Sermon 6-29-25

Sermon 6-29-25 1 Kings 19:15-21 Luke 9:51-62

As I travel around our town and every other town I've been in for the past several years, I see signs in front of most of the businesses that say “help wanted”; “now hiring”; “open interviews”; things like that. It totally amazes me. Those signs stay up for a long time. My guess is those openings don't get filled.

All those years when I had employees and I needed help I would go seek them out. If I had an opening for a certain position I would approach someone who I knew was not working, and had the skills I needed. I would ask them, “Are you doing anything? Could you help me out for a couple of days?”

Then I would tell them what the job required. It never failed. They would stay with me for twelve, fifteen, maybe twenty years. But, they knew going in what the requirements were.

Our Gospel reading for today begins a new section of Luke's version of Jesus' earthly life. His Galilean ministry is finished. Jesus begins His journey to Jerusalem and the end of His human life on our planet. Bible scholars call it the “travel narrative”.

The first line of the reading says: “When the days drew near for Jesus to be taken up, He set His face to go to Jerusalem”. Jesus knew what was coming and where it was going to happen. He set His face. He had an unwavering determination to pursue a specific goal. Jesus knew beyond a shadow of doubt that He would face suffering and death. He set His face, He chose to go meet it.

Picture in your mind's eye, three circles, one on top of the other. Then picture a straight line, top to bottom, on the right side of those three circles, just touching them.

That is what a modern day map of Galilee, Samaria, Judea and the Jordan River would look like. Galilee on the top, Samaria in the middle and Judea, called the Southern Kingdom, where Jerusalem is located, on the bottom. The straight line, top to bottom, along the right side is the Jordan River.

Jesus has just left the top circle, Galilee, and is heading south to the bottom circle, to Jerusalem in Judea. In between is Samaria.

For seven hundred years, the Orthodox Hebrew people from the Southern Kingdom called Judea, and Galilee, formerly known as the Northern Kingdom, have hated the Samaritan people's guts. And visa versa.

It's a long story, do you folks have anything to do for the rest of the day?

Never mind then, here's the Readers Digest condensed version. Hundreds of years before the time of Jesus, the area we call Israel was invaded by foreign armies and all the good looking and smart Jews were carried off as slaves. Those foreigners left some of their people there to occupy the land of the Jews.

Those occupiers intermarried with the Jewish people who were left behind, mostly in the area of Samaria. When the Orthodox Jews came back home, they considered the mixed breed Samaritans far beneath them. That is when the troubles began.

By Jesus' time, any Orthodox Jew worth his salt would consider a Samaritan only a tiny bit different than a Gentile. Maybe worse than a Gentile. Gentiles didn't know any better, but Samaritans ought to.

There were three religious festivals each year when the Jews were required to go to Jerusalem. The Festivals of Passover, Weeks and Booths. The vast majority of those people walked. It is seventy-five miles as the crow flies from Galilee to Jerusalem. There were three main routes to get there.

The western route, along the edge of the Mediterranean Sea. The eastern route, along the eastern side of the Jordan River, and the central route, through the heart of Samaria. The Samarian route was the shortest by a few days. It was also the route that could be the most troublesome. This was the route that Jesus chose for His last trip to Jerusalem. “And He sent messengers ahead of Him”.

If you think about it, nearly the entire Bible is about Jesus sending messengers ahead of himself. Adam, Noah, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Moses, all the prophets, John the Baptist, the twelve, the seventy-two. He sent messengers ahead to make arrangements for a donkey to ride into Jerusalem, messengers to rent an upper room for the last supper.

A messenger to let the Temple authorities know where He would be so they could arrest Him in the Garden of Gethsemane. Why should messengers sent to a Samaritan village have any better results than any of the others? “They would not receive Him”. So He moved on.

As Jesus and His disciples move on, looking for hospitality in another town, something they are not going to find, Jesus is approached by three would be followers. It's almost like His disciples are carrying signs that read: “help wanted”, “now hiring” and “open interviews”.

Discipleship is not something that is to be taken on without thought and Jesus explains that, in middle eastern terms of that time. He wants them to count the cost. No one can be induced to follow Jesus under false pretenses, then or now.

Modern American readers can sometimes be repelled by what seems to be a harshness in Jesus' reply to these three fellows, who we believe just want to follow Jesus. He says, “Foxes have holes, and birds of the air have nests; but the Son of Man has nowhere to lay His head”.

Do not make the mistake of thinking these three fellows and Jesus are talking about a little Saturday afternoon road trip. They're talking about the Kingdom of God and the costs to get there. It is not easy and Jesus makes that point very clear in the vernacular of the time and place.

The Jews had nicknames for non-Jews. Foreigners were called foxes. Remember He called Herod “that fox”. Gentiles were called “birds”. Foreigners and Gentiles can go home at the end of the day, but Jesus has no such home on this earth. He is heading home, but not here on this planet.

The second man, as we read, wants simply to “first go bury my father”. Who on God's green earth could find any fault in that? Jesus' response would seem to us even more harsh than the first one. “Let the dead bury their own dead”.

Chances are that the man's father wasn't dead or any where near death. Remember the parable about the “prodigal son”? Jesus described him as spiritually dead. What He is talking about is the difference between those who are spiritually dead and those who cannot recognize the true signs of life.

To the third man Jesus says, “No one who puts a hand to the plow and looks back is fit for the Kingdom of God”.

This is a reflection on our Old Testament reading we just had. The prophet Elijah calls a young fellow named Elisha to be his disciple. Elisha is plowing with a team of oxen and wants to go tell his parents good-by before he leaves to follow Elijah.

In modern American English Elijah tells him, “In that case, never mind”.

Three times here Jesus has people apply to His “help wanted” ads. Three times He explains the requirements associated with the position. We are not told, and I can't help but wonder, how many of them took the job?

Amen.