A DIFFICULT INVITATION

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

For Jesus, the path to Jerusalem was both a journey of sacrifice, and a journey of glory. It did ultimately result in the glory of the resurrection, but at a tremendous price; his suffering and cruel death on the cross. The glory of the resurrection came only after suffering and death. We cannot lose sight of its sacrificial character.

For us today as we hear this gospel reading, we too are invited to make this journey with Jesus. However, this invitation - while it is glorious; it is life with GOD! It is truly a difficult invitation to accept!

To accept this invitation means that we are willing to give up the comfort and security of placing our trust in a stable home and family life. Jesus said, “Foxes have holes, birds of the air have nests, but the Son of man has nowhere to lay his head”

To accept means we are willing to place the demands of discipleship ahead of the demands of family and cultural customs. “Let the dead bury their own dead; but as for you, go and proclaim the Kingdom of God”.

To accept means we are willing to set aside caution and conventional wisdom in favor of trusting that God will lead us. “No one who puts a hand to the plow and looks back is fit for the kingdom of God”. 

Christian discipleship is costly! On the one hand, God’s grace comes freely, without precondition. But on the other hand, our genuine acceptance of God’s forgiveness does not come easily. To accept this invitation is costly.

It is this cost of discipleship that is the core issue in this passage before us this morning. In these verses Jesus encounters three “wanna-be” disciples. In how Jesus responds to them the evangelist Luke presents us with an image and vision of Christian discipleship that is sacrificial, counter-cultural, and focused on trusting in God to lead us into the future.

Even so, we live in a time when these aspects of discipleship are often glossed over. We live in a time when the triumphant overpowers the humble, when a theology of glory overshadows a theology of the cross, and when a gospel of wealth and success drowns-out a gospel of sacrifice and service.

Nonetheless, no matter how hard we may try to soften this difficult vision of discipleship, the fundamental message of these verses cannot be avoided: Christian discipleship takes priority and precedence over everything else in life.

We see this message is as Jesus tells the man who wanted to follow him that Christian discipleship is fundamentally a journey, a moving quest, Jesus said he had no home, no place where he was safe and comfortable.

Jesus’ point is that as disciples our only true home is with God in the kingdom. One way to understand this is to say that our journey through this life is a journey of being both “enough” at home in the world to survive, and of being “enough separated” from the world to follow God’s call wherever it may lead. It is a tough balancing act!  

To be at home in the world implies a certain level of familiarity and comfort with the world. It implies a certain level of acceptance and tolerance for the status quo.

To be at home in the world also implies a web of relationships revolving around family; spouses, children, and extended family. Each of these relationships involves responsibility and each one vies for our priority at one time or another.

When Jesus said he had no place to be at home, he was telling us that he had denied himself the comfort and security of “being at home”, of being a part of a family and an extended family. By answering his questioner in this way Jesus was in a way asking him if he was ready to live such a life?

Was this man ready to deny the luxury and comfort offered by a spouse, children, and extended family? Was he ready to give up “home” as we understand it?

Was the man ready to live life without the web of human relationships most of us take for granted?

Was the man ready to do all of this in order to accompany Jesus on the journey he was about to take?

The gospel takes precedence over even the relationships we value the most. Following God’s call can mean leaving behind that which we value the most. Are we ready to journey with him?

Indeed, while home and stability do provide comfort and security for us, they also limit us. Jesus was constantly on the move, constantly sharing the gospel with others. In each of the four gospels Jesus does an enormous amount traveling - he is constantly on the go. It is a vision of discipleship in sharp contrast to the rather settled lives most of us pursue. The point is not so much the evil of stability, but the necessity of constant change and evolution in response to God’s call.

Take the example of how a shark must live. The shark cannot be still. It never rests. It cannot be still because it would die. The shark’s gills do not have the ability to draw water over them by themselves. A shark must always be moving in order to live. If it stops, it will die.

In response to God’s claim over our lives, we are called to be on the move in our discipleship. If we stop growing, if we start thinking we have arrived, if we stop pushing the boundaries, if we stop taking on challenges we will grow stale! To be faithful, Jesus calls us to be on the move, constantly encountering new challenges and growing in our discipleship.

Jesus next invites another person to follow him. This man says he wants to accept, but first must take care of his family obligations. Jesus’ response of “Let the dead bury the dead”, is shocking!

What kind of person is this Jesus? Does he not have even the slightest bit of compassion for this poor man who has just lost his father? Can this be the same man who was willing to eat with the hated tax collectors and associate publicly with the disdained prostitutes? Can it be the same man who urged the forgotten little children to come to him without fear?  How could it be the same person?

It is indeed the same person! Yes, the gospel calls us to break through social barriers. Yes, the gospel leads us to accept the unacceptable - to touch the untouchables. Yes, the gospel drives us to remember even the least powerful among us as worthy of our attention.

Nonetheless, the gospel also confronts us with a decision; do we accept it or not? Do we believe or not? Do we want Jesus as our Lord and Savior or not? Jesus demands a decision - either for or against?

Once the decision is made, then all of these other issues come into play, but first a decision needs to be made. The point of Jesus’ words regarding the dead burying the dead in this verse is meant as figurative not literal. Jesus is saying that those who have chosen not to follow him are as good as dead - let them take care of the social obligation regarding burials - in contrast to these his followers have more important things to do, such as proclaiming the Kingdom.

Such an interpretation may help us understand the harshness of the teaching it really does not soften it. Jesus is saying that the demands of our discipleship take precedence over the demands of our social lives and cultural obligations. Are we willing to pay that price in order to live faithfully as disciples?

As with the first invitation, there is nothing inherently evil about making sure a loved one receives a proper burial, but the demands of the gospel - of discipleship - take priority over everything else. Are we willing to pay that price for our discipleship?

In the third case of a disciple wanna-be, Jesus tells the man that once he puts his hand to the plow, once he trusts God to lead him through life, there is no gain or benefit from looking back.

This also sounds so harsh to our ears, the man simply wanted to go back and meet his family obligations. However, by doing so he was making the statement that he did not completely trust in God, he still needed at least to some degree to trust in the ways of the world.

It is not an exaggeration to say that as disciples, our whole life is a life of trust. We forgive one another before there is repentance - because we trust in God. We make sacrifices for others - trusting that there is a greater good. We risk comfort and physical security - because we sense God calling us to serve. We do all of this and more because we trust. We cannot live this way with one eye forward and one eye looking backward. In response to Jesus’ invitation to follow him, we can only keep both eyes focused forward in trust.

Allow me to share this story about keeping one’s focus. Karl Wallenda was the greatest tightrope walker who ever lived. Well into his 70’s Wallenda performed amazing feats of tightrope walking with ease and grace. However, in 1978 while walking across a rope strung between two tall buildings in San Juan, Puerto Rico he tragically fell to his death.

His wife was interviewed on television some weeks after his death and had this to say about his death, “It was very strange. For months prior to his last walk, he thought about nothing else. For the first time he had nightmares about falling.” She talked about his hesitancy to take this walk, and his looking back on past successes. She revealed that prior to this last walk he had checked the installation and construction of the wire himself. She told the reporter, “This was the first time Karl had ever done that”.

After years of success, what are the factors that led to Wallenda’s fatal fall? Negative mental images of his walk, fear, doubt, and hesitation? Perhaps. If so, are these not the same things which can cause us to fall in our spiritual lives. Jesus calls us to put our hand to the plow, and never look back. Plow forward – not back!

In the case of each one of these disciple “wanna-be’s”, Jesus’ invitation to discipleship was difficult to accept. Without question discipleship is a narrow path to try and walk. In fact, as Jesus described it, it is so narrow that no one can walk along it without help.

In this passage, there does not appear to be much room for grace, for the chance to fail and then try again.

However, there is grace in these verses. It appears very early in the passage. Do you remember it? Right after Luke tells us that Jesus set himself toward Jerusalem he is refused entry into a Samaritan village. James and John want to call down God’s wrath upon it for its failure to receive Jesus, but Jesus rebuked them. Jesus simply went on his way.

Let us not forget, God does not play by our rules. The way of the Gospel is different from the way of the world. Life in the kingdom is not life in the world. There is room to fail, and not be destroyed.