SUNDAY SERMON
June 27, 2004
A Sermon for the Fourth Sunday
after Pentecost
DO YOU HAVE TO DIE TO GET INTO HEAVEN?
Gospel: Luke 9:51-62
Once upon a time, a Sunday school teacher said to his class, "If I sold my house and my car, and I had a big garage sale, and I gave all my money to the church, would that get me into heaven?" "NO!" the children answered in unison.
"If I cleaned the church every day, and mowed the lawn, and kept everything neat and tidy, would that get me into heaven?" "NOOO!" they said, even louder.
"Well, then, if I was kind to animals and gave candy to all the children, and loved my wife, would THAT get me into heaven?" The reply was deafening. "NNNOOO!!!"
"Well, then, how can I get into heaven?"
A five year-old shouted, "YOU GOTTA BE DEAD!"
This is not a sermon about how to get into heaven. But it is a sermon about how we deal with death. It's a sermon about finding, in the midst of loss, some new life.
"Let the dead bury their own dead." Of all the things Jesus said or did in this story at the end of Luke's ninth chapter, it was that business about the dead that stopped me cold. Why, I wondered, would Jesus say something that sounds so cold-hearted? Didn't Jesus weep at the death of his friend Lazarus? Is Jesus saying we shouldn't care?
You'll remember that Jesus does say, at the end of today's gospel, that we need to plow ahead and not look back, if we want to be part of God's reign. Gene Peterson translates these last verses this way: "No backward looks. You can't put God's kingdom off 'till tomorrow. Seize the day." (The Message) But is that really what Jesus is saying?
On the road to Jerusalem, after his rejection in
Samaria, three people approach Jesus. Before Jesus has a chance to speak, the
first man says, "I will follow you wherever you go!" In today's lingo,
this might sound like, "Yo! Jesus! You're the man! Let's go! I have nothing
to lose, no one to grieve, and no fear. I'm fine with all of this."
It
seems this would-be disciple is out of touch with reality. Perhaps it's immaturity,
blind obedience, machismo, naivete. Whatever it is, his glib self-assurance will
lead to disappointment and failure. For, as any of you who have tried it know,
it is not easy to follow Jesus, to be a disciple.
Jesus talks about foxes and birds, who have holes and nests in which they can rest their weary bones at night. But Jesus never knows where he will be sleeping, and those who follow him, he suggests, must expect pretty much the same. In simple terms, Jesus is saying, "If you follow me, you'll be homeless."
As Joyce Rupp puts it, "Jesus' public ministry began, after his Baptism, with a goodbye to almost thirty years of security in his hometown, where a tug inside of him said, 'it's time you moved on!'….Jesus left the desert with the power of the Spirit in him. (But) it was the power to say goodbye in order to say hello" (Praying Our Goodbyes, p. 48). The mistake made by the first disciple was that he wanted to say hello without saying goodbye.
The second disciple pleads with Jesus, "Lord, first let me go and bury my father." Scholars suggest that this, simply put, is a crock. They say the man's father probably wasn't dead, or he would have already been at home, helping with funeral plans.
Maybe he was pretending to be in grief, when it was really about fear. "I want to follow you," he might have said, "but I'm afraid. I'm afraid because I don't know what God will ask of me, if I do."
Who knows why this
man could not be honest? Jesus saw straight through him. Others may need to bury
their dead, but not this man. "What are you afraid of? Follow me now!"
When we are asked to follow Jesus, we may find ourselves feeling spiritually
dead. Following Jesus might mean pushing through all manner of resistance and
fear. It might mean looking deep within ourselves and then humbly asking for the
help we know we need.
During my summer vacation, I visited my children. I rested at home. And I read a book of poetry called ten poems to set you free. An Englishman (now American) named Roger Housden has published several collections of his favorite poems. Each is followed by an essay, in which Housden reflects on what these poems mean for him.
My favorite of this group of ten is called "The Layers," written by two-time poet laureate Stanley Kunitz. Now nearly one hundred years old, Kunitz may be the oldest active poet alive. He wrote 'The Layers' in his seventies.
Kunitz' first wife, "whom he loved greatly, suddenly disappeared from his life one day, and…he never heard from her again. Then, within a short span of time, and not long before writing 'The Layers,' he suffered the loss of his mother and two sisters, as well as several of his dearest friends….With great dignity," Housden continues, "he speaks in this poem of the losses he has known and what it is that survives when all else is gone" (p. 79). Here is an excerpt:
"…I
look behind,
as I am compelled to look
before I can gather strength
to
proceed on my journey…
How shall the heart be reconciled
to its feast
of losses?"
When I read this, I am often reminded of the world's "feast of losses." Wars and conflicts. AIDS. Apartheid. September 11. Abu Ghraib. The death of a president. The grief of his family and our nation. Ongoing violence in Iraq.
There are also our personal feasts, the more private ones - death, illness, divorce, immobility, moving. There can be so many losses, and they can easily trigger our fears.
A few days after President Reagan's death, the former director of the Reagan Library said it this way: "Perhaps this begins to account for the intensity of grief that has expressed itself this week. Millions recognize that we are placing in the California earth this Friday more than a popular president. We are burying much of our past, and no small part of ourselves." (Richard Norton Smith, The Chicago Tribune, June 11, 2004)
In times of great transition, turmoil and change, how shall our hearts be reconciled to so much loss? The answer may lie in the first poetic phrase of the excerpt I just read. "I look behind," says Kunitz, "as I am compelled to look, before I can gather strength to proceed on my journey."
Wait a minute. That sounds like just the opposite of what Jesus said. Jesus seems to say, don't ever look back. The poet says, Look back, before you proceed.
In my experience, and I suspect in yours, there are times when we have to look back. There are times when we just can't take the losses anymore. There are times when we simply need to stop, rest and breathe. There are times when we need to say, "Jesus, I don't know if I can go on with you right now. Right now, I don't know if I am fit for anything, let alone the kingdom of God."
A rabbi said it differently when he wrote about his losses. "…although we do not live in the past, we live with the past." (Mark Miller, "Reconciling the two faces of Father: war hero, coward," Commercial Appeal, June 20, 2004). He reminds us that, when we do not stop, reflect upon and learn from our past, we will likely repeat it.
And so, sometimes, we need to look back into our past. Sometimes, being human, we need to feel the pain of loss and say goodbye. Sometimes, being human, we need to gather up a little manna in what looks like a wilderness, to strengthen our spirits, before we carry on.
My experience with Jesus is that, when I ask for a little respite, he allows that for me. The human Jesus knows. The human Jesus understands. He is, as Hebrew scripture says, a man of sorrows, acquainted with grief.
If we stop for a moment, we can gather strength to proceed on our journey. We can find what we need to keep on going. As disciples, we are called to follow, yes, but we will also need to collect a bit of food for our journey with Jesus toward Jerusalem.
"I will follow you, Lord," says the third disciple. He's even ready to follow Jesus to Jerusalem, to his death on a cross. "But let me first say farewell to those at my home."
Like Elisha the prophet, this man wants to go home first, just for little while. He wants to kiss his father and his mother and all his loved ones goodbye. He might have put it this way: "I need to go home, one last time, Jesus, just like I think you might do. And then, Jesus, I'll follow you, and we can go forward together."
I've puzzled over this part of the gospel text a lot. And from what we know of Jesus in all four gospels and in Luke's account particularly, I think that Jesus might have said a few more words before the ones we heard Blair read. Perhaps there are some things Jesus said to this man before he spoke about not looking back and plowing ahead.
So here are some additional words Jesus might have said to this man: "You have not failed me, my brother. Go ahead. Take your time. Say your goodbyes. Then we can plow ahead. And if you need to stop again and look back for a moment, that's fine. I'll be right here, with you. Fear not."
Feeling what is real, gathering what is needed, and then going forward together. That's what Jesus calls his disciples to do with him. It's about death…and resurrection. It's about loss…and new life.
Maybe this IS a sermon about how to get into heaven after all. Can you and I get into heaven without dying? Yes, we can.
The Good News is that each day, lifted up out of our losses and borne by the wings of God's grace, Jesus gives us, when we ask, the strength to do what needs to be done. No matter how much we have lost, no matter how often we need to look back, we are never alone. We are encouraged, companioned and given as many chances as we need by Jesus.
In short, Jesus
loves us. And that's definitely a taste of heaven here on earth.