This Sunday, the lectionary invites us to ponder Luke 9:51-62. The English Standard Version presents the reading in two portions. It supplies the first portion with the heading “A Samaritan Village Rejects Jesus,” and the second portion with the heading, “The Cost of Following Jesus.”
Last Sunday was Trinity Sunday, and the Sunday before that was the Day of Pentecost. On those days, we were invited to reflect on the transforming, pointing, and enabling work of the Spirit, the third member of the Triune God: a mystery we can perceive but cannot explain.
Today’s text is the beginning of the middle portion of Luke; ten chapters which are often called “the travel narrative”. Luke begins by telling us Jesus resolutely began travelling to Jerusalem, and that he took the route most Jews avoided: he went through Samaria.
The earlier part of Luke’s gospel is set in Galilee. [1] In that part, Luke focuses on showing us the works of Jesus. He shows us that Jesus was a miracle worker. He shows us that people came to Jesus from all over. He shows us that everyone wondered who Jesus was.
In the Galilean section, Luke tells 17 miracle stories, whereas in the travel narrative, he tells only five miracles stories; he focuses instead on Jesus’ teachings. He includes teachings not found in the other gospels. Like the parables of the Prodigal Son and the Good Samaritan.
In the first portion of today’s reading, Luke emphasizes that Jesus “set his face towards Jerusalem.”
The first Christians were Jews. When they heard those words, they would have recalled the words of Prophet Isaiah, from 700 years earlier, in the third of his Servant Songs: “I have set my face like flint, knowing that I shall not be put to shame” (Isa 50:7).
Jesus’ favourite way of referring to himself was “Son of Man.” Some of Luke’s audience would have remembered the words of Prophet Ezekiel: “Son of man, turn your face toward Jerusalem: preach against its sanctuary, prophesy against the land of Israel” (Ezek 21:7).
The Samaritans rejected faith centred upon the Temple, the sanctuary, on Mount Zion. They centred their faith on their Temple on Mount Gerizim.
As Jesus approached a Samaritan village, he sent his disciples ahead to tell the villagers he was coming. He sent them like God sent John Baptist to prepare for Jesus’ coming. But the villagers refused to receive him.
James and John, brothers who carried the nicknames “Sons of Thunder,” offered to call down fire upon the villagers. Why did they do that?
The answer lies in the middle of chapter 9, in Luke’s account of the Transfiguration, on a mountain, when Jesus met with Moses and Elijah.
Elijah is the prophet who called down fire upon those who robbed the true God of his glory, priests who encouraged people to worship other gods. James and John felt they should do what Elijah had done. They felt they should execute judgment, just as John Baptist had expected Jesus to execute judgment.
But Jesus was going to Jerusalem to absorb judgment, to die on the cross as an offering for sin, as a substitute for wrong doers. So, he rebuked the brothers. He didn’t curse the villagers. He moved to the next village, just as he had told the Twelve to do when they were not welcomed (9:5).
The point is, even the Twelve, despite nearly three years of intensive training by Jesus, still didn’t understand who Jesus was, still didn’t understand how his death would change the trajectory of history.
Luke wants us to see that Jesus needed to continue the training of the disciples. And over the next ten chapters he tells us how Jesus did it.
The disciples are “on the way,” to Jerusalem, with Jesus. On the way means doing and learning.
Christians became known as people of the Way. In Luke’s other book, we read that Saul – whom we know as Paul – asked the Jerusalem leaders to give him letters to the synagogues of Damascus so that if he “found any who belong to the Way, he might bring them bound to Jerusalem.” (Acts 9:2)
As I said, the remainder of the travel narrative is about Jesus teaching those who are “on the way.”
The second portion of our reading for today has three stories. Luke uses them to stress that we must change our ways radically if we choose to be on the way, and that we must do so urgently.
After Elisha received his appointment as Elijah’s successor, he asked for leave to go home and say goodbye to his family. Elijah granted him leave.
But Jesus does not. Why? Because Jesus is greater than Elijah, and the work he calls us to is greater and more urgent than Elijah’s work.
What is our work? Luke tells us in Jesus’ own words, in verse 60b:
“… go and proclaim the kingdom of God.”
We are called to follow Jesus. To be on the Way, with Jesus.
Being on the way means speaking about how God wants the world to be ordered; and working to make it so; means having a sense of urgency; means being conformed not to the world, but to the ways of God.
Peace be with you.
[1] Luke 4:14-9:50.
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