PROPER 8C – 2 Kings 2:1-2, 6-14; Psalm 77:1-2, 11-20; Galatians 5:1, 13-25; Luke 9:51-62 – 27 June 2010 – A sermon preached by The Rev. Peter A. Munson for St. Ambrose Episcopal Church, Boulder, Colorado
Embracing Life
INTRODUCTION – Jesus’ tough words
One of the things that I love about the Bible is that it is so real. Though it has some of the best stories and quotes of all time in it, it is not just filled with feel-good sayings and feel-good stories. The people in the Bible have all the same shortcomings that you and I have – even the heroes. And the man who we believe is God-in-the-flesh also is not someone who just says warm and fuzzy things all the time. We have examples of that today.
He rebukes James and John for wanting to command fire down on the Samaritans.
To a man who said “I will follow you wherever you go,” Jesus basically said, “Really? I’m always on the road and I never stay in nice hotels. Sometimes I have no idea where I will be sleeping. You might want to think about this.”
To a man Jesus invited to follow him who responded, “First let me go and bury my father,” Jesus replied, “Let the dead bury the dead… you go and proclaim the kingdom of God.”
To a man who said “I’ll follow you but first let me say goodbye to my family”, Jesus said, “No one who puts a hand to the plow and looks back is fit for the kingdom of God.”
SEIZE THE DAY
What gives? Was Jesus just having a bad day? Was it really hot that day and Jesus was incredibly tired, thirsty, and cranky? Was he thinking, “Man, I’ve got enough trouble with these twelve. I don’t need any more followers!”
If you look at the context of the entire passage, Jesus was basically saying, “Seize the day. The time is now. Are you in or not? Decide.”
He’s not saying it’s bad to have a proper funeral for your father or mother, or to say goodbye to your family before you leave for a trip. He’s saying, “Life is way shorter than you realize. Anything could happen tomorrow that could turn your world upside-down. So today, embrace the kingdom. Today, proclaim the kingdom. Today, help me build the kingdom. Today, love God with all your heart, mind, and soul. Today, see your neighbor and find a way to love that person. Today, don’t spend half your waking hours beating yourself up. No. Love yourself, just as I love you.”
Sometimes it takes something really big to wake us up. We get really sick or someone in our family gets really sick. We go through a divorce or someone very close to us dies. We suffer a significant injury and suddenly can’t do the things we used to be able to do. And we wake up. We think to ourselves, “Man. I’ve just sort of been going from day to day, more or less a consumer, looking to what other people might offer me, wondering if someone else might invite me to do something. I’ve been standing on the sidelines, judging others and what they are doing, but I haven’t really been in the game myself. Life is passing me by. What do I really want? What am I most excited about? What do I want to create? What is God calling me to do?”
It sometimes takes one of these really big things to happen to us before we wake up and realize that time is precious and that life is passing us by. But Jesus is saying to you and to me today, “You don’t have to wait for something bad to happen! Wake up today! Look around. The kingdom is here, for I am here. Life awaits! Jump in!”
As he meets these various people after he set his face to go to Jerusalem, after he determined, “This is the calling for my life… I am to go to Jerusalem and be crucified, and be raised on the third day,” is it any wonder that Jesus sees others and says, in effect, “Wake up! Think about what you are most called to do in your life, and then set your face, and do it.”
THOSE TOUCHSTONE MOMENTS
Think about some of the touchstone moments in your life.
When you decided what you wanted to do for a living.
When you said, “I’m going to visit that country.”
When you thought, “I’m going to ask her (him) out.”
When you knew it was time, and said to yourself, “I’m going to ask her to marry me.”
When you decided to apply for that school, or that job, or you decided to take up an instrument or write a song or try something else that you had never done before.
What was driving you in these moments? Was there not some sort of force within, urging you on, whispering to you, “Go for it. Now is the time. Don’t hold back! Say something! Do something! This is the time. This is the moment.”
That force is God within you – the Holy Spirit.
There’s a time for burying a parent or a spouse, a time for saying goodbye, a time for staying in a nice comfortable bed. But there are also those other moments that present themselves to us, where we choose to go on a trip with someone we’ve just recently met. There are times when we don’t know where we’re going to be sleeping the next night, because we are traveling in a foreign country, and we’re just exploring and learning. There are times when we see a stranger, and something or Someone propels us to go up and start a conversation, and before we know it, that person is no longer a stranger.
To follow Jesus has something to do with making these daily commitments to embrace the moment, to embrace life and thus become fully alive. I don’t get the sense that Jesus had an itinerary that was planned well in advance. Even when it was clear to him that it was time to go to Jerusalem, and he headed south, it was not clear where he would sleep that night, or who he would meet that day, or what might transpire by the time the day had ended. What we see in Jesus is a man who knew that his overall mission was to love God, to love the people he met – no matter who that might be on any given day, and to love himself. We see a man who knew that there was a sense of urgency to life, that no day was to be wasted.
CONCLUSION
And so we have a context for what, on first glance, seems like a very harsh response that Jesus said to someone. No, he wasn’t just having a bad day. He was saying, “You have choices that you make every day. You’re not a victim. You’re not at the effect of others in this world. What you decide to do, who you decide to talk to, how you treat others, how alive you feel is all up to you and the decisions that you make. And when you get off track and feel out of sorts, that is a sign for you – a sign that you are not living up to your full potential, a sign that you can make a shift, and listen to what God is saying to you in the depths of your heart, and then choose again, to do that thing that you feel most called to do.”
This is called being fully alive and embracing the moment. This is called following Jesus. This is called being a creative partner with God in the world. This is called proclaiming the kingdom of God.
“No one who puts a hand to the plow and looks back is fit for the kingdom of God.”
Jesus is calling us to a certain way of living – a way of living that embraces life and all the opportunities that come our way. Opportunities for love, opportunities for being creative, opportunities to connect deeply with others, opportunities for making a difference. Opportunities for us to live larger than we ever thought possible.
So go take care of the everyday business of your life. But don’t assume that those daily activities are the sum and substance of your life. The Lord is calling you to full aliveness. The Lord says to us, “… I will pour out my spirit on all flesh; your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, your old men [and women] shall dream dreams, and your young men [and women] shall see visions.” (Joel 2:28)
Pursue those dreams. Pursue those visions. Be ready to introduce yourself to the person that you just met. It’s very likely that if you do, your life will never be the same again. For when you live by the Spirit and not by the flesh, you wake up one day and realize that you have been become acquainted with love, joy and peace; you’ve come to know patience, kindness, and generosity; you’ve made friends with faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. And you realize that these were the plans that God had for you – all along the way.