READINGS

1. Luke 9:51-62

HOMILY

The last time has Luke's version of Peter's recognition of Jesus as the Messiah, and then Jesus telling everybody immediately afterwards that he now is going to be killed, he's going to undergo great suffering and be rejected by the elders, the chief priests, and the scribes.

So that's the first announcement of his death in Luke's Gospel.

Immediately after this, there's the transfiguration and, on their way down from the transfiguration, they heal a boy, or Jesus heals a boy with a demon.

Then, in Saint Luke's Gospel - and this is rather important, and it's a pity we miss it - is the second prediction of Jesus's death.

The first time was very detailed: the son of  man must undergo great suffering and be rejected by the elders, the chief priests, and the scribes.

He's describing basically the Jewish authorities of his time.

And be killed and on the third day be raised.

So very detailed.

Then the second prophecy of his death comes after the healing of the boy with the demon when everyone is amazed at it.

And Jesus says to his disciples: let these words sink into your ears; the son of man is going to be betrayed into human hands.

So first time - Jewish authorities, the second time - human hands.

And it says that they did not understand what he was saying.

The third time, much much closer to the Passion, will be into the hands of the gentiles.

And it's enormously important that in each of these prophecies it's a different group of people is described.

The description is given in a different way.

The sort of death is going to be the Jewish authorities, humans quay humans through betrayal, and the gentiles with a series of descriptions of typical gentile torture acts.

And, in each case, it's described how they didn't understand what he was talking about.

So it's important we remember that this is the background of what he's teaching them on his way.

He has been shown to be the holy one of God coming into the midst of the people of the transfiguration: Moses and Elijah have talked with him; the one representing death, the other one representing resurrection.

And now they carry on to Jerusalem. 

After this, we get some squabbles amongst the disciples as to who's greatest, and then immediately before today's Gospel - this is quite important - we get John speaking to Jesus, saying: Master, we saw someone casting out demons   in your name and we tried to stop him because he did not follow with us.

But Jesus says to him: do not stop him, for whoever is not against you is for you.

That's going to be very important because the typical reaction for most of us is: if one is not with us, is against us.

And Jesus is very keen to reverse that conspiracy theory thinking saying: no no, you've got to learn to see the signs of the arrival of the Spirit of God wherever it is, it's not necessarily going to be on your side in the ways that you conceive your side, but it may actually be for you in a way that you can't understand.

That brings us to immediately before today's Gospel.

This is where the second hal of Luke's Gospel up to the passion goes, which is Jesus going to Jerusalem.

Up till now he's been acting, doing miracles, signs, preaching, and teaching in and around Galilee and the outlying   non-Jewish areas.

Now he sets his face to Jerusalem. From today and from now on for the rest of Ordinary Time up till Advent will be going through this specifically Lucan area in which Jesus walks Jerusalem - very slowly, but, in fact, walks through much of the Hebrew scriptures showing how he's fulfilling it on the way.

We'll have a look at that, but this is very rich in references to Hebrew scriptures, and he's trying to bring out what he's doing; always within the context of his going up to his death.

And that he is the holy one of God who is coming to fulfill the Temple.

So let's see what's going on here. 

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

"Setting the face" is fairly standard Hebrew, but it's something which interestingly enough.

The Lord and two of his angelic mates did at Mamre after they talked to Abraham, they set their face to go to visit Sodom.

And he sent messengers ahead of him, just as the Lord sent messengers to Sodom.

On their way they entered the village of the Samaritans to make ready for him.

Let's remember about the difference between the Jewish people and the Samaritans.

The Samaritans were a very ancient part of the Northern Kingdom.

They had a similar, but slightly different set of Scripture than the Jewish people, the Pentateuch: they had mostly in common, but they rejected the insistence on Jerusalem as the centre of the Lord's presence (let's remember Jerusalem   had originally not been a Yahwistic city, being a Jebusite city conquered by King David).

So, in a certain sense, they were just old-fashioned traditionalists who insisted on worshipping God on Mount Gerizim.

And indeed many of the ancient prophetic sites where Yahweh had appeared were in the north, not in Judah.

So they had a venerable tradition on their side, but because the Jewish people had set up Jerusalem as the pilgrimage place, and therefore the place with all the money was, Samaritans suspended normal hospitality to travellers if they were going towards Jerusalem.

So if people from Galilee or the surrounding Jewish areas were on their way on pilgrimage to Jerusalem for one of the feasts, the Samaritans suspended the normal hospitality to travellers on route, which is to give them some food and   so on, or even allow them to buy food.

Now interestingly enough when the same pilgrims were coming on their way back to their homeland, they were given food and allowed to buy food and were treated with all the normal hospitality that was such a prized part of Middle Eastern social life.

But it was well known that if you were going to Jerusalem... you know that was a direct competition of holy place, so for religious reasons you would not be given hospitality.

This was standard and known to everybody who travelled through, there was nothing particular about Jesus and his friends going to Jerusalem at this  point.

But they did not receive him because his face was set towards Jerusalem.

And it's the receiving of people that is so important.

Remember that what happened in Sodom was that the people did not receive the messengers, they tried to interrogate them, forcefully threatening them indeed with gang rape, if just to find out who they were.

This was not part of the hospitality rules.

When his disciples James and John saw it, they said: Lord, do you want us to command fire to come down from heaven and consume them?

We have James and John thinking of themselves as the messengers, the angels, whom the Lord had sent to Sodom, and they're threatening to bring down fire to consume it.

And, in some ancient texts, it reads: come down from heaven and consume them as Elijah did.

And there are a couple of moments when in the wake of Elijah's very feisty prophetic ministry fire comes down from heaven and consumes a whole lot of people.

In one case with people, in another case is cattle.

It's when he's set up a competition between himself and the prophets of Baal.

They set up a sacrifice and then pray to the Lord to send fire, but it doesn't come to consume them.

And he sets up his sacrifice and he pours water all over the cattle who are being sacrificed, and fills trenches with water and then praise the Lord and then the Lord by fire answers, and takes up, consumes the whole lot at once, thus showing that he is the Lord and that the prophets of Baal are to be despised. 

Elijah then quickly sends a bunch of his thugs to go and kill all the prophets of Baal.

It's quite clear that this is not a model that Jesus is trying to follow indeed very specifically.

There's another Elijah moment when a king sends some messengers to Elijah and wants him to come and talk to him, the king, about something.

And Elijah simply has fire consume all the messengers and he repeats this twice because they're asking him to come in a rather peremptory fashion.

So a hundred soldiers get killed as part of their attempt to get Elijah to come and talk to the king.

There's then the third time when the commander asks nicely that Elijah agrees to come. 

Again Jesus is indicating that not as Elijah did, not as the Lord was in Sodom, and we'll get a reference to Sodom in next week's Gospel as well for the same reason.

So the threat is there, but it's not to be imagined in the same way as the feisty prophets did.

And here we have this very interesting phrase when the disciples have asked him to do this.

It says: "But he turned and rebuked them."

Now if you remember when we had Peter recognizing Jesus in Luke's Gospel, Peter recognizing Jesus as the Messiah, we don't in Luke's Gospel have what we have in Matthew, which is Jesus telling the disciples that he's about to go up to his death, and then Peter attempting to correct him and say: no no, that shall never happen to you.

And then the Lord turns and rebukes him.

So here we have the turning and the rebuking meaning you have completely failed to understand what I'm about.

He has that being done to James and John.

It's a very similar psychological point: you do not understand what I am about.

In fact, some ancient authorities add this verse: "You do not know what spirit you are of for the son of man has not come to destroy the lives of humans, but to save them".

We're talking about two different sorts of spirit: the spirit of wrath, which destroys, and the Holy Spirit which is  building something up.

And it's within that that following Jesus up to Jerusalem will be lived.

Now as they were going along the road someone said to him: I will follow you wherever you go.

And Jesus says to him: Foxes have holes, and birds of the air have nests, but the Son of man has nowhere to lay his head".

Well, it's a very  beautiful image which we often hear suggesting yes that following the Lord is going to take you to strange places and you will have no fixed belonging.

But it's more than that because, in the Book of Lamentations and in other places in the Hebrew scriptures, foxes and birds notoriously hang around the remains of the sanctuary when it's been destroyed.

In the Book of Lamentations, for instance, little birds - sometimes it's sparrows, sometimes it's little ostriches, but it's the same word for birds (I have no idea what a little ostrich looks like to be quite honest), but these birds hang around the desolate places.

They're able to find a place to nest, and the foxes are able to find a place to feed their young, but - this is an  important point - the sanctuary is to be nowhere.

The Kingdom of God is coming in and from now on the sanctuary is going to be amongst humans, and it's going to be where the Lord carries it.

So if you want to follow the Lord, you don't know where you're going.

To another he said... so the Lord here is saying to someone to follow him... He said: Lord first let me go and bury my father.

And Jesus says to him in one of the really famous quotes from the New Testament: Let the dead bury their own dead, but as for you - go and proclaim the Kingdom of God.

A lot of people are shocked by this suggesting that's completely lacking in any sort of family tenderness.

What does it mean? As far as I can tell - and I'm no expert - it appears from people who study the Aramaic that the Aramaic phrase 'let me go and bury my father' doesn't mean 'my father has just died let me conduct the funeral  service'.

It means 'my father is an old man and it's my proper filial duty to accompany him until he dies'.

In other words, last few months I was going to accompany him to his death, which is a proper thing to do, and then I'll come and follow you.

Jesus says to him: Let the dead bury their own dead, but you go and proclaim the Kingdom of God.

Again, hints of terrible scenes in the Book of Lamentations when there's no one to bury the dead except the dead, they're all there.

Jesus is suggesting: We have to stand up and learn what is the living presence of the Lord, which is against all the culture of death and destruction.

Jesus has a very strict view of death: it's not to be taken seriously, it's not to be treated as a source of cultural meaning and life.

In John's Gospel, he gets very angry when he hears the mourners engaging in their ritual mourning because that dulcifies and makes decorous death.

Another says: I will follow you, Lord, but let me first say farewell to those at my home. 

And Jesus says to him: No one who puts a hand to the plough and looks back is fit for the Kingdom of God.

This brings us to our first reading this week where we have just had rather an interesting example of someone who was ploughing:

Elijah comes upon Elisha, casts his mantle upon him effectively saying 'follow me'.

Well, Elisha says some of the things that the slow followers say here: Let me go back and say goodbye to my family, and I'll be with you.

And Elijah says to him: a fair deal, mate - come along when you want.

And so Elisha goes back home but what does he do?

He burns his yoke and uses the wood to sacrifice some oxen as a farewell: sacrifice and feast for his family, and then immediately he follows Elijah.

The English expression would be 'burning your ship'.

In effect, Jesus is saying: Remember that if you're going to follow me, you'll have to burn your ships.

If you're going to carry on with the yoke and look back, fondly think 'oh well, when I was doing that it was okay', then you'll be like the people in the wilderness, the people of Israel in the wilderness looking back.

What did Elisha do?

Well, we're going to have to, in a sense, be more than Elisha, but the important thing is that we burn the yoke and follow.

And here the putting the hands to the yoke, of course, refers metaphorically to the new task that has come upon you.

Putting the hand to the yoke might mean turning back and burning the yoke, burning your bridges, burning your boats, so as to be able to follow him.

The suggestion is: as he turns his face to Jerusalem, this is going to be introducing a way of being the holy place, being utterly alive, being full of the prophetic spirit that is beyond what could be imagined by Elijah or Moses or any of the prophets of old.

And  that this is what Jesus is inviting us into doing, and we're going to see how that works throughout the next passages of St Luke's Gospel and the rest of the year.

SUMMARY

a) Whoever is not against you, is for you.

Jesus is very keen to reverse this conspiracy theory, saying: no no, you've got to learn to see the signs of the arrival of the Spirit of God wherever it is, it's not necessarily going to be on your side.

The son of Man has not come to destroy the lives of humans, but to save them.

b) Let me bury my father first, but Jesus says let the dead bury their dead.

Jesus is suggesting: no, that it's in the midst of all this culture of death, this destruction that we have to stand up and learn what is the living presence of the Lord.

Jesus has a very strict view of death that it is not to be taken seriously. It's not to be treated as a source of cultural meaning and life.

He gets very angry when he hears the mourners engaging in their ritual mourning, because that dulcifies and makes decorous death.

c) I will follow you, Lord, but let me first say farewell to those at my home. Jesus says: No one who puts a hand to the plough and looks back is fit for the Kingdom.

Jesus is saying: Remember that if you're going to follow me, you'll have to burn your ships. You'll be like the people of Israel in the wilderness looking back to Egypt.

d) The suggestion is: as he turns his face to Jerusalem, that this is going to be introducing a way of being the holy place, being utterly alive, being full of the prophetic spirit that is beyond what could be imagined by Elijah or Moses or any of the prophets of old.

This is what Jesus is inviting us into doing.