12 July 2015
A Sri Lankan friend told me about a chauffeur she hired. He was confident and drove well on the test drive. But a few days later, careering and swerving madly in the chaotic city traffic he was clearly out of his depth. He then confessed he had only driven on country roads and not for ten years. He was well-intentioned, but completely unrealistic about the demands of modern city driving, and totally unprepared for the reality.
The Gospel tells us about three people who are curious about Christ. They appear well-intentioned, but didn’t understand the demands and realities of following Christ.
Previously, Luke describes some of Christ’s miracles. A 5000-strong crowd gathered to hear Christ teach about God’s Kingdom and he fed them with five loaves and three fish. He healed a boy with an unclean spirit. If you read the Gospels you discover that Jesus gathered crowds like boats gather barnacles. The crowds sought to hear him and witness the miracles. Perhaps the three people in our story were among those who followed Jesus after these miracles.
The first, impressed by Christ, impulsively declares he will follow him wherever he goes. Jesus reminds him that this would mean a life of uncertainty and discomfort.
Matthew’s Gospel says he called Jesus “Teacher”. Perhaps he was a scribe or student. Students often followed and lived with their teachers, to learn from them and their lives. But Jesus told him that there was more to being a disciple than following Him around, watching, listening and learning.
Jesus responds “Even foxes have holes and birds have nests, but the Son of Man has nowhere to lay His head.” Tim Schmalz’s statue “The homeless Jesus” is a sculpture of a figure sleeping on a bench. There is one in Christ Church Dublin but it has caused huge controversy because it makes people uncomfortable. We have forgotten who Christ was and that he had nowhere to lay his head. Following Christ then did mean the instability of itinerant living. It meant the rejection that He and His disciples had just encountered on the 100-mile journey to Jerusalem. Jesus had planned to break journey in a Samaritan village – most unusually, as Jews and Samaritans didn’t mingle. So Jesus and his party were in unfamiliar, alien territory – in Northern Ireland we understand how territory is claimed by different groups. Stopping here would provide much-needed rest and refreshment. But because Jesus was going on to Jerusalem, the Jewish Capital, the Samaritans turned them away. The lack of hospitality was an insult – and James and John wanted to call down fire from heaven to punish the villagers. Jesus and his followers had to keep going, unsure of shelter, rest, or food.
When Jesus responded to the first man, he was reminding him of the serious daily consequences of being a disciple. An impulsive declaration, even from someone who had travelled a little with Jesus, was far from a real sustained commitment to follow Christ through all that lay ahead. When they reached Jerusalem, the arrest and crucifixion of Jesus would truly put his followers to the test.
The second man in the story is confronted by Jesus suddenly turning to him and saying “Follow me”. He responds quickly: “First let me go and bury my father.” Not unreasonable, we think. But Jesus replies: “Let the dead bury the dead… You go and proclaim the Kingdom of God”. Did Jesus not care about bereavement, or the need for funeral rites? Some interpreters suggest the man really meant “Let me come and follow you after I fulfil my obligations – eventually, after my father dies… sometime in the future.” Yet, Jesus’ response was startling. In his day, family was central, and Jesus was placing core values of his culture in tension with the call of the Kingdom.
He was making a point. The Kingdom of God requires extraordinary commitment, putting Christ and His Kingdom above everything. As Jesus says in the Sermon on the Mount, “Seek first the Kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be added unto you.”
The third man, like the first, declares he wants to follow Jesus. Yet like the second man, he has a “But”. “But first…,” he says, “let me say goodbye to those at home”. We all have our “Buts”… “I can do this for God… but first let me sort out this one thing.” Jesus’ response is swift and uncompromising – if you put your hand to the plough and look back, you are not fit for the Kingdom of God.
People have been attracted to Christ for various reasons: admiration for his life and teachings; expecting blessings and prosperity; hoping for divine Protection; perhaps even a level of respectability.
And Christ does offer much. To a world terrified of death, he offers the hope of resurrection. For guilt and past failure, he offers forgiveness. To those tormented by insecurity and fear, he gives peace that passes all understanding. He calls us his friends and gives us His Spirit.
Yet, he also calls us to follow him, and be part of his Kingdom. But what does his call to “follow him” mean, in 21st century Northern Ireland?
Earlier, in Luke 9, Christ tells his disciples to “take up their cross daily” and follow Him. We talk of having crosses to bear, but this was not about the difficulties of daily life. “Taking up the cross” was committing to a way of life that for many ended in martyrdom. Many early Christians did die – brutally. Many still do – in Iraq, Iran, Laos, Sudan – believers, some of them teenagers. Being Christian always has consequences.
Are we living as God’s people in our world today? Are we living out the reality of the Kingdom of God – and its demands – summarised by Jesus in the Sermon on the Mount?
To whom or what have we given ourselves? What dominates our lives? Our culture’s values are sometimes far from Christ’s Kingdom. It venerates financial success and easy fame – a celebrity culture of self, valuing appearance more than character. Careers matter more than relationships, personal success more than the wellbeing of communities. Personal progress matters more than service, building better houses more than building better lives. Consumerist lifestyles emphasise our wants above the basic needs of workers who produce our goods.
In a recent article titled “2067: the end of British Christianity” – that Arthur pointed me to – Damian Thompson asks “why is British Christianity facing such a catastrophe?” His one-word answer is “secularisation”. Have we, I wonder, in conforming to the secular, individualistic culture around us, ceased to be distinctive Christians? The early Christians had a message about God’s Kingdom, and a way of life that drew people to it. We need to ask ourselves are we doing the same.
During my placement last year at the Dock Café, I sat in on a meeting with the bishop of Down and Dromore. He challenged the congregation – in a volatile interface area – to consider how they live as Christ’s disciples during the marching season. How could they demonstrate the love of Christ and the values of his Kingdom to those outside?
We are followers of Christ in a Province still caught up in historical and continuing cycles of enmity and violence. During the past week, Nazi and Confederate flags were flown in Carrickfergus and a bomb exploded in North Belfast.
In this context of bitterness and anger should we follow Jesus’ call to be peacemakers, to be salt, to be light? What would it mean to love our enemies? These are very difficult questions that I have struggled with in the context of ethnic violence in Sri Lanka.
In Micah, God tells his people how to live: do justice, love kindness and walk humbly with God. Our epistle also emphasises how we live, notwhat we believe. We must be doers of the word, says James, not just hearers. Otherwise it’s like looking into a mirror – seeing odd socks, a smudge on your face, then forgetting it and going out unchanged! In the next chapter James sarcastically says “You believe that there is one God? Good! So do demons!” If our lives are not lived by God’s principles, he says, then our faith is dead.
Following Christ and living for him is also about discovering our true selves, our true reason for living. In Luke 9, Jesus asks his disciples “What good is it if you gain the world, but lose yourself?” Following Christ is about finding ourselves, discovering abundant life in him, and recovering our true humanity. Christian Winman in his memoir My Bright Abyss: Meditations of a modern believer, has this to say: “When I look at my life through the lens of Christ it made sense….Christ is not an answer to existence, but a means of existing.”
If Christ is indeed the resurrected Lord of all time, and if this world and all that is in it belongs to him, then what really matters is who we are and how we serve his Kingdom here on earth.
You creator God, have written
Your great name on humankind
For our growing in your likeness
Bring the life of Christ to mind;
That by our response and service
Earth its destiny may find.