Tough Talk … Sort of (June 27, 2010)
I’ve taken lately to driving past the Presbyterian Church up on route 9D to read the sermon title for the coming Sunday, which the Rev. Lindsay Borden always has out by Monday afternoon (I can’t even think of a sermon title by Sunday after the sermon’s preached, much less by Monday a week before!).
Her sermon title for this week, which I especially liked, is “Tough Talk” named for the pretty hard things Jesus says to his would-be followers in this passage. Biblical scholars count these among what they call the “hard sayings” of Jesus, because the demands Jesus makes are so steep. But “hard sayings” doesn’t do it nearly as much justice as “tough talk.”
So, I’m also going to say a few words about Jesus’ “tough talk” here and particularly the context in which he says it, which is, I think where the real lesson lies. On our way to that, though, let me first go back through the passage because there’s a lot here.
We begin our passage at the beginning of Jesus’ journey, or pilgrimage, when he “sets his face” toward Jerusalem, which I’ll say more about in a minute. Once he’s set out, he sends some disciples out ahead into Samaria to go find a place for him to stay. If you were from Galilee, which is up in the north, you had to travel through the region of Samaria to reach Jerusalem in the south. The problem here was that the Samaritans weren’t always so keen on housing Jews making their pilgrimage to Jerusalem because that wasn’t the Samaritans’ holy site.
So they reject Jesus and the disciples, to which the disciples get very angry and suggest that Jesus rain down fire on the Samaritans – perhaps not the likeliest or most guaranteed form of retaliation, but it’s an allusion to the Old Testament story of Elijah where he reigned down fire on the prophets of Baal, who worshiped a different deity – probably on this very spot. (You’ll recall that those early disciples thought of Jesus as an Elijah, and so they probably had that scene in mind when they asked Jesus to do the same.)
Jesus may be tough, but not that tough, and he rebukes them for their suggestion. Just as an interesting side note, some ancient manuscripts actually insert an additional line here from Jesus, where he says “the Son of Man did not come to destroy men’s lives, but to save them.” Most Bibles try to go by the oldest available manuscripts, where we don’t find that line; and that’s why we don’t have it in our reading here. But the thinking is that it might have been an addition by a later scribe as he was copying the Bible.
It’s funny because, I guess when the Gospels have Jesus rebuking someone but don’t say what, exactly, he said, I imagine that’s because the rebuke couldn’t be repeated in polite company. And so I suspect that whatever scribe inserted that tame rebuke probably didn’t want us inserting other words in Jesus’ mouth!
But anyway, back to our story. Jesus is rejected by the Samaritans, refuses to rain down fire on their heads, and then continues on his way. And that’s when we come to these three hard sayings.
First, a man approaches him and says “I will follow you wherever you go.” And rather than say the expected, “Great!” he says this unwelcoming saying “foxes have holes, birds of the air have nests, but the son of man has nowhere to lay his head.” In other words, Jesus’ life is not one of comfort and safety, but alienation and estrangement – and this enthusiastic follower isn’t prepared for following or being such a person as Jesus describes.
The second saying is prompted by another encounter, this time with Jesus extending the invitation. The man asks to first go and bury his father, and Jesus says, “Let the dead bury their own dead.” That is, let the spiritually dead be concerned with tending to family and household matters – a harsh take on domestic life that’s not uncommon in Jesus’ teachings. (So much for “Christian family values” – a phrase you should always regard with suspicion because it seldom matches the family values we get in the Bible.)
Finally, another person approaches Jesus and, like the man before, asks to first say goodbye to people at home. To which Jesus says “no one who puts a hand to the plow and looks back is fit for the kingdom of God.” Or, in plain speak, NO – you may not.
There’s no softening these sayings, and at some point we have to admit to ourselves that Jesus would have had some pretty hard words to say to us, too.
Still, the context in which he says these things might teach us something about where he’s coming from. The journey that Jesus takes from Galilee to Jerusalem is an important piece of Luke’s Gospel, taking up nearly half of it, and here we’re at its very beginning, when Jesus is full of steely resolve and purpose. Just that opening line says it all: “Then he set his face toward Jerusalem.” Some translations put it even more emphatically: “He hardened his face toward Jerusalem.” As if nothing could stand in his way. But invariably, it does. In fact, no sooner does he set out than he’s thwarted by some unaccommodating (or just too busy) Samaritans.
As he continues on his way (and we’ll be reading from this journey for the rest of the summer) he’ll have many more setbacks and diversions. The straight path to Jerusalem he probably imagined when he first set out becomes a circuitous path that that almost has a “one step forward two steps back” feeling to it.
But today, as he begins, he’s resolved and unyielding, full of “tough talk,” perhaps in the way we often are when we first set out on a journey, until we’re chastened and matured by the blind alleys and digressions, which often teach us more than the straight path ever could.
By the same token, sometimes we need to remember how resolved we were when we started out on one of life’s journeys. How we once said we’d be the best, most forgiving spouse we could be. How we were once resolved not to take on our parents’ worst traits. How we once promised we’d live simple, honest lives. How we once swore we’d never forget the poor or weak, or spend money on things that honor ourselves more than they honor God and our neighbor.
Youthful convictions shouldn’t blind us to the beautiful digressions our lives may have taken; but neither should they be always be forgotten. And maybe the extremity of Jesus’ sayings here are meant to make some bit of them last, even when our journey conspires to make us forget where we started.
So, don’t ask me to name that sermon. Guess we’ll leave that to the Rev. Borden up the hill, and down here, we’ll just amble along and do our best.
