One of the problems I’ve spoken about in the past is that of trying to really understand what’s going on in a Sunday Gospel reading when we read them as we do, that is, taken out of the context of the Gospel as a whole. And I think today’s Gospel reading is a good example of that.
On the surface, today’s Gospel reads a little like four short, stand-alone incidents taken from Jesus’ final journey to Jerusalem. His rejection by the Samaritans, which includes a short discussion with his disciples, and then three separate discussions with three unidentified people who say that they want to follow Jesus. But why do these incidents appear where they do in the Gospel and why did St Luke put them together as he did? To understand what’s going on, the first thing we have to do is to put these stories back into context.
A little earlier in the Gospel, after Peter had confessed his belief that Jesus was “the Christ of God “, Jesus had begun to teach the disciples that he would be rejected by the religious authorities and be put to death but that he would rise again on the third day. And he warned them,
“If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me. For whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will save it.”
And it’s important to remember these words when we read this morning’s Gospel.
Immediately after this in the Gospel is the story of Jesus’ Transfiguration. We know that, at that time, Jesus appeared in glory with Moses and Elijah who discussed with him the ‘departure, which he was about to accomplish at Jerusalem.’ And it’s in that context that we have to read this morning’s Gospel because it’s full of allusions to the stories of Moses and Elijah. There are allusions to the story of Ezekiel too and it’s that context we read that Jesus’ ‘face was set towards Jerusalem.’
We read this morning that it was because his face was set towards Jerusalem that Jesus was rejected at the Samaritan village. But that’s not surprising. We know there was a long-standing religious enmity between Jews and Samaritans. As we read in St John’s Gospel when Jesus met the Samaritan woman at the well. The woman said,
“Our fathers worshipped on this mountain, but you say that in Jerusalem is the place where people ought to worship.” Jesus said to her, “Woman, believe me, the hour is coming when neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem will you worship the Father. You worship what you do not know; we worship what we know, for salvation is from the Jews.”
And so, just as it wasn’t surprising that the Samaritans in the village wouldn’t accept Jesus, it’s perhaps equally unsurprising that, in response, some of Jesus’ disciples at least, wanted to call down hell-fire on the village! And that shouldn’t be surprising because how many times have religious people and do religious people still want to destroy those who don’t agree with them? And not just people of different faiths. The so-called Wars of Religion that raged for about two hundred years following the Reformation in the Western Church are now, thankfully, over but how often do we still today act in ways that are very, very far from loving towards those of different denominations and traditions within the Church? But Jesus’ rebuke of the disciples for wanting to harm the people of that Samaritan village should tell us how wrong it is to wish, seek or do harm to others simply because they don’t agree with us. How much happier a place would the world be, and would the Church be, if a few more people would hear that message and take it to heart?
Jesus’ rejection at the Samaritan village should though cause us to cast our minds back to his warning about the cost of discipleship, his warning that to be his disciple is to take up our cross each and every day. The need to set our faces towards Jerusalem, so to speak. That’s not to look to the city in the modern-day state of Israel, but to make being obedient to God and God’s call on our lives our priority in life. And that’s really what the three brief discussions that follow are all about.
The first person we read about tells Jesus that they’ll follow him wherever he goes. But in response Jesus speaks about having “nowhere to lay his head.” And this is a warning that being a disciple of Jesus means getting out of our comfort zone. To be a true disciple of Jesus, we have to take up our cross and follow his example. We can’t be a true disciple of Jesus if we’re not prepared to follow his example and set our faces towards Jerusalem for the sake of the Gospel.
But how many people really are prepared to do this? How many times when people in the Church are asked to do something for the Church do they respond with something along the lines of,
“I’ve never done that before.”
Or “I don’t know how to do that”
Or even, “Well that’s not really my thing.”
And decline the invitation to help out?
The second person Jesus speaks to says he will follow Jesus but first wants to go and bury his father. That seems a very reasonable thing to do and is in keeping with the commandment to honour one’s father and mother. But Jesus responds by telling the man,
“Leave the dead to bury their own dead. But as for you, go and proclaim the kingdom of God.”
That seems a very harsh thing to say but we have to bear in mind here that in Jesus’ time burial was very different to what we mean by burial. In those days, the newly deceased would be buried but after the body had decayed until only the bones remained, the bones would be gathered up and buried again in an ossuary, or bone box, and that might be up to a year after the person had died. In this second encounter, Jesus asks the man to follow him, and he says he will, but he has something else to do first. And whilst the reason he gives seems a good one, what it amounts to is, ‘I will, but not yet.’ So we can read this as a warning to stop making excuses for not taking up our cross and following Jesus. But how many people do just that? How many people, when they’re asked to do something for the Church say,
“Oh I will but I don’t really have time at the moment, I’m too busy with…” whatever it might be. But how much of it really is genuine and how much is just excuses? I remember very well, for example, once asking someone to help out at a parish event who told me that they’d like to but couldn’t because they were working that day. That’s fair enough, but according to the photos and post that appeared on Facebook, what they were actually doing that day was having a day out in the Lake District!
The third person Jesus speaks to says that they will follow Jesus but wants first to go and say goodbye to those at home. Again that seems a very reasonable thing to ask. But Jesus replies,
“No one who puts his hand to the plough and looks back is fit for the kingdom of God.”
Unlike the request to bury their father, saying goodbye to the people at home wouldn’t take very long so there’d be no real delay in this person following Jesus; they could probably have gone home, said their goodbyes, and caught Jesus up further along the road to Jerusalem. But Jesus implies that even this short delay in following him isn’t acceptable. Or at least that what he seems to be saying. I think rather, what Jesus is really talking about here is the problem of not being able to move on, of not being able to leave our old ways behind but of constantly being drawn back to the things we did and the way we were before we heard the Gospel and accepted Jesus as our Lord. And this is a problem we must all know about and be familiar with because it’s a problem we all have to deal with in our attempts to follow Jesus. Those of us who’ve been confirmed have promised to follow Jesus, in that sense we’ve all set our faces towards Jerusalem. But we can’t help looking back at times can we, to things we did before, things that we now know aren’t in keeping with the teaching and example of Jesus, but that we’re still drawn back towards because we enjoyed doing them. It’s a constant battle for us; it’s one I hope we usually win, but it’s one we sometimes lose, if that wasn’t the case we wouldn’t be the sinners we all accept that we are.
Taken out of context, as it is, this morning’s Gospel might not be the easiest to understand but when we put these four brief episodes from Jesus’ final journey to Jerusalem in the context of what comes before, we can find a lot of teaching that’s as relevant to us today as it was to those Jesus spoke to 2000 years ago. So as we follow Jesus on the road to Jerusalem and we feel like calling down hell fire on someone, whenever we think the road is getting a bit too difficult for us to walk, whenever we feel like taking a break from the journey or delaying the next part of the journey, and whenever we look back and feel like retracing our steps and going back to where we were before, we’d do well to think about these few short stories from Jesus’ own journey towards Jerusalem and try to hear him calling to us, pointing us in the right direction and telling us to keep our eyes on the road ahead.
Amen.
Propers for the 13th Sunday in Ordinary Time, 29th June 2025
Entrance Antiphon
All peoples, clap your hands.
Cry to God with shouts of joy.
The Collect
O God, who through the grace of adoption
chose us to be children of light,
grant, we pray,
that we may not be wrapped in the darkness of error,
but always be seen to stand in the bright light of truth.
Through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son,
who lives and reigns with you in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
God, for ever and ever.
Amen.
The Readings
1 Kings 19:16, 19-21
Psalm 15:1-2, 5, 7-11
Galatians 5:1, 13-18
Luke 9:51-62
Prayer after Communion
May this divine sacrifice we have offered and received
fill us with life, O Lord, we pray,
so that, bound to you in lasting charity,
we may bear fruit that lasts for ever.
Through Christ our Lord.
Amen.
Parish Church of St Mark Chadderton 