Sermons

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Nowhere But Jerusalem
May 1, 2005
Sermon Series on the Gospel of Luke
6th Sunday in Easter
Jeff Van Duzer
Luke 9:51-62

When I was in elementary school someone invented the laser. You can imagine our excitement as young kids when my dad, who was a professor of electrical engineering, brought home one night after work this box that was a laser.

After dinner he took it out onto the porch and he caused the laser beam to shoot out across the neighborhood. And we could see on a house a block and a half, two blocks away, this red light on the wall of this house.

Now today we’d probably get arrested for targeting the house or something but, then it was really exciting because the light stayed together that whole distance.

And I remember thinking that when you shine a flashlight at the wall, if the wall is even 5, 10, 15 feet away you don’t see the beam on the wall. And I asked my dad, “What’s the difference?”

And I’m sure it was a much more scientifically rigorous explanation than this, but in essence what he said was, “The flashlight emits light at a whole series of frequencies. It’s the whole gamit of light. And so when these different frequencies hit the air, they bend differently and the light scatters and spreads. But a laser has all the same frequency and all the rays are in the same faze, so the light stays very together.”

Well, this morning we reach the place in Luke when the flashlight becomes the laser, when what has been spreading out now comes into a sharp focus.

Many commentators will tell you that this passage marks the turning point in the gospel of Luke. I’m reading from Luke 9, starting with the 51 st verse.

“When the days drew near for him to be taken up, he set his face to go to Jerusalem….

As they were going along the road, someone said to him, “I will follow you wherever you go.” And Jesus said to him, “Foxes have holes, and birds of the air have nests; but the Son of Man has nowhere to lay his head.”

To another he said, “Follow me.” But he said, “Lord, first let me go and bury my father.” But Jesus said to him, “Let the dead bury their own dead; but as for you, go and proclaim the kingdom of God.”

Another said, “I will follow you, Lord; but let me first say farewell to those at my home.” Jesus said to him, “No one who puts a hand to the plow and looks back is fit for the kingdom of God.”
(Luke 9:51, 57-62)

For the first part of the gospel of Luke, Jesus is recorded as running around doing a lot of cool things.

• He’s teaching with authority.
• He’s healing the sick.
• He’s casting out demons.
• He’s working other miracles.

And he’s doing all of this in the Galilee region, which is on the very north end of the nation a long way from Jerusalem. And it says he’s going from town to town, or village to village. But if you read it, you don’t get any sense that there’s a direction that he’s heading. He’s simply spreading out. And so is the news of him spreading out.

But now when we get to this 51st verse all that spreading out now comes sharply into focus. It says he “sets his face”. He resolutely “sets his face” to Jerusalem.

And from this point on everything in the gospel points to and has its culmination in Jerusalem. It’s now all about going to Jerusalem.

Jesus is on the way now, going to Jerusalem. And he meets these 3 fellows who more or less say they’d like to join up.

The first guy seems the most enthusiastic. He volunteers, doesn’t take any prompting, and he comes – seemingly- without any condition. He says,

“I’ll go wherever you want me to go.”

Jesus, you’d think, would say, “Wow. This is exactly the kind of recruit I want. No conditions. Volunteering…” Give him a big hug. We’ve got a new one.

But not so. Jesus looks right at him and he said,

“You know, foxes have holes, birds of the air have nests, but the Son of Man has no place to lay his head.”

He's i mplicitly saying to this guy,

“Have you counted the cost? Do you understand what it would cost to follow me?

It would cost giving up your home. Are you prepared to be homeless as an aspect of being my disciple?”

The second guy seems to need a little bit more nudging. Jesus has to reach out to him. He says to him, “Follow me.” The fellow says,

“Well, okay. But first let me go bury my father.”

Seems like a pretty reasonable request. The law of the day was that if someone in your family died you were to bury them within 24 hours. It was a strong command within the Jewish law…in the sense that it superceded many of the other commands so that if they were in conflict, this one would trump.

It was the sensible thing to do given the climate.

It was the respectable thing to do.

It was the responsible thing to do.

Now some commentators have said that clearly this man’s father couldn’t have already died because he wouldn’t be down here by the side of the road seeing Jesus. And what they say it might mean is that, really the man was saying, “My father is very old. Let me take care of him in his last week or days here until he dies and I’m able to bury him, and then I’m yours.”

We can’t really tell which of these interpretations is correct, but it doesn’t really matter because Jesus is having none of it. Jesus looks at him and says,

“Let the dead bury the dead. But as for you, go and proclaim the kingdom of God.”

And then the third fellow comes along and says,

“I’ll follow you, Lord. But first let me go say goodbye to the people at home."

What could be more reasonable than that? If he just took off, they’d have dinner waiting for him. It just doesn’t seem sensible. And besides, there was biblical, historical precedent for this.

When Elijah called Elisha to be his disciple, Elisha said, “Okay, but let me first say goodbye to the people at home.” And Elijah said, “Sure.” (Actually, Elijah never says anything that sounds like “sure” but he basically says, “That’s okay.”)

And so here’s a guy asking something reasonable—a seemingly small diversion, and with a biblical precedent. And what does Jesus say?

“Anyone who puts their hand to plow and even looks back is not fit for the kingdom of God.”

Now we don’t know how the disciples responded—whether they followed Jesus or not. But apart from that, it seems to me that this is a relatively simple passage. It’s pretty easy to understand what is being said. But it feels like it raises two really difficult questions, and that’s what I’d like to think about this morning.

The first question is this:

Why does Jesus have to be so hard on these guys?

Why does he seem to be so unreasonable when they more or less say, “I want to follow you?”

Why does he have to be so harsh, with a harsh retort. Almost a rebuke.

Why does he have to be so tough?

And then the second question.

What does this passage, rendered in a very particular situation have to say to us today?

How could we apply whatever truth there is in this to our lives?

So I want to actually start with this second question, this question of application.

I say this is a difficult passage to apply because it seems to me that it is being rendered in a very urgent, concentrated, immediate kind of setting. Jesus is on the road. He’s walking to Jerusalem. Within days he’s going to get there and die. There’s not a lot of time. You either get on the road with him or you don’t.

But my experience of trying to be a faithful disciple is really quite different. I don’t sense that same immediacy moment by moment. It seems that I’ve been called to try to follow Jesus over the long-haul. In a kind of an ordinary seeming life…in the way that I interact with my wife, in the way I interact with my kinds, in the way I interact with my colleagues at work.

It’s just sort of a consistent obedience over the long direction. And so somehow the urgency of these commands doesn’t seem to translate all that easily into my situation.

I would suggest that this passage does not mean:

• that we should all sell our houses and live under bridges
• that we should all skip our parent’s funerals
• that we should all take off from our family without even a phone call home.

But what then does it mean?

Well, though it seems distant, there were some similarities between our situation and these first century disciple want-to-be’s.

The first is that they get the same call that we get.

It’s a simple call. The call to be a disciple is simply “follow me.” That’s what Jesus said, “Follow me.” Now, if you follow Jesus and I follow Jesus, our paths may look different in some of the same particulars. They’ll both look different than some of these 1 st century fellows. But in essence it’s the same call, to follow Jesus.

I was also struck by the fact that many of their reservations were very similar to the reservations that I would feel today. Remember he said to the first disciple,

“Are you prepared to leave your home in order to follow me?”

Now God’s given me a nice home. When I think of home, I think of:

• safety,
• a secure place
• a place where I belong
• a place where I can go to rest.

I think of a place where I can say, “This is mine.” And all of these are nice gifts that God has given me. But I recognize in myself at times when these kind of homing instincts— instincts for security and belonging and owning and resting—instincts war with God’s call to say, “follow me.”

For example, God might say to me. “You know that money you’d been setting aside for that big vacation you’ve been planning for? I want you to give it to this fellow over here who’s been financially irresponsible but who really needs it now.” And a part of me says,

“Yes…but…that’s kind of what we were planning on. That was kind of…ours.”

Or, God might say to me, “When you get together with your friends and they’re going to sit around and talk about this other person. And you know they will. And you know they’ll say bad things about him. And Jeff, I know you agree with them. But in that context I want you to say nothing but good about that person. Nothing but the strengths that that person has. And there’s a part of me that says,

“Yes. But then I’ll feel kind of like I don’t belong with this group. I’ll be kind of an outcast.”

Or God might say to me, “Jeff, I want you to call this guy tonight on the phone. And, yes, I know he’s annoying. And yes, I know that he talks forever, and he’s very needy. And you won’t get off the phone for an hour…at least. But I want you to call him.” And there’s a part of me that says,

“Yes, but…you know, tonight, I’m really tired and I just need to rest.”

Or like the 2 nd disciple who wants to be responsible, respectable, to do the right thing.

I want that.

I want to be perceived as respectable. God says, “Jeff. You know that group of business men and women that you’re gathering with who are encouraging you to do to this or that? I want you to go to that group and even though it seems very reasonable, I want you to tell them that you aren’t going to do it because you believe in Jesus Christ.”

“Ah..you know, okay God. Couldn’t we maybe sort of work around that a little and if they really push I could say I’m a person of faith or something like that?”

I want to be respectable.

Or you know the guy under the bridge. God says, “I want you to stop and take that guy to Safeway and buy him a sandwich. And it’s a

“Yes, but…I’m already late for my son’s soccer game.”

Or the 3 rd fellow who:

• cares about relationships
• wants to find closure in relationship
• wants to respect the people he loves in relationship.

God has given me wonderful relationships. But I tell you, I so want people to like me that I will do almost anything to get that to happen. And at times that too is at war with God’s call to ‘follow me.’

And so in many ways our calls are the same, our reservations are the same.

So what does this passage have to say to us? Well, simply, I think it says this:

Discipleship is an all-or-nothing game.

It’s not a game where you get to put conditions on it. You don’t get to say,

• “Yes, God. I will follow you, but only this far.
• Yes, God I will follow you, but in just a minute.
• Yes, God. I would follow you, if you could only take care of this.”

It seems to me that what this passage is telling us is that a “yes, but” is the same as “no.” It’s an all-or-nothing game.

You see, we don’t get the opportunity to sort of slip in, ease our way into the pool of discipleship. God wants that sort of deep, splashy cannonball into the deep end. We’re just going for it. It’s an all or nothing kind of thing.

Why would that be?

Because Jesus says,

“I want to be Lord of your whole life. I want to be able to be in control of your whole life."

And as long as you put conditions on it, then you remain Lord. You remain saying,

“Yes, Jesus. I will follow you so long as it seems reasonable to me, so long as comes at a convenient time, so long as it doesn’t cost too much.”

And Jesus says,

“That is not discipleship at all. That is not fit for the kingdom of God. It’s an all or nothing kind of thing.”

When I was growing up, one of the big phrases I heard all the time was, “If Jesus Christ is not Lord of all, He’s not Lord at all.”

And I’ve thought some more about it. I thought, “Jesus is aware of how fallible we are as people…how we’re always messing up. Gads, if you look through the gospels you see him over and over picking up disciples who have fallen down."

And it struck me that what God might be saying to us is that he would much rather have from us a strong, unequivocal, sincere ‘yes.’ We just need to say ‘yes.’

So that’s the first question. I want to talk now for a couple of minutes about the second part of the question.

Why is Jesus so hard upon these guys? Why does he focus so much on this sort of exacting, costly nature of discipleship? He doesn’t always do this. Other times, he’ll talk about how good it is to be a disciple: the benefits, the love, the community, the blessings, the abundant life. Other times he talks about that stuff. But not here. Here he is just talking about what it costs to be a disciple. Why?

Well, I don’t know that I have a full answer to this. But I think part of the answer lies in Jerusalem. In fact, it seems to me in some deep way it is all about Jerusalem.

You see, the reason I say that is that when Jesus says to these disciples, “Follow me.” He knows where he’s going. He’s on the road to Jerusalem. And Jerusalem is where he will die.

It is a hard road to walk. And I think that because he knows how hard it is to walk the road to Jerusalem, he wants to make sure as they get on the road at the front end, they know what it costs.

Jesus is going to Jerusalem.

Jerusalem, we know, is the city of God. It is God’s adopted city. It is where his presence is said to dwell…his holy place. So in some sense Jesus is going into the city of God.

But all down through history, all through Scripture, Jerusalem is also the city of rebellion. It is the city where mankind—human beings, men and women—rebels against God. And when Jesus is going there, Jerusalem has become the place where the powers of the world are aligned against the Kingdom.

When he sets his face against Jerusalem, he’s going into a place where Pontius Pilate has his home. Pontius Pilate represents the Roman Empire, the most powerful empire ever known up to this point in time. The man who can control the garrison of soldiers. He’s going into that power.

He’s going into the city where Herod, the puppet king established by Rome, is. He’s going into the city where the Sanhedrin, the Council, the Elders who are very intent on preserving their position, their power, holding on to some vestiges of the Jewish faith and appeasing the occupying army, are.

He’s going into this whole array of powerful forces who are lined up against the kingdom of God. When he goes to Jerusalem, Jerusalem is in that sense God’s city. It is the city of rebellion. It is the dark place.

Now, he says, “That’s where you go.” That’s where he’s calling his disciples to.

But he doesn’t just go there because it’s dark. It’s also important to see how he goes there.

When Jesus goes into Jerusalem to face these powers that are resisting him and the Kingdom of God, he does not go with anger. He does not go seeking revenge to destroy his enemies. He goes with compassion, waiting to save his enemies. He weeps over Jerusalem on the outskirts.

He doesn’t go into Jerusalem seeking to usurp the power that is there. To sort of turn the power game in his favor. To use power back against them.

You know what Jesus does?

Jesus goes into the heart of darkness and brings the presence of God and stands there, knowing the light and the darkness cannot co-exist and that the darkness will rise up and kill it.

His death was not an accident. Not just some pass-by accident. It was the inevitable consequence of going to Jerusalem. And that’s what he calls his disciples to do. And that’s what he calls us to do as well.

Every discipleship path goes to Jerusalem. There is no Hwy 405 around Jerusalem. Every path goes into Jerusalem. Yours will look a little different than mine.

There are Jerusalems all over the world. A Jerusalem is any place that darkness and evil prevail. It’s any place where the powers of this world are lined up against the kingdom of God. It can be:

• interior
• in one-on-one relationships
• in big, macro things, where there’s economic systems and political systems that oppress the poor.

Those are all Jerusalem.

But the one thing that is sure is that the call to follow me is always the call to go to Jerusalem. It is always a call to walk into the heart of darkness and to walk there with compassion, not seeking the destruction of the enemy, but their salvation. Not walking there seeking power to fight back. Simply bearing the presence of God into the heart of evil.

That’s what we are called to do as disciples.

And the consequence of it is that the darkness will rise up against us. Jesus said,

“If you want to follow me, then you must pick up your cross.”  

“If you want to follow me, if you want to save your life, you must lose it.”

We are called over and over again to lay down our lives. Because that’s where Jesus went. That’s what it means to "follow me."

We are still in the Easter season, you know.

Christ is risen.

He has risen indeed.

And this doesn’t feel very Easter-y so far. And so what I thought I would do was just end with a hint of Easter around this passage. You can easily find it in the first clause of the very first verse that I read.

“When the days drew near for Him to be lifted up…”

This is a reference to when the days drew near for him to be raised from the dead and to ascend into heaven.

“When the days drew near:

• for Jesus for Jesus to be revealed for who he really was…the Son of God with all the glory of God.
• when Jesus’s truth would be vindicated.
• when the power of God would be revealed; a power that would ultimately push over the darkness, set back the sin, conquer sin.

When those days were drawing near. They were a sure thing that was going to happen.

When those days were drawing near, what did Jesus do?

He set his face to Jerusalem against the backdrop of knowing that God would raise him up.

And that’s true for us too. We’re not called to go to Jerusalem as just this series of martyrs who get beat over the head and fall over, dying off in some kind of noble cause. We don’t end our journey in Jerusalem.

We go through Jerusalem to the life on the other side. We go through Jerusalem to this life abundant, this resurrection everlasting life, this life that lets us participate with God in the unfolding of his kingdom around the world.

That’s what we get to go to. That’s why we go to Jerusalem.

But it’s the only way there… through Jerusalem.

So it seems to me when God says to us, “Follow me,” when Jesus says, “Be my disciple,” we ought not to respond too glibly because we ought to understand that he’s saying,

“I want you go to Jerusalem. I want you to lay down your life.”

But we ought not to be too hesitant in responding either, because he says,

“That’s the way to this life abundant. This everlasting life.”

This is my prayer for all of us today. That when Jesus says, “follow me” he won’t get back from us “yes, but” but rather “Yes. Yes.”

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