Pentecost 6 [Luke 9:51-62] (30 June 2013)

This sermon was preached at Trinity Lutheran, Tailem Bend (9 am).  

I'm still old enough to remember the slide projector. The slide projector only had one use, it seems – showing people holiday photos. I don't know if there was one particular place that people always went and always took photos for slides, but I'd have to say in my area: Disney World. Now holiday photos range from really interesting to sort of a pain. But today's Gospel marks the beginning of the travel log of the most important journey ever taken: Christ Jesus to the cross for you.

And to treat Jesus' journey, that he begins here, to treat it like any other journey, is to treat idolatry and faith as the same thing. You can pick that out by hearing what happened to Jesus first thing along the way. First, the Samaritans, “And he sent messengers ahead of him, who went and entered a village of the Samaritans, to make preparations for him. ⁵³ But the people did not receive him, because his face was set toward Jerusalem.” Samaritans and Jews didn't like each other, and one of the main reasons was – worship, which is why they don't receive him because of where he's going. Also along the way, “someone said to him, "I will follow you wherever you go." ⁵⁸ 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." ⁵⁹ To another he said, "Follow me." But he said, "Lord, let me first go and bury my father." ⁶⁰ And Jesus said to him, "Leave the dead to bury their own dead. But as for you, go and proclaim the kingdom of God." ⁶¹ Yet another said, "I will follow you, Lord, but let me first say farewell to those at my home." ⁶² Jesus said to him, "No one who puts his hand to the plow and looks back is fit for the kingdom of God." ”

The Samaritans treated idolatry the same as faith because they treated the divine service in Jerusalem the same as the divine service anywhere else (like in Samaria). Except, God's Word didn't say that. It said, “in the temple at Jerusalem”. They wanted to like the worship, but they didn't like God's Word.

The first guy to come up to Jesus treated idolatry the same as faith because he reckoned that choosing to follow Christ was the same thing as Christ calling him. Except, it's not possible to choose for yourself to follow Jesus, because it's hard. Foxes have holes and birds have nests, but Jesus has nowhere to lay his head. Who would choose that? In fact it's so hard to choose to follow Jesus that it's impossible. Only Jesus calls and makes disciples (believers).

The last two guys Jesus does call. He says, “Follow me”. But they say “first let me. . .” They treated idolatry and faith as the same because they treated Jesus' journey the same as any other journey that a prophet of God might make. Yeah, in the Old Testament reading, Elijah let his successor Elisha get a proper farewell from his family. But is Jesus doing a journey like Elijah? No, Jesus is a prophet, but a prophet who is also the sinless Son of God, the Savior. Jesus' journey is not like any prophet in the history of ever, so his journey ranks above everything else, even things like burying a father or a proper farewell from mother and father. The road to the cross for Jesus is harder than any other journey ever taken, and the road of a disciple of Jesus is, for that reason, harder than any road the world has to offer.

They treated idolatry the same as faith. But what they do, you do. Treating idolatry the same as faith is people praying to Mary or the saints, which God has given no commands and no promises about doing, but that's an easy one because you don't do it.

But here's a not so easy example, when you'd rather have false comfort than real comfort. When you'd rather have pious platitudes than the Word of God. When you'd rather hear “life's a journey, not a destination” or “you've got to learn to crawl before you learn to walk” or other things that are also Aerosmith lyrics (they're an old rock band) rather than “For there is no distinction: ²³ for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, ²⁴ and are justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, ²⁵ whom God put forward as a propitiation by his blood, to be received by faith.” Between the Aerosmith lyrics and God's Word, only one of them is hard on your sinful nature. And that's the problem, because only God's Word gives real comfort.

Real comfort is hard, but false comfort is easy. False comfort is like a man who finds a symptom and says “maybe I'll go to the doctor” and then says, “maybe I'll have dinner” and you have dinner and you don't go to the doctor. False comfort is preferring a warm blanket over the forgiveness of sins. Not that the forgiveness of sins means you can't have any warm blankets, but it means a warm blanket is just a warm blanket – it's not eternal salvation. They're different things.

But you can swing the exact opposite direction and still attack the Word of God and the comfort it brings when you do some “if we just . . .” thinking to help “save the church”. It's still idolatry and it's still false comfort because that's not the forgiveness of sins either, and it is attacking the Word of God – which is quite clear on who saves the Church, every time: Christ.

Transition: For his part, Jesus doesn't treat his journey to Jerusalem like any other journey that has ever happened.

There's no journey like this journey. That's because it is about the destination. “When the days drew near for him to be taken up, he set his face to go to Jerusalem.” The time had come for Jesus to be “taken up” – by his death, resurrection, and ascension. And so he set his face. This is so much more than saying, “so he decided to go there and then he started to go there.” He set his face. This was his goal, and he would reach it.

There's no other journey like this journey. That's because the time had come for Jesus to have the fire of God's wrath fall on him, to lay his head down on the cross, to be himself buried, and to put his hands not to the plow but to the cross, to do the straight plowing job that makes you fit to be in the kingdom of heaven (which is where God's sends his Holy Spirit so that we believe his Word and confess its truth with our lives in agreement with it). Because what happens when you look back while you're plowing on the tractor? You plow a crooked line. But that's not Jesus. Nothing he does is crooked, he saves crooked sinners.

And in the couple of chapters before this text, the references to the prophet Elijah just keep getting stronger and stronger. They're all over the place here. James and John want to call down fire, just like Elijah did, and we've already noted the putting the hand to the plow reference. And when did Elijah serve as a prophet? During the time of the divided kingdom: Judah in the south and Israel in the north. And what was that north area called in Jesus' time? Samaria. So the time had come for Jesus to reunite the kingdom of Israel, but not politically, but to do it by the proclamation of his Gospel right into the context of your sin and guilt. Luke points it out because he's going to show it happening in the book of Acts when the Samaritans hear and believe the Word of Christ's being “taken up”. This is Jesus' job – to proclaim real comfort. 

When Jesus set his face, he went to the cross. When we set our face – we believe in his forgiveness.

To stand fast is to trust in the forgiveness of your sins. Standing fast is standing firm where the forgiveness of sins is to be found. It's receiving the Word of God and the Sacraments in faith. That faith receives them as gifts. Word and Sacrament, which are the things that Jesus does, are the things that make the divine service. Without them, doesn't matter, it's not the divine service. Word and Sacrament are very hard on your sinful nature, but they are the means by which God creates and sustains faith. They're good for you.

And, FYI, standing fast is the mission principle of the Church because it's the very opposite of standing around. It's confessing the truth of God's Word for sinners. Our going out is only as valuable as the message of Christ's going to the cross. So our going out is standing fast in this Word and faith until we die.

To set your face to the journey to the cross is to stand fast! It's to stand fast by trusting in the forgiveness of sins in every holy calling God has placed you into (as a father, mother, husband, wife, son, daughter, brother, sister, student, teacher, worker, employer, citizen – with no false comfort but with Law and Gospel – wherever you go in all those callings, you go armed with God's Word of Law and Gospel, for example - “the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus.” That's easy to use and hard to master, but what it does is it separates idolatry from faith (starting with yourself constantly hearing Law and Gospel). That's repentance – my sins are a death sentence, but the Word of Jesus' cross is full pardon for me because it's a pure gift of forgiveness for his sake.

Trusting in Jesus is what happens when he makes his journey your own. His death is yours and yours is his. Your death is as little for you as his was. When Jesus is on the road, your own road as a believer in Christ is in view. We participate in his death and resurrection in our Baptism and in receiving the Lord's Supper. He persevered along the way, and we pray that through him we may do the same.

Conclusion: The way through death to life is a travel log like none other. It only goes through Christ's cross. It's standing fast in Word and Sacrament. It's trusting him, that he forgives sinners, that he forgives me. It's real, true comfort for you. Amen.