THE DANGER OF LOOKING BACK
Luke 9.57-62
Reverend Charles W. Roberts
First Presbyterian Church, Pascagoula, MS; 6/1/03
The movie, "Chariots of Fire" came out about twenty years ago, and I believe it is one of the classics of cinema. The movie depicts the tale of two British runners, Eric Liddel, and Harold Abrahams, as they try to prepare for, and compete in, the 1924 Paris Olympics.
One of the critical scenes in the movie depicts Harold Abrahams, a Jewish runner, who specializes in the 100 yard dash. Abrahams has just been beaten in the 100 yard dash by Eric Liddel, and he is crushed by this reality. He convinces a man named Sam Mussabini to be his coach.
In one scene, Mussabini is meeting with Abrahams, and he is showing him slides of previous races. What Abrahams-and we-see is this: A picture of the finish of the final of the 1920 Olympic 100 yard dash. In that picture, Charlie Paddock, an American runner, is leaning into the tape, winning the Gold Medal. Immediately to his left, another American, Jackson Schultz, is looking at Paddock, seeing him winning. Mussabini tells Abrahams that the look at Charlie Paddock cost Jackson Schultz the race. The momentum that he had going forward was shifted ever so slightly; just enough, so that when he turned to look at Paddock, he was slowed down. It was only a glance to see where he was in relationship to Paddock; but looking away from his goal cost Schultz the race.
Have you ever been distracted from your goal? Do you ever feel yourself looking back, wondering what life might have been like, IF ONLY? Well, rest easy, you are not alone. In this story from the Gospel of Luke, we see Jesus encounter three different men. Each of these encounters share one common trait. At the same time, like snowflakes, these encounters are not exactly alike, either!
Let's look together at these three encounters. First, let's see what they all have in common:
Each of these men is confronted with the challenge to FOLLOW JESUS. Two of the men offer to follow Jesus, while the third man is challenged to follow him. All of them, however, face the same prospect: dealing with a new set of priorities and values that comes with following Jesus.
You see, to follow someone in the first century carried a somewhat different meaning than it does today. Today, when we follow someone, we are usually going to a new place, and that individual is helping us to arrive at that location.
Yet to follow a person in the first century carried a philosophical-or, as in the case with Jesus-to follow carried a spiritual meaning. Rabbis and other teachers had pupils, who followed them. They did not simply wander aimlessly behind them. Rather, they accepted their teachings, and assimilated those teachings into their life. To FOLLOW JESUS meant to believe that what he said was true. To FOLLOW JESUS meant to do what he said to do.
This philosophical meaning was not the only one that "follow" implied, because people also followed, literally, the Rabbi, the teacher. There are many stories from the first century that describe rabbis traveling to a city on a donkey...and their pupils following them at a distance, on foot. so you see, for a man to suggest to Jesus that he is going to follow him wherever he goes, means that he believes him, and he is ready to pick up, lock, stock, and barrel, and go with Jesus.
This is the one thing that the three encounters share in common: all three men are faced with the decision to FOLLOW JESUS-to change their lives, by spiritually and literally following him.
WHAT DOES IT MEAN TO FOLLOW JESUS? AS WE COUNT THE COST, DO WE KNOW WHAT IT MEANS TO FOLLOW HIM?
Now let's look at the differences in these stories: Perhaps we will see that they reflect three different excuses that even we might use to keep from following Jesus:
The first man that Jesus encounters in this story makes this claim: "Lord, I will follow you wherever you go!" But then Jesus points out that the life he lives is not that easy. There may be stops at nice inns along the way, but that cannot be guaranteed. Others have places to live; "Foxes have holes, birds of the air have nests, but I, the Son of Man have no place to lay my head"; and I cannot guarantee you a place to live, Jesus says. This is not a call to an ascetic life, where one gives up everything and never eats. Jesus is simply pointing out that following him sometimes means that one's values are not necessarily the same as the culture around you. Think about it--How well would Jesus fit into our culture today? Isn't it easier to follow the culture than to follow Jesus? Do we do that?
In the next encounter, Jesus challenges a man with the proposition of following him. Instead of the man volunteering, Jesus invites him.
The man's response is understandable: Let me bury my father!
Yet this is where one of the nuances of the story begins to emerge. If the man's father is dead, this is certainly a reasonable and realistic request. It is psychologically important for us to have the opportunity to say good-bye to someone who has been significant to us. When they die, we need to say good-bye. In the Jewish culture, and we have every reason to believe that this man was Jewish, burial occurs within 24 hours of death. Surely Jesus would allow such a request!
Yet, it is entirely possible that the man's father was not really dead. The man may well have been asking permission to wait until his father died, and then he would bury him, and THEN join Jesus.
To this, Jesus gives a cryptic response: Let the dead bury the dead: you go and proclaim the Kingdom of God! Here, Jesus uses "dead" in a euphemistic or allegorical manner: you can be dead spiritually, and yet alive physically. Surely someone whose heart has stopped beating cannot bury someone else. But someone whose heart is cold to God is able to dig a grave. The spiritually dead, in this meaning, is someone who has refused to accept the claims of Christ; someone who rejects God. The spiritually dead can bury the spiritually dead, Jesus says. There is an urgency to getting the message of the kingdom out...and that message must go out! Do we sense and obey the urgency of following Jesus? Or do we put that off?
We all know people who have been in Church all of their lives, yet to see them outside the Church, you could not tell it. In the middle of the week, one would never know that they had any relationship with the Church.
Their life does not reflect the grace of Christ;
their language,
their possessions,
The ways they invest themselves and their treasures,
their values and priorities in life
do not reflect in any way the fact that God is or was a part of their life. As I have said before, being a member of a Church does not make you a Christian, any more than being in a garage makes you a car! It takes a vital, active relationship with Christ to enable one to reflect the grace of Christ. You know, these folks who have been in Church, but you can't tell it; these are the people that Jesus classifies as spiritually dead...people who with their words serve God, but by their life demonstrate no relationship with him. Those are the people who are spiritually dead. Not that God has, or we should, give up on them, but we cannot put the work of the kingdom on hold while we wait for them to come around.
The Church is not a place of perfect people. If that is what you expect, I am sorry to disappoint you. The Church is a hospital where sinners come to be healed from their sins. Let the dead bury the dead; you go and proclaim the kingdom!
The last man that Jesus encounters makes what is certainly a MOST reasonable request: "Let me tell my family farewell!" There is even a biblical precedent for this:
In the Old Testament book of I Kings, Elijah-the great prophet-names his successor, Elisha. He does this, by tossing his prophetic mantel upon Elisha, as he is plowing.(notice the similarity in the Elisha story to what Jesus says to this man!) Elisha understands that he has been chosen, so asks permission to go back and tell his family goodbye. What he actually does, is throw the "mother of all going away parties"! THEN he finds...and follows...Elijah.
The man's request is simple. The request is realistic. Jesus' response, yet again, is cryptic: "Whoever puts his hand to the plow and looks back is not fit for the kingdom of God." If this is indeed an allusion to the Elijah/Elisha story, then we KNOW that Elisha was fit for the kingdom...So what does this say about the man's fitness...or ours...for the kingdom?
I must tell you, that I am not a farmer. I have never lived, or worked, on a farm. My only venture into food production has been the gardens I have planted. I have never used a plow to dig my gardens, I use a shovel. So I have no experience with plows personally.
Yet I do understand human dynamics well enough to know that the body follows the head! Intercollegiate and Olympic divers perform their magnificent moves by their heads! Gymnasts do the same thing! When you turn your head, the body turns! I have almost gotten myself killed riding my bike sometimes. When I turn my head to look back, there is occasionally a subtle shifting of direction, sometimes almost into the path of a car.
Imagine someone out in the field plowing, holding onto the plow, and holding the reins of the animal. If he turns to look back, there is the gradual, and almost imperceptible shift or tug on the reins. The animal will turn its head, the plow will turn, and the furrow will not be straight. He has to back up and start over again. That person, Jesus says, is not fit-is not useful-for the kingdom.
What does this mean? Does it mean that if I have questions, I lose my spot in heaven? Does it mean that if I have doubts, I am no good for God? No, not at all. It simply means that a person who is continually looking back at what he left behind, will never get anywhere. Old Man Bill Berry (and that is how he referred to himself), an elder in the first Church that I served, once said to me: "The grass is always greenest in the pasture you just left." Think about that; how many times do we make decisions, and then want to go back and un-make them? How often do we say or do things in a relationship, that totally changes the dynamics of that relationship? We say, "I just wish we could start over!"-But relationships do not work that way. Looking back always presents itself as a hindrance to going forward; in a relationship, it represents unforgiveness! And that, I think, is what Jesus is saying to this third man. If you are going to be continually wishing you were somewhere else, or if you always want to change your relationship with me, then do not bother to come along!
A simple illustration of this: All my life I have been surrounded by women who have incredible dexterity with their fingers. My mother has always needlepointed--pillows, stools, footrests, chairs--you name it, she has needlepointed it.
Lib used to smock--She would pleat up fabric at home, and then smock patterns on the pleated material, to make a little dress, or bubble suit, or something like that. She made our children's clothes for many years.
Now, I have watched my mother and my wife long enough to know that if you set out to do some of this needlework, and then decide to watch TV, you only make a mess! You HAVE to keep your attention focused on the task at hand. To paraphrase Jesus, Anyone who puts her hand to the needle and looks away is not fit to make children's clothes! You wouldn't want to wear it! Jesus is simply telling us that we must focus our attention on the task, and not look away.
WHAT DOES IT MEAN TO FOLLOW JESUS? WHAT IS THE COST THAT WE MUST COUNT?
It means, friends, that we must trust Jesus IMPLICITLY-everything that we do and say must flow out of our love for him. And it means to trust Jesus EXPLICITLY-to place our faith for all of life on him, not ourselves, our possessions, our families, or anything else. To follow Jesus-whether we are invited, or are volunteers, we must be willing to risk all for him. That does not mean that we lose everything, that we sell our houses and reject our families. It means only that we place our relationship to God above all of those things and people. We do not neglect then; we see them as people and opportunities that God has given us to use to serve him.
Notice that Luke does not tell us that any of these men were rejected. I think that it is fair to believe that they all eventually followed Jesus. But before they jumped on the bandwagon, they needed to know what they were getting into. They needed to know that their values and priorities might not be shared by those in surrounding cultures. They needed to know that the decision to follow Jesus could not be put off forever. And they needed to know that there was-AND FRIENDS, THERE STILL IS-an urgency about getting the word about Jesus out! They-and we-cannot keep looking back, lest we lose our usefulness for the kingdom. They needed-and we need- to be about the business of the kingdom!
Jesus knew what he faced as he made his way towards Jerusalem. He knew that he would die, and be resurrected. And he knew that he must prepare his disciples, past, present, and future, for the work they would face. We face that work today, as we are called to proclaim the good news of Jesus from this pulpit, with our friends and families, and in the workplace. And we have before us the reminder of just how urgent that message is. Jesus died for us, to grant us eternal life.
My father is the consummate "jack-of-all-trades". One trade that I appreciate in him and hope I have learned from him, is the ability to do minor carpentry. I have not received the gift of electricity, nor have I received the gift of plumbing; but I do know how to hammer and nail. One lesson that he has drilled into me, is this: measure twice, cut once. If you measure once, and the board is cut too short, there is nothing you can do. So measure twice, then cut.
That is what Jesus was telling these men: he simply wanted them to measure the cost of the decision they were making. In the same way, I believe he asks us to measure our lives.
|
