Serving is Freedom: Liberty (Rob Gieselmann, July 1, 2007)
 

Following Jesus is crazy.  I mean – this guy leads to all the wrong places.  To begin with, he sets his face resolutely to Jerusalem.  Meaning -- he is dragging the disciples straight through Samaria.

Samaritans, you see, believed the Jews were wrong:  God is not to be worshipped in Jerusalem, but on Mt. Gerizim.  Both were wrong.  The place of true worship is the temple of sincerity and truth -- the heart.

Now, Samaritans and Jews hated each other because of this little religious dispute.  Really hated each other.

Think Hatfields and McCoys.  Hamas and Fatah.  Or, perhaps, Democrats and Republicans.

You can just hear Jesus’ advance team – There?  You want us to go through there?  Come on . . . let’s look at alternatives.  We could cross the Jordan River, walk South long enough to pass Samaria, then cross back over.

Nope, Jesus says. My face is set resolutely toward Jerusalem.  Remember, I plan to die there, so there is no sense dilly-dallying.

These advance men ignore the dying comment.  You walk through Samaria, they warn him, and you won’t make it to Jerusalem!

Why let me tell you about my cousin Smythe!  Good ‘ole Smythe was making his pilgrimage to Jerusalem, and those Samaritans strung him up!  Tied him right to the well in Jericho – they wouldn’t let him go til he promised to go back to Galilee.  Not Jerusalem, Galilee.

Galilee, huh, Jesus asks?

Galilee.  And then there’s my cousin . . .

Okay, stop.  We’re not going around, we’re going through. My face is set resolutely.

With heads hung down, the advance team – the guys who will take the first hit – and, there really was an advance team – The advance team goes into the village to make reservations. 

The Samaritans were not nice, in-fact, and refused them, exactly because Jesus insisted resolutely on this little death pilgrimage to Jerusalem.

When the advance team tells James and John the Samaritans rejected them, James and John tell Jesus, no doubt with some satisfaction, We were right.  They won’t receive you.  Told you so, told you so!

Now, they’ve seen Jesus calm storms – so they figure, they can finally put his power to good use.  We know!  Let’s call fire down from heaven.  We can show these guys once and for all that they’ve got it wrong!  Jews are right!  Samaritans are wrong. 

Sounds a little like the Anglican Communion these days, doesn’t it?  But I digress.

Jesus shakes his head, and suddenly sounds just like my dad:  two wrongs don’t make a right!  Violence on violence.

Or, as Scripture says in multiple places,   leave the vindication to God. 

But, oh the temptation to prove yourself right, once and for all, especially if you can do it publicly, for all the world to see . . .  How cool, to be able to call fire down from heaven.  And how frustrating, to be prevented from doing so!

But like I said at the outset, following Jesus is pure craziness.  So crazy, that the very next thing Jesus does is smash our clever little church growth plans all to smitherines. 

You want to follow? he asks the first guy.  You can follow, but you’ll be homeless.  Foxes have holes, and birds have nests, but I have nowhere.  Besides, he should have added in all fairness, I drag Jewish disciples through Samaria PLUS I’m going to Jerusalem to die.  Full disclosure.

Still want to follow? 

The next hapless fellow is okay with the homelessness part.  But first let me take care of my dying father. 

Oh-so-sensitive Jesus tells this guy, Let the dead bury their own dead.

The third fellow wants to tell his family good-bye:  he who puts his hand to the plough and looks back is not fit for the Kingdom.  . . . Reminding everyone listening about Lot’s wife.  She looked back, and voila! Table salt.

Pretty much, Jesus’ little lesson on discipleship leaves us all out of the loop, right?  Discipleship is tough stuff.  So tough, in fact, that most churches sugar coat this part.

Heck, we can’t even figure out who Jesus really is, much less take him seriously.

Maybe you can chalk Jesus’ tough talk up to hyperbole, but even then, most of us don’t cut it.  Like I said, Jesus has about the worst church marketing program around.

Good thing our military has a better recruiting plan.  You don’t see them advertise, Join us!  And you can fight in Iraq, or Afghanistan!

No, the military is much smarter than Jesus:  Be all you can be!  or, The Few, the Proud, the Marines!  Makes the danger sound exciting, and exclusive.

Not Jesus.  His face is set resolutely to Jerusalem.  Through Samaritan minefields.  And looks straight at you, and says, Follow!

And people did followed.  By the hordes, they followed.  It was as though some spell was cast, some draw, some magic – this man – this holy man Jesus – compelled people outside of themselves to follow him through Samaria, hands set to plough, faces set resolutely to Jerusalem.

Jesus still compels people to pull outside of themselves, to cast the past aside, to forsake all, and follow.

So you follow, you give up your July 4 freedoms, your liberty, your choice, and say with open palms, Here am I, Lord.  I’m homeless and my hand is set firmly to plough.

So, what do you suppose it means for Jesus to be Lord?  As in, The Lord be with you.  Not Jesus be with you, or, God be with you, but, The Lord be with you?

Over the centuries, Christians have turned the term Lord away from devotion and toward a legal requirement.  A prerequisite. Jesus will be on your side, but first you have to be on his.  I’ve even heard some say, Jesus isn’t Lord at all unless he’s Lord of all! Which misses the point entirely.

When the disciples called Jesus, Lord, it was with a gentle trust, a love, a devotion – Not because The Way – as they called it -- was easy, it wasn’t.  But because they had somehow touched this risen Jesus, they had sensed and felt the flow of love and complete acceptance from him.  Why would they set hand to plough and look back?

In him, they found absolute and complete liberty.

We have a prayer to be offered daily as part of the Morning Prayer service.  BCP 57.  In whose service is perfect freedom.

Five centuries ago, Martin Luther wrote this:  A Christian man is the most free lord of all, and subject to none; a Christian man is the most dutiful servant of all, and subject to everyone.

Most free, which is Paul’s meaning, it is for freedom that Christ set us free, for freedom.  Let no one subject you again.  No one.

Not political liberty, but spiritual liberty.  For the soul to be freed from the law that encases it, from the strictures of fear and doubt and oppression.  Free indeed!

But this type of freedom comes not upon willful surrender.  Not even by choice.  But by love’s compulsion.  You follow because you can’t not follow.  There’s an old hymn, from the 1940 Hymnal.  Jesus Calls Us:  Jesus calls us, o’er the tumult, of life’s wild and restless waves . . .

What I want to say is this:  Jesus still calls us.  Still calls you.  Don’t turn away.  Follow, trust.  

Freedom – liberty.  You serve because you love, you love because you’ve touched, you’ve touched because    you’re drawn, and you’re drawn because you’ve seen.

Something has caught your eye, a hope, a sense, that in this man, there is life.  An eternity of life.

Amen.

Copyright 2007