Sermon - Luke 13:31-35 - Staying the Course

Luke 13:31-35

Last week we looked at the Testing of Jesus. This week’s reading, from his journey to Jerusalem, shows him behaving with integrity, commitment and complete reliance on his Father God; exactly as the Testing had suggested he would.

1.       The Pharisees warn him to run away from Herod Antipas (either genuinely concerned for J or colluding with HA) but he refuses to be distracted. Jesus is determined to complete the work he has come to do and will not be frightened off course by Herod or anyone else.

2.        It is not just getting there (to the fate which awaits Jesus in Jerusalem) that matters to him, but HOW he gets there – what he does on the way, i.e. healing people and freeing them from the grip of evil. This work is not just an incidental aspect of Jesus’s life, it flows naturally and irresistably from the core of his being.

3.       Jesus’ knowledge of what will happen to him makes him sad, not for himself but for Jerusalem. The city which will reject and kill him. The house of God (Temple) has become “your house” and is left desolate, empty. God is not now present in the building but in the PERSON of Jesus.

4.       The presence of God IN JESUS (cf 2 Corinthians 5:19) is the best way, I think, to make sense of J saying that he has often tried to embrace his people but they have repeatedly rejected his love. God’s people have lost sight of him and they will not see him again until they recognize God in Jesus and worship him, saying Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord!

Application

1.       What distracts or frightens us off course in our Christian walk of discipleship and mission? How can the example and resources of Jesus help us stay the course?

We are not living in a part of the world where being known as a follower of Jesus will lead to threats or put us in physical danger. That’s very rare here (thank God).

A more realistic fear for us is to worry about being disliked or misunderstood. This might not sound too bad, but it can seem so bad that it paralyses us into inaction. Perhaps like the Jewish leaders who admired Jesus but were afraid of the Pharisees, we often love the approval of men (who we see every day) more than the approval of God (John 12.43) who is out of sight, out of mind?

This is a real threat to our discipleship and one we are unlikely to be able to deal with alone. It is one of the reasons we need church (its not an option). We need each other and we need to know and rely on each other more deeply. Building real relationships with each other (and of course with God). This is best done in smaller groups.

2.       Like Jesus, as people who are on the way it is not just where we hope to end up that matters but how we get there, what we do on the way. For the NT writers, especially Luke/Acts, the work of the disciple is the same as the work of the master – healing people and freeing them from the grip of evil. How does this relate this to our everday tasks and opportunities?

We may not often find ourselves in such dramatic confrontations with evil and sickness as Jesus and the disciples did, but, if we are looking for them, there are opportunities every day. For example we might offer practical help to somebody who is going through a trauma or who is trapped in difficult circumstances. It might not seem like much, but practical help can have more spiritual value than we realise. God is ever present and emotional support can bring healing.

3.       What about Jesus’s sorrow – God’s ongoing sorrow – at his rejection by Jerusalem, by the people who, more than anyone, should have recognised and treasured him? I say “him” but we have here the most beautiful feminine image of God as a hen who longs to cover and protect her chicks – although they reject her.

As we have already noticed, it is remarkable that Jesus’ sadness is for the ones who are doing the rejecting, not for himself. And this is challenging, because when you or I feel rejected, our sympathy is only usually with ourselves. What’s the answer? It would be easy for me to say ‘we just need to increase our passion for God and our love for others.’ Easy, but not very helpful.

More helpfully I would encourage you to admit to God “I actually can’t stand the sight of this person. God, I need a lot of help if I’m going to see this person as you see them, as a wayward child in need of love and healing.” That might be a hard prayer to pray, but maybe something in us needs to change first, before we are able to confront what is wrong in the other person.

I love the way that Jesus’s confrontation of his opponents is assertive and direct, yet at the same time full of compassion (v34). Our approach needs to be the same if we are to stand a chance of opening another person up to God.

4.       Which leads us to the final challenge. How can we turn people towards Jesus, to help them believe that “Blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord”? Again the answer has to start with ourselves, inside us. We are so accustomed, even in the church, to making judgements about other people and seeing ourselves in a separate group or category.

Be honest, when you enter a room with people in it don’t you make assumptions about them (examples…)? Jesus could do this too and accurately because he could see inside a person’s heart. The difference being that Jesus doesn’t divide people up into the ones who deserve his attention and mercy and those who don’t. He has the same compassion for all people, he reaches out equally to all people, he opens the door of his kingdom to all people and he never gives up on anyone.

Final thoughts

As we continue to reflect on the hard road that Jesus followed to his destiny in Jerusalem, may we learn from the connections with our own faith journey. Church will not be optional because it is here that we help each other learn the teaching and values which will sustain us when the going is tough. Here we can receive and give support to help us on the way. And may we look for God in others and respond to God in others, so that all may be one, in the name of Jesus Christ.

What Prevents Christian Adults From Learning (2)

Continuing to read John Hull's book and have now finished chapter 1. Here are some more of the interesting points he makes:

(Page 19) "By studying what a congregation experiences as being distracting, we may often gain a deeper understanding of the problems of adult learning in that congregation. The source of the distraction is the centre of a potential interest which has been ruled illegitimate by the form of spirituality into which the worshipper has been domesticated ... (for example) Congregations where children are found a distraction should stop thinking about their ministry to children and start thinking about the ministry of children to them ... Learning breakthroughs occur when barriers suggested by the experience of distraction are broken through."

(Page 21) "A future without a past is as empty as a past without a future is hopeless. What is needed is a shift in the Christian construct of the past such that the past is seen in a learning perspective... (Page 23) The Christian learner does not only learn the Christian past; he learns from the Christian past. This has important implications for the way in which the Bible is handled in the Christian education of adults today. The important thing is not the world out of which the text came, but the world to which the text points. The meaning of the biblical text is not only to be found in the historical and philological factors which created the text; its meaning also lies in that which the text has since created and may still create."

(Page 24) "Although, as (Christians) look back on their lives, they admit that it could have been different, there is often a strong sense that life has unfolded according to a preconceived divine plan. The Christian, it is thought, must try to get to know this plan, but once he does know it, many of his choices will be settled. Popular attitudes to prayer often suggest this release from responsibility."

Describing how a vicar preached a sermon condemning a TV series called Jesus: The Evidence, before it had even been broadcast, and had warned his congregation not to watch it, Hull writes (Page 37) "From the point of view of education, the Christian believer is here given no alternative to the life of docile, unquestioning obedience, for the life of active enquiry would induce guilt and would be blasphemous. To enquire is to doubt, to doubt is to mock. The world of television and of scholarship may enquire and so mock, but the little flock which is the church trusts and has faith."

Food for thought!

What prevents Christian adults from learning?

... is the interesting title of a 1985 book by John M. Hull which I am reading at the moment. The writer was at that time a Senior Lecturer in Religious Education at the University of Birmingham and his approach is interdisciplinary, drawing on insights from sociology, psychology and theology. In the first chapter he examines the ways in which modernity and christianity have influenced and been misunderstood by each other. Here are a few quotes from the chapter:

"But while it is true that modernity and religion have learned from each other, it is also true that they have reacted against each other, and a profound isolation has been created between the two patterns of life and forms of consciousness. The result of this is that many secularized people, thoroughly imbued with the spirit of modernity, find it extremely difficult to learn from religion, while religious people, who have built up protective barriers against modernity ... now find it extremely difficult even to consider the possibility of learning from modernity."

"The electronic churches represent both a high point of adaptation and a maximum of resistance to modernity. They are ideologically closed but technologically open."

"In an organisation which places a premium upon conservation rather than innovation, anyone who attempts to think for herself is bound to arouse suspicion. The Protestant emphasis upon education was often accompanied by a fear of too much education."

So far, a good book which is really making me think about my own faith development and the way I try to teach and influence others. I'll keep posting as I work through the book. Comments are welcome :)

Ezekiel 36 and Free Will

The issue of human free will often comes up in theological discussion and sometimes proves to be a sticking point. For a lot of people, the complete libertarian freedom of human beings is a non-negotiable fact. You can't get away from it. We all make choices of our own free will, choices which determine our eternal destiny. Any attempt to say free will is in any way limited is resisted because it would mean our love for God is limited, or needs to be coerced by God. God does not want us to be robots, but people who freely choose to love him, in response to his love for is.

I find that I can only partly agree with this view. Free will and the choice to love and do right are important, but I believe that God, in his parental love, allows us the gift of freedom within safe limits just as any responsible parent or schoolteacher does for the children in their care. I agree with Tom Talbott, author of The Inescapable Love of God that God will not allow anybody to do something which will cause them irreparable harm. There is a stage where the loving God steps in and puts his body on the line to save his erring child. God does not stand by helplessly or stubbornly saying "I told her it was dangerous" as his disobedient child runs into the road...

This kind of discussion usually reaches an uncomfortable impasse or diverts into the murky waters of compatibilism. But I noticed something in Ezekiel 36:27 this morning which might encourage us to think of free will in a different way.

Here it is in the NRSV "I will put my spirit within you, and make you follow my statutes and be careful to observe my ordinances."  Ezekiel 36:27

The TNIV translates it slightly differently "And I will put my Spirit in you and move you to follow my decrees and be careful to keep my laws." 

I'm just thinking out loud here, but I wonder how this teaching about the Holy Spirit relates to ideas of human freedom and free will. What is freedom if God makes us do the right thing? Or perhaps an armwrestle goes on inside us (Romans 7?) as we resist the Spirit and go our own way. But surely there can only be one winner in such an armwrestle?

What do others think?