2 Kings 2:1-2, 6-14
Galatians 5:1, 13-25
Luke 9:51-62
“The Gospel of the Lord. Praise to you, Lord Christ.” It’s a little hard, maybe, to offer praise after hearing this Gospel. There are a number of passages in the Gospels often known as the Difficult Sayings of Jesus. The words themselves are not difficult to understand, but we find their meaning difficult to accept. This is definitely one of those difficult sayings, especially Jesus’ apparently harsh and callous words “let the dead bury their dead.”
I can think of four possible approaches to difficult passages like these.
One is to put them aside. Consciously or subconsciously to discount the passages we find difficult. My God wouldn’t say something like that, we think. The God I know, the God I presume to know all about isn’t like that. If Jesus actually said this, I know he didn’t mean it. This is an extremely arrogant approach, but we all do it all the time. We choose to ignore or discount the importance of passages we don’t like.
The second approach is to go beyond the literally meaning of the words to a deeper interpretation… to interpret the passage, especially within the context of the faithful community of the church. This is certainly a valid and faithful approach to the Scriptures. It affirms that God’s revelation to the faithful community has continued since the time the Scriptures were written and that God’s people assembled in prayer and study can interpret new meanings from the Scriptures that reflect God’s ongoing will for his people. The church, today and over the centuries, can interpret and reinterpret these passages and teach us broader or deeper meanings beyond the literal. Many in the church interpret the meaning of Jesus’ words to be: Let the spiritually dead bury their physical dead. Let those who do not know the living Christ tend to those whose bodies no longer live.
It’s important to remember that if we adopt this approach of interpreting new meanings from Scripture, discerned within the faithful community… if we adopt this approach for passages we find difficult, we must be open to it for all of Scripture. We must acknowledge that passages whose literal meaning we cherish may also be open to reinterpretation.
A third approach to Scripture—any passage, difficult or not—is to use the gift of intellect God have us and turn to the tools of Biblical scholarship, especially historical criticism. This approach yields some particularly interesting results for this Gospel passage. Biblical scholars point out that the underlying agenda in this passage, whether it is Luke’s or Jesus’, is to make the point that Jesus is not Elijah. Remember that for the Jews of Jesus’ day and for the Gospel writers, this would have been an extremely important question to resolve. They were awaiting the return of the great prophet Elijah. Jews still await his return. This context is completely lost on us, but in Jesus’ day, people would have been very eager to know if Jesus was Elijah. This passage very pointedly addresses that question.
In this morning’s reading from the Hebrew Scriptures, we heard a bit of Elijah’s story, when he passes his prophetic mantle to Elisha. Keeping in mind today’s reading from Luke, listen to a few other passages from the story of Elijah as it is told in the Books of Kings. Elijah was often at odds with the Kings of Israel who were not faithful to Yahweh. One of the kings sought to eliminate the bothersome prophet and sent a messenger and fifty soldiers to take care of Elijah. When they arrived, Elijah said to them, “If I am a man of God, let fire come down from heaven and consume you and your fifty.” And, the Second Book of Kings tells, us “then fire came down from heaven and consumed him and his fifty” [2 Kings 1:10, 12]. Elijah called down fire upon those who were faithless to Yahweh. When Jesus came upon some Samaritans who were not open to the presence of the Son of God, Jesus did not rain down fire upon them. Jesus is not Elijah.
Listen to the call of Elisha from First Kings. “So he [Elijah] set out from there, and found Elisha son of Shaphat, who was plowing. There were twelve yoke of oxen ahead of him, and he was with the twelfth. Elijah passed by him and threw his mantle over him. He left the oxen, ran after Elijah, and said, ‘Let me kiss my father and my mother, and then I will follow you.’ And Elijah said to him, yes, go say good bye to your family and then return to fulfill the task I have for you [1 Kings 19:19-21]. Jesus says, no, my mission is more urgent than family farewells. Jesus is not Elijah.
What a relief. Aren’t you feeling a bit relieved? Biblical scholarship indicates that this passage isn’t really about me. Luke, or maybe Jesus, is just using this language and these stories to make a theological point about the distinction between Elijah and Jesus. And, of course, I already know that Jesus is not Elijah. So I can put this difficult passage is a box labeled historical artifact. Very interesting and informative, but not directly relevant to me today. Thank heavens.
Personally, I always feel uneasy when I feel relieved about explaining away difficult passages in Scripture. The second and third approaches to this passage are legitimate ways to understand it—to look to the faithful community of the church for interpretation or to Biblical scholars for explanation. But what we’ve done is remove any relevance the passage may have for us.
There is, I think, a fourth possible approach: to listen. To really try to hear God speaking to us today. Luke’s Gospel is more than a historical document. It is more than words on a page. It is the living Word of God, speaking to us in the situations and events of our lives right now. It’s risky to approach the Bible this way. It is not always easy to hear God clearly; we risk hearing wrongly. We also risk God actually telling us something that may change our lives right here today. But I want to tell you one thing I hear as I listen to these words in my life today.
This passage is all about the journey towards Jerusalem. The first line we actually heard this morning was about Jesus setting his face towards Jerusalem. Jerusalem. I hear Jesus telling me to keep my eyes on Jerusalem. He’s not talking just to the disciples back then choosing a road that led literally to Jerusalem, he’s talking to me. And Jerusalem means something more to me than it meant to the disciples. We don’t really know what it meant to them, but I’ve often imagined that they looked towards Jerusalem with dread and impending doom. That they had to summon almost superhuman resolve and self-sacrifice to tread those steps towards Jerusalem. Maybe they did, although that idea is purely a product of my imagination. And, actually, at this point in Luke’s Gospel, we’re only half way through. The disciples probably didn’t think much about Jerusalem at all. What if Jesus is telling me to keep my eyes on Jerusalem?
What does Jerusalem mean to me? What does Jesus’ action on the cross in Jerusalem offer to me?
Freedom. Paul says it. As we experience these Scripture readings in our lives, we heard that, too, this morning. For freedom, Christ has set us free, Paul says. Jerusalem means freedom. Freedom from the bondage of sin and death. Freedom from enslavement to the desires of the flesh. Paul lists a lot of what binds up our lives, those things that enslave us and rob of us of fullness of life. Things we cannot conquer on our own. Most of them have to do with inordinate desires within us and petty divisions and envy between us. On the other hand, Jesus’ act in Jerusalem bestows upon us freedom. Freedom manifest in the gifts of love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control.
This passage isn’t primarily about how hard it is to get to Jerusalem; it is about how much it is worth to get there. Some days the journey is hard; some days it may not be. But it is worth it. The goal is God’s gift of freedom. The goal is worth whatever challenges or sacrifices may arise along the journey.
This week we are remembering the 60th anniversary of the beginning of the Korean War, the “forgotten” war. The phrase written on the Korean War Memorial is one we hear these days from time to time: Freedom is not free. We understand that sacrifice is often necessary to achieve personal and political freedom. But it’s worth it.
As a child, I was captivated by the stories of the underground railroad. I cannot imagine what those stories mean to people whose ancestors actually made that journey. Slaves who fled the south and journeyed north, seeking that blessed goal of freedom. The individuals who traveled the underground railroad traveled light. They took great risk and endured extreme personal hardship. They would not have tarried along the way. The vision of freedom propelled them onward.
Do you know the spiritual “Follow the drinkin’ gourd”? It’s a song of the underground railroad. The drinkin’ gourd is the big dipper, seen in the night sky. The big dipper that points to the north star… north to freedom.
Follow the drinkin’ gourd.
For the old man is a waitin’ for to carry you to freedom.
Follow the drinkin’ gourd.
Do you want to be free? Really free? The freedom that God offers us is even more important and profound than personal or political freedom. Do you want to be free? Free from the bondage of sin and death?
Then set your face towards Jerusalem. Freedom is what lies ahead. Travel light. Do not tarry. Abandon, sacrifice, anything that comes between you and the blessed goal of freedom. Do you want to be free? Jerusalem is the place where God gives us freedom. For freedom, Christ has set us free.
