“Urgently Following” Colchester Federated Church, June 29, 2025, Third Sunday after Pentecost (Luke 9:51-62)

Throughout the summer, we will be exploring many stories from the Gospel according to Luke.  Some of these stories are well-known, some are less-known, and some are downright challenging.  We see in today’s text that Jesus becomes determined to go to Jerusalem.  He sends messengers ahead to prepare the way.  Along the way, Jesus and some of his disciples enter a Samaritan village.  However, the Samaritans didn’t welcome Jesus.  Remember that Samaria was the area just south of Galilee.  The Samaritans worshiped God, but their temple was located on Mount Gerizim.  The Samaritans and Jews considered themselves to be separate ethnic groups.[1]  This conflict is not just about Jesus and his ministry—this conflict had history. 

Though James and John are personally incensed by the rejection.  They ask Jesus if they could call down fire from heaven to consume those Samaritans (like the prophet Elijah).  As if they could?  That’s not exactly clear.  Though Jesus doesn’t take James and John up on this offer.  He speaks sternly to them.  Because Jesus had already instructed his disciples to walk away when people didn’t show hospitality: “Wherever they don’t welcome you, as you leave that city, shake the dust off your feet as a witness against them.”[2]  How soon the disciples forgot this teaching and sought revenge for bruised egos. 

As Jesus and his disciples keep on traveling toward Jerusalem, they encounter someone who says, “I will follow you where you go.”[3]  Finally, a willing recruit!  Except Jesus’ response is curious, “Foxes have dens and the birds in the sky have nests, but the Human One has no place to lay his head.”[4]  Jesus is warning this person—those who choose to follow may not have a place to call home.  Following Jesus was not always popular.  Jesus wanted to make sure that this person knew exactly what they were getting into with the eagerness of the response.  Did they actually mean it? 

Moving onto the second person they meet on the road, Jesus invites this man to follow him.  The man replies, “Lord, first let me go and bury my father.”[5]  This seems to be a legitimate request.  The man wants to honor his loved one in death, to be a good son and fulfill family obligations.  Jesus responds, “Let the dead bury their own dead.  But you go and spread the news of God’s kingdom.”[6]  Similarly, the final person in our story expresses a desire to follow Jesus and asks to say goodbye to everyone in their house first.  Once again, Jesus seems to harshly respond with, “No one who puts a hand on the plow and looks back is fit for God’s kingdom.”[7]  Though this is another legitimate concern—to be able to say goodbye to loved ones before embarking on a journey!

Luke depicts Jesus as single-minded with his priorities and pursuits.  These responses from Jesus can be viewed as severe, or as a rejection of family obligations.  Though the Way of Jesus encourages us to see the demands of our lives (including our responsibilities to our families) in light of our commitment to Christ.  The truth is that following Jesus is not always easy.  Discipleship has joys and discipleship has costs.  Sometimes we make sacrifices.  Sometimes this is a balancing act that we don’t always get right.  Perhaps what Jesus is getting at here is not as ruthless as it seems with the utter rejection of family obligations. 

Because maybe Jesus is saying that sometimes we have to leave behind old habits or perspectives in order to embrace the new life freely given in being a follower of Jesus.  Sometimes we may be clinging to something from our past, and this does not actually serve us in the present.  Life can be a balance of holding on and letting go.  The path that we walk as disciples of Jesus can change our perspectives.  We start to become identified by what we treasure, by what we prioritize.  Remember Jesus said, “Where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.”[8] 

We are invited to walk the path of love—loving God, loving our neighbors, and loving ourselves.  Maybe this path will change our life’s trajectory if we dare to begin the journey.  There seemed to be people who wanted to follow Jesus.  Yet perhaps they had not considered the implications of such a choice.  Jesus called on them to do so before setting out on the journey.

One of our Christian figures I have long admired is St. Francis of Assisi.  Because the story of his life has a great deal to teach us about what it means to follow Jesus and the callings of our own hearts.  To understand his story, we have to go back to Italy in 1208.  A young man named Francesco Bernardone came from a world of wealth and privilege (his father was a cloth merchant).  Francesco had a life changing moment in the middle of a worship service.  He felt called by God to live a life of voluntary poverty when he heard Jesus’ teachings in Matthew’s Gospel, “As you go, make this announcement: ‘The kingdom of heaven has come near.’  Heal the sick, raise the dead, cleanse those with skin diseases, and throw out demons.  You received without having to pay.  Therefore, give without demanding payment.  Workers deserve to be fed, so don’t gather gold or silver or copper coins for your money belts to take on your trips.  Don’t take a backpack for the road or two shirts or sandals or a walking stick.  Whatever city or village you go into, find somebody in it who is worthy and stay there until you go on your way.”[9] 

Francesco gave away his belongings.  He began to wear a simple tunic with the hood of a shepherd and tied a cord around his waist (one can only imagine how this costume change would have horrified his father, the wealthy cloth merchant)!  Francesco began to preach and attract followers to this alternative way of living in the world, to this radical way of following in the footsteps of Jesus.[10] 

In time, this man who walked away from a world of wealth and privilege to live in simplicity with his fellow monks and the rest of creation became known as St. Francis of Assisi.  In time, he became one of the most popular Christian saints in history.  St. Francis loved nature; he is often depicted out in the world preaching to birds.  There’s a great story about St. Francis taming the Wolf of Gubbio.  This wolf was terrorizing the villagers of Gubbio, eating not just their livestock but the villagers themselves.  The legend goes that St. Francis reasoned with the wolf to knock it off.  In exchange the villagers agreed to feed the wolf who lived to a lovely old age in peace with the village.  St. Francis lived a life of humility, praising God for the good we can find in creation (even domesticating fierce wolves for the sake of everyone involved in that dispute)!

St. Francis was someone who changed the landscape of European monasticism and influenced Christian thought about creation.  All of creation reflected God for St. Francis and pointed to how interconnected we are with one another and with this earth we call our home.  This is reflected in “The Canticle of the Sun.”  Because when we look at the world around us, we can always praise God.  St. Francis taught that God deserves praise for the sun, moon, stars, heavens, wind, air, fire, water, earth—all of the elements of the natural world that help make life possible.

In the end, following Jesus is probably not going to look as dramatic for us as it did for St. Francis or for those earliest followers who sometimes left everything and everyone behind to do so.  Though God is still speaking.  The invitation today is to ask ourselves what following Jesus looks like in our lives.  How do we embrace Jesus’ kingdom teachings for ourselves and in our community?  We can spend the rest of our lives finding out.  Thanks be to God.  Amen.

[1] Footnote on Luke 9:52 in The CEB Study Bible with Apocrypha, 130 NT.
[2] Luke 9:5, CEB.
[3] Luke 9:57.
[4] Luke 9:58.
[5] Luke 9:59.
[6] Luke 9:60.
[7] Luke 9:62.
[8] Matthew 6:21.
[9] Matthew 10:7-11.
[10] Richard P. McBrien, “Francis of Assisi, friar,” In Lives of the Saints, 404-407.

Photo by Milo Weiler on Unsplash