Psalm 16; Luke 9.51-62
To walk in the footsteps of Christ …
This is our hope, our dream, our desire …
To walk in the footsteps of Christ … mindful of the good things of life, kind and generous, wise and loving … to give unto others as freely as has been freely given unto us … to open doors, and not close them … build bridges, not walls … welcome everyone; exclude no one … to be brave in our faith, kind in our words, strong to resist the false and the cruel, careful in our prayers …
Careful in our prayers?
That we listen more than we talk, receive more than we demand, glorify God with thanksgiving rather than telling God how God ought to manage the world … to be quiet in our prayers, so that we can hear the love of God.
It was 15 or 18 years ago, sitting in my living room in Michigan, saying my prayers; I suddenly had the impression that God was listening, but utterly bored with my laundry list of requests, needs, hopes and dreams …
God was listening all right … but bored … waiting for me to finish my prayers, and maybe, just maybe, give God a chance to say something to me … or, if God should choose to say nothing, that’s all right, because God has said, again and again, “I am with you! No matter what, no matter where … my love is your constant companion.
God is present in our life, beside us and within us, and all around us … for thou art with me, says the Psalmist … I am with you always to the end of the age, says Jesus … I will never leave you or forsake you …
I’ve learned simplicity in my prayers … when I pray for someone, a family member, or a friend, when I pray for you, I say the name, and maybe a need, and then I say, Jesus my LORD, and move on to the next prayer.
I have learned to refrain from the laundry list, telling God this and telling God that … God says, I know, I know … you don’t have to tell me … you just have to offer it to me, and then trust - I will do right by you … I will provide, I will guide, I will guard you, and those you love … and the whole wide world, morning, noon and night.
I keep a pryer journal - every prayer concern gets a page, for 40 days of prayer, or longer … sometimes 80 days of prayer, maybe even more … I say their name, note their need, and then say, Jesus my LORD … in that moment, with those words, I render it up to the LORD, trusting in God’s promise to be at work in all things for good … in that moment, with these three words, Jesus my LORD, I give to God my heart, I give to God this moment of prayer, I give to God the people and the needs that lay upon my heart … Jesus my LORD … and then turn the page to the next … most every morning.
To walk in the footsteps of Christ … to learn from him the ways of God, the truth of life, the hope of the Spirit, what it means to be faithful.
In our story this morning, the disciples are walking with Jesus, to Jerusalem … on their way, they pass through Samaria, and want to stay overnight … but the Samaritan town won’t receive them …
It’s a long story, but this we know, the folks in Samaria and the folks in Judea despised one another … each believing the other to be wrong …
Which is why the Parable of the Good Samaritan is so striking, Jesus tells that parable to the Judeans, who believe that no good could come from Samaria … in the parable, Jesus reverses the expectations of his audience … Jesus tells of the priest and the Levite - good people, we would think, faithful to the God of Abraham and Isaac and Jacob, but the priest and the Levite haven’t the time of day for the man in the ditch … they hurry on by.
It’s the Samaritan who stops, who bandages the man’s wounds, who takes him to a nearby inn, with a promise to pay the bills, no matter what.
The Good Samaritan, and the folks in Judea were offended by that story … how can a Samaritan be good?
Jesus makes it clear that he has a heart for the Samaritans, and that God’s goodness is found all over the place, and it does us no good to think that we, and we alone, have the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth … contrary to the pride of religion, God’s truth is found everywhere, even in the Samaritans.
But the disciples are ticked off … how dare those people deny us lodging, shame on them … what shall we do? Shall we call down fire from heaven?
Oooh, that sounds like a good idea … a little shock and awe will teach ‘em a good lesson … we’ll obliterate them … wipe them off the face of the earth … that’ll put the fear of God into ‘em. You bet. A little fire and brimstone will do the trick.
Violence … it’s such a human thing …
As for the Bible, the disciples could quote the Bible.
Didn’t God bring on the flood? to wipe out the earth?
Didn’t God rain down fire and brimstone on Sodom and Gomorrah?
Didn’t Elijah call down fire from heaven, and then with the sword, kill 450 prophets of Baal and 400 prophets of Ashera?
Jesus makes it clear, violence is not the kingdom of God … in the moment of his betrayal in the garden of Gethsemene, Roman soldiers and temple police arrest him, Peter draws his sword, but what does Jesus say? Put away your sword Peter. Those who live by the sword will die by the sword.
Violence serves no cause but it’s own … violence begets violence, bloodshed demands more blood … death is a relentless predator, never satisfied, always hungry. Yes, those who live by the sword will die by the sword.
Even God had to learn some lessons about violence.
How did that flood work out?
It didn’t work at all.
The flood didn’t solve a thing.
How did all that fire and brimstone work on Sodom and Gomorrah?
Well, it killed a lot of people.
That’s what violence does.
It kills … and though at the time it might seem make some sense, killing doesn’t work!
What about Elijah? the fire he called down, the prophets he killed?
It all went south for Elijah, and by the cave in the wilderness God taught Elijah some lessons - God wasn’t in the violent wind, nor in the deadly earthquake, nor in the raging fire … but in the still small voice … in the sounds of silence … let all the earth keep silence, the LORD is in his holy temple.
Throughout the Old Testament, lots of conversation about violence … parts of the Bible seem to favor violence: take up the sword, kill and destroy … obliterate and wipe out … the conquest of the Holy Land is steeped in blood, and I get the feeling that when it was all done, all that blood wasted, God wasn’t all that happy.
As the history unfolds, things fail and fall apart: with Saul, then David, then Solomon, lots of bloodshed, then the divided kingdom, then war, then defeat, Israel taken into bondage, Judah into captivity … those who live by the sword die by the sword.
It is Isaiah’s hope, Isaiah’s prayer: the nations shall beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruning hooks … and learn war no more.
Jesus himself sets the record straight … he creates a new day of hope and courage … in the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus says: you have heard it said, but I say unto you.
Jesus sets a new direction, Jesus challenges the way some have interpreted God’s Word … it’s not of violence, but of love … a suffering love, if necessary, but in the Kingdom of God, there is no room for violence, for the love of war, for the drawing of boundaries and the building of walls … there is no fire from heaven, and there is no vengeance against anyone.
The Prophet Micah says it well:
With what shall I come before the LORD,
and bow myself before God on high?
Shall I come before him with burnt offerings,
with calves a year old?
Will the LORD be pleased with thousands of rams,
with ten thousands of rivers of oil?
Shall I give my firstborn for my transgression,
the fruit of my body for the sin of my soul?”
He has told you, O mortal, what is good;
and what does the LORD require of you
but to do justice, and to love kindness,
and to walk humbly with your God?
At the end of the story, Jesus goes to the cross … why?
People hated him, feared him, because his words were revolutionary: he offered a God of love when a lot of people wanted a god of power and war.
On the cross, Jesus takes into his heart all of the world’s violence, all of its hatred and fear … there’s no payback, only forgiveness … and the final hope … the final hope in the redemption of all creation, a new heaven and a new earth … without tears and sorrow, with endless light … when we follow Christ, and hear the counsel of God, this is the world to which we commit ourselves, the goals of the Kingdom for which we strive, the quality of life we seek for all God’s creatures, great and small.
Dear friends, we live in a time when some speak of violence so easily, when the drums of war are beating, our blood fired up by it … we want to draw our swords, take up our spears … build walls and draw boundaries … we separate families and put children into cages … we send out aircraft carries and ready our missiles, locked and loaded … some Christians cheer this on, wave the flag without thinking … some Christians want to call down fire from heaven.
But such is not the way of Christ.
Our task, to speak peace, to be the light of the world, the salt of the earth … to welcome the outcast, bless the frightened, speak tenderly to those in need …
The counsel of God … hallelujah and amen!
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