When Jesus is Not on a Winning Streak?

 It feels too heavy to suggest Jesus was ever on a losing streak.

First impression of Sunday’s text, Luke 9: 51-62: it feels like a string of losses for the Lord (feels like Canadian Hockey teams and the Stanley Cup…its been awhile…1993, Montreal Canadiens, not that I am keeping track or anything).

Context:  Jesus is beginning a journey to Jerusalem, well, his final journey to Jerusalem.  “When the days drew near for Him to be taken up, He set His face to go to Jerusalem…” vs. 51.  He is in Galilee, vs. 10 reports Him at Bethsaida.  Apparently, Jesus is not taking the usual way to Jerusalem.  That is to follow the Jordon River south to Jericho, then uphill and west to Jerusalem.  No, he is headed through the hill country of Samaria. 

He begins by sending messengers into a village in Samaria to ‘prepare the way’.  But the Samaritans did not receive him, apparently because Jesus was headed through to Jerusalem.  I do not know exactly what that means, but the result is Jesus ends up in another village.  But Jesus' disciples take this rejection personally.  James and John offer to torch the place, literally.  For this, Jesus rebukes them and they move on.

Sidebar:  In the middle of chapter 10, we have the story of the Good Samaritan.  Did Jesus have these events with His fire-happy disciples, ready to destroy Samaritans, in mind? 

So, strike one, Samaritans are like “thanks but no thanks” to Jesus on His way through.

Then Jesus gets a volunteer!  Vs. 57.  “I will go with you wherever you go.”  While Jesus does not come out and tell the individual ‘thanks but no thanks’, He is firm that to make this commitment means that there is no nest, no base, “the Son of Man has nowhere to lay His head.”  This is generally interpreted as a rejection.

Then Jesus calls someone else, “Follow me!”  This individual has a compelling reason to ask for a delay.  He needs to bury his father.  Again, Jesus’ response is curiously mixed.  On the one hand, “let the dead bury their own dead”, seems a strong reaction against a legitimate concern?  But then Jesus tells him, “Go and proclaim the kingdom of God.”  Maybe this one becomes one of the Seventy in the next chapter that Jesus will send ahead.  Again, interpreted as a rejection generally, but the language is not so definitive.

Then we have the volunteer who steps up, asking only for the opportunity to bid his family ‘farewell’.  Not an unreasonable request, at least not to my ears.  But Jesus’ response again is heavy.  “No one who puts a hand to the plow and looks back is fit for the kingdom of God.”  Again, apparent rejection, but there is still some wiggle room in the language.  The volunteer has not yet put his hand to the plow.

If Luke were sending this to his publishers with a note that ‘in this section, we have church recruitment techniques as taught by the Savior himself’, I can see the publishers pausing, considering, maybe gently pushing back with ‘what else you got to show us’?

But if this is, rather, a litany of ‘typical’ human response to church recruitment, we have something very different.  We have what I think is an amazing insight into human nature.  So, maybe not a discourse on recruitment, but rather an introduction to the nature of human response when we reach out in the Name of the Lord?

Peace,

pastor pete