem to be acting as responsible people. A preaching professor named Scott Hoezee says that it’s “clear that God can and does work through people who own homes and who love their families and who attend the funerals of their loved ones.”
He says that Jesus’ statements seem a bit out of line. But then Hozee quotes a sermon from the great 20th century preacher Fred Craddock who says that maybe what Jesus says it not so out of line when put in the context of the importance and value of the Kingdom of God.
If the kingdom of God is anything close to what we think it is, we really cannot overstate its power or beauty. We cannot exaggerate enough to convey the punch of this kingdom and of the God of all grace who through our Lord Jesus Christ has saved us from darkness into light. The power and the beauty of the Kingdom of God cannot be overstated.
When I read this, I was drawn to some parables that Jesus told describing the value of the Kingdom that he ushered into the world.
Here are two of them side by side; the parable of the hidden treasure and the parable of the pearl of great price:
44 “The kingdom of heaven is like a treasure that somebody hid in a field, which someone else found and covered up. Full of joy, the finder sold everything and bought that field.
Again, the kingdom of heaven is like a merchant in search of fine pearls. 46 When he found one very precious pearl, he went and sold all that he owned and bought it.
Friends, God’s Kingdom is of such value because it’s not only the only one that will still be around after all the other kingdoms and governments and political parties in our world are gone,
But God’s kingdom is so much more compelling and beautiful and powerful than any other because it is founded on social justice where the lowly are lifted up and the rich and proud are brought down, where every person has dignity and value,
God’s kingdom is founded on compassion where people truly care about one another and together work for the wellbeing of all people, regardless of race, ethnicity, gender or religion.
God’s Kingdom is founded on peace, where swords are beaten into plowshares and people study war no more, it’s founded on a radical love where there is forgiveness and reconciliation and love for enemies.
And because of the incredible value and beauty of God’s Kingdom, with Christ as Lord and King, it’s worth giving our lives to and giving up whatever stands in the way of our undivided allegiance to Jesus.
Hoezee talks about what this kind of loyalty to Jesus might look like. He says:
Whether we are called to leave behind kith (friends) and kin, we are all called to a radical commitment to the gospel. And if in the midst of our lives that sometimes mean turning down a promotion, saying hard things to our children, denying our families the dream vacations taken by others, or any number of other sacrifices both great and small in service to the power and beauty of the gospel . . . well, we ought not be surprised.
In fact, the only thing that should be surprising is the presence of all those people in the pews each week who seem to think that being a Christian makes so little dent in their lives at all.
That’s something we all should ponder—how big of a dent does our faith make in our lives?
OK, we’ve dealt with foxes and families, now let’s go back to the beginning of our passage where things get heated on account of some fire. Jesus and his close companions, brothers James and John are not getting a very warm reception Samaria.
It was probably to be expected, since there was bad blood between Jews and Samaritans. And at this point in time, with Jesus setting his face toward Jerusalem to observe the Passover, the temperature in Samaria had shot up like the thermometer did here in Northern Virginia this past week.
You see, during Passover in previous years the two groups had taken turns desecrating each other’s temples: One year, Samaritans had dug up some graves and thrown the bones into the temple court to prevent the Jews from celebrating.
Then the next year Jews burnt the Samaritan temple on Mt. Gerazim to the ground. So it’s no surprise that the Samaritan villagers refused to welcome Jesus because he was headed toward Jerusalem.
And their inhospitality to Jesus lit a fuse in the hearts of James and John, so they pleaded with Jesus, “Lord, do you want us to call fire down from heaven to consume them?” In other words, burn up and blow up the place just like some Jewish prophets in the Old Testament had done to people of enemy nations.
But Jesus put a stop to it right then and there. It says he rebuked them. In a way, he’s calling them to give up Control, and replace it with compassion.
You see, Jesus ushered in a different way of dealing with people than was often practiced among God’s people in the Old Testament.
His Sermon on the Mount outlines this new way of living, like where he says, “you have heard that it was said, love your neighbor and hate your enemy, but I say to you love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you.”
We already see Jesus’ approach earlier in this chapter when he’s instructing his disciples on how to act when they go knocking on doors in Samaria.
Whatever house you enter, remain there until you leave that place. Wherever they don’t welcome you, as you leave that city, shake the dust off your feet as a witness against them.” –Luke 9:4-5
Now there are many different interpretations of what Jesus means by “shake the dust off your feet”, but he definitely is taking a more peaceful approach than raining down fire and brimstone on the Samaritan village.
I like how one commentator interpreted it, saying that Jesus’ followers should not let rejection hinder their progress, but instead move forward with the lessons learned and continue sharing God’s love with others who might be more receptive.
You know, the desire to use violent and coercive means to advance or defend one’s religion or retaliate against those who are seen as a threat to it has been with us from the beginning of time.
The reality is that there are Christians in our country today who support this approach. And there are many who support waging war in certain parts of the world like the Middle East because they see it as a fulfillment of prophecy and a sign of the end times.
I want to go on record of saying that I reject this mindset, that it has nothing to do with God’s plan of redeeming the world through Jesus. And I’m glad that there are other Christian leaders and pastors who have a larger platform that I do who preach a gospel of the nonviolent Jesus.
Brian Zahnd is one of those pastors.I’ve quoted him before, and I can recommend a bunch of his books to you. You can also follow him on social media.
Zahnd is the pastor of World of Life Church in Kansas City, and he lost a lot of members when he discovered the gospel of nonviolence and the separation of the church from the state later on in his ministry and started preaching about it.
Here is what Zahnd said about James and John’s desire to rain down fire on the Samaritans, and how it relates to our world today:
When Christians rush to the Bible to cite the wars of Joshua or Saul’s slaughter of the Amalekites or Elijah’s drone strike from heaven in order to give biblical support for the wars they love and the violence they long for, they have departed from the spirit of Jesus and have fallen under a satanic spell. No matter what Joshua or Saul or Elijah may have done, Jesus did not come to steal land, kill enemies, or destroy villages—Jesus came that we may have life, and have it more abundantly…
Friends, let us follow this kind of Jesus. Yes, following a Jesus who had no place to lay his head and who wasn’t afraid to journey into challenging situations can take us way out of our own comfort zones.
Let us follow a Jesus who calls us to be part of a new community, a new family whose values will sometimes butt heads with the values of our families and friends is not for the faint of heart.
And let us follow a Jesus who invites us to stop using our faith as a weapon of control because “God is on our side”, and instead be messengers of grace, compassion and peace in the world goes against the grain of our world that is permeated by bullying and violence.
The way of Jesus is the narrow way, the road not taken by so many, but it is the way that promises abundant life for all who dare to follow him. Jesus’ kingdom is truly a pearl of great price, and the choices and sacrifices we make to give our allegiance to it is worth whatever it costs us. AMEN.
