Grace to you and peace from God our father and the Lord Jesus Christ. Amen

There are Sundays, dear congregation, when I wish we could sit in a circle and talk together about the lesson, the lessons we just heard. Share our stories, our experiences.

It seems it would fit for this Sunday as Jesus “turns his face toward Jerusalem”- as our text has it quite solemnly - to be taken up, that is to suffer and to die for the people of God. The beginning of the journey toward Jerusalem is a turning point, however long this journey may be in Luke - the next 19 Sundays’ lessons are supplied with texts from this journey through Samaria. (One can cross Samaria on foot in 2 or 3 days...) Jesus speaks today in a programmatic way about discipleship, how it works and does not work to be followers of his sent out to proclaim the kingdom of God.

I imagine though that if we were to sit and share stories about following Jesus and about our discipleship that some people who we think had something to contribute would not say anything. And the reason for that would not be polite understatement but the sincere belief that what they did really was not a sign of true discipleship but just something commanded more by common sense than anything else.

My sense is that many of the great witnesses, the great disciples in the history of Christianity would not see themselves as particularly good followers of Jesus Christ. The refusal to see one’s own acts as acts of discipleship may contain a truth about discipleship that our lesson today helps uncover.

In our own efforts of figuring out “how can I follow Jesus”, - we know we don’t do very well. We know that a lot of religious inner soul searching or outer signs like wearing wrist bands and key chains with “What Would Jesus Do” can be the expression of a sincere wish to be a good disciple. At the same time they are an expression of the failure to be one; and a question: how does it work?

Jesus’ harsh words may point us to an understanding of discipleship that goes deeper. Looking at the examples of Would-be Followers though Jesus’ answers first seem more off putting than helpful.

Fore who when offering to follow Jesus wants to live the life of a homeless, cut off from even such basic securities as a place to stay and be safe, something that in comparison foxes and birds can pride themselves of? Who if called to follow Jesus would not still give the burial of the father priority, at least for the short time it lasts? Yet Jesus says, “Let the dead bury their own dead. But as for you, go and proclaim the kingdom of God.” Who while ready to follow Jesus could not be rightfully granted a farewell to family, husband, wife, friends, colleagues, take a little time to make the transition? Yet Jesus says, “No one who puts a hand to the plow and looks back is fit for the kingdom of God.”

The Jesus who speaks here is the same Jesus who in other places speaks in harsh tones about his own kin: when his family sets out to take him away from talking to the crowds and healing people because they think he has gone out of his mind, he says, “Who are my mother and brothers?” And looking around at those around him, he said, “Here are my mother and my brothers! Whoever does the will of God is my brother and sister and mother.” (Mark 3: 21 and 33-35)

Jesus has a point to get across. Discipleship is not a small thing. It is life changing and life endangering. Life as we know it. Therefore Jesus uses in the custom of biblical and oriental language vivid imagery and exaggeration.

Let’s look at these three Would-be Followers again: The first who is told that even foxes and birds have safer lives than the Son of Man and therefore his disciples: He or she, for that matter, enthusiastically offers to follow Jesus, “wherever you go.”

Well, it does not work that way. First we’ve got to receive a call. Jesus’ call to follow. Discipleship is nothing one does on a whim, nothing we offer. For it is something we can only fail. We will not be able to follow Jesus all the way, all the time.

When the call to be a disciple is received however, then it is an outpouring of grace that we can only answer in utter obedience. It reminds me of Peter walking on the water: Peter wants to be where Jesus is and says, “Lord, command me to come to you on the water.” He knows he can’t do it without being called by Jesus. So Jesus says, “Come.” Now Peter obeys the command and receives the incredible gift of being able to walk on water. And he is fine as long as he focuses on Jesus and not on himself. As soon as he becomes self conscious he sinks. What a bummer.

Back to the first one who wants to follow Jesus wherever he goes.
Jesus certainly does not deny us the need for a safe place to stay, shelter, protection, parental love without which we will not develop into mature people.

But, whoever is called into discipleship and obeys the call, will have to become independent from those securities and become a mature person who is able to face possible refusal and hostility of the world. Refuge, protection and comfort, Jesus says, are now provided by God whom he calls Abba, daddy, and to whom we may pray as Jesus himself taught us, “Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name, your kingdom come.”

The second person Jesus calls. The call is issued, but the one called responds with a condition: “First let me go and bury my father.” Jesus knows that the dead cannot bury the dead, and I do not think that he encourages to break with the law and customs which are a way to honor parents and to understand who we are ourselves and where we come from. But, when Jesus calls someone into discipleship and entrusts him or her with proclaiming the kingdom of God, then some things have to stop: family customs that have become unwritten laws restraining people from doing what they are called to do, cannot be above the love of God. Even religious duties can divert people from focus on God’s call. In that sense Jesus means that in order to live one needs to leave the father behind.

The third person is a combination of the first two: He or she again offers to follow, commits to discipleship, but wants to say good-bye “to those at my home.” If the first person needs to leave behind and see with new eyes home as the safe place and shelter, if the second needs to leave father, tradition and past, the third person needs to leave behind and see with new eyes family, marriage, job, society, even church. “No one who puts a hand on a plow and looks back is fit for the kingdom of God.”

Jesus senses here with a keen mind that commitment can be partial commitment. Saying good-bye is nothing bad in itself, but good byes can linger, can be a way of still holding on, tending the wounds, and one can end up spending a lot of energy by longingly looking back. It is not the people or the relationships that hold the third person from following Jesus, but the energy spent on looking back. In the image of plowing, when we look back on our relations, on our work, and glue our looks to what we have done, accomplished, not accomplished, would have done, - while we go forward, certainly the furrows we plow will get crooked.

Disciples, dear congregation, are people who work hard. There aren’t many places to rest on the way; the proclamation of the kingdom cannot stop and will not always be received favorably; plowing straight furrows is a tiring job.
Does it mean that discipleship therefore is restless, lonesome, exhausting without the promise of any reward, comfort, joy?

No. To the contrary. Peter walked on water! And listen to this from Galatians (5:1):

For freedom Christ has set us free. Stand firm, and do not submit again to a yoke of slavery.

Life as we knew it may have changed, but we are set free to live in the world, look on all else that used to hold us with new eyes and commit to it with renewed joy, and in new and loving ways. When we obey the call to follow Jesus, the contexts in which we live, our relational, familial, cultural, religious, and social contexts become the places where our freedom, our love and responsibility can unfold and thrive.

And by the way, the kingdom of God does not await us only way down at the end of the furrow, but is already present in the sound of the words of freedom, love and responsibility. The kingdom is already present in the first steps with the plow and even in the wounds of our good byes.

May the peace of God which surpasses all our understanding keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus.

Amen.