Sermon 7/1/07
Set Your Face - Luke 9:51-62
(view lectionary notes for this text)
Sometimes when I’m working on a sermon and I’m researching a text, I’m struck by a phrase or word or sentence that strikes me as strange-sounding enough that I just have to check and see what it says in the original languages of the gospel writings, Ancient Greek. I don’t want to falsely boast of my Greek language skills – I did take a lot of Greek in college and seminary, but my Greek is pretty rusty these days, and while I used to try to keep up by working on translating passages every week, that’s a habit I mostly dropped after my first year in ministry like I dropped finishing my sermons by Tuesday or Wednesday instead of finishing them on Friday or Saturday like the rest of the pastors in the world! But I still pull out my Greek New Testament if I’m really struck by a phrase. That happened in this text from Luke for today. Our passage opens with Luke saying, “When the days drew near for him to be taken up, he set his face to go to Jerusalem. And he send messengers ahead of him. On their way they entered a village of the Samaritans to make ready for him; but they did not receive him, because his face was set toward Jerusalem.”
Jesus “set his face” toward Jerusalem. What a strange turn of phrase! I had to look it up. Surely, the text couldn’t say exactly that – he “set his face.” But it does, it does say exactly that. So if that’s what it says, what does it mean? The Greek word here is estęrisen, and it means firmly set or fixed, steadied, grounded, like when you ‘plant your feet’ somewhere. Jesus has his face firmly planted, it seems, and it is set on Jerusalem. What happens in Jerusalem? We know that Jerusalem is where Jesus is arrested, tried, and crucified. Multiple times earlier in this very chapter, Jesus refers to his suffering and death, and his disciples don’t understand what he’s talking about. But Jesus is set – his face is set, his direction is set, his purpose is set. It isn’t that Jesus is morbidly determined to die, but he is determined to follow God’s will for him no matter what other obstacles come into his path. His face is set.
Jesus has his face set toward Jerusalem – his mind is set on the end of his journey – but he still has many things to do, people to heal, lessons to teach before he gets there. He and the disciples prepare to visit a Samaritan village, but the village doesn’t receive Jesus, because his face is set on Jerusalem. This gets James and John worked up – they offer to command fire to come down from heaven to consume the village. I can just imagine Jesus rolling his eyes at their suggestion – they are always so ready to condemn others in Jesus’ name! Jesus rebukes them and their suggestion, and they move on.
As they are traveling, several people interact with Jesus. One claims they will follow Jesus wherever he goes, but Jesus responds “Foxes have holes, and birds of the air have nests; but the Son of Man has nowhere to lay his head.” We don’t know if the person decides to follow Jesus or not after this, but Jesus certainly doesn’t seem encouraging. Then Jesus calls another to follow him, but he responds, “Lord, first let me go and bury my dead father.” Jesus doesn’t seem full of sympathy – “Let the dead bury their own dead; but as for you, go and proclaim the kingdom of God.” And a third says he will follow Jesus, but he first wants to say goodbye to friends and family. Jesus responds, “No one who puts a hand to the plow and looks back is fit for the kingdom of God.”
Jesus’ face is set toward Jerusalem. His direction and purpose are fixed, and it doesn’t seem as though he has much time or energy to deal with anyone who isn’t dedicated. Does Jesus really mean what he says? Why is he being so harsh? After all, Jesus may not have had a permanent residence, but he did have a family home, and he did friends with whom he would stay while on the road. He may speak harshly to the man who wanted to bury his father, but Jesus himself spent time mourning and weeping for his own friend Lazarus before he raised him from the dead. And while Jesus certainly never seems to turn back, stray away from a face set toward Jerusalem, his disciples certainly seem to engage in the “two steps forward, one step back” approach to faith. They exasperate Jesus I bet, but he seems to have hope that they might yet be fit for the kingdom of God. So what exactly is Jesus saying? And who can follow Jesus if it is this hard?
Indeed, pastor Debbie Blue writes, “Often people read about these encounters [with Jesus on the road] and extract a lesson for Christians, for us, his would-be followers. It goes something like this: ‘If you want to follow Jesus you must do so wholeheartedly. There is no middle ground. You cannot proclaim the good news unless you’ve left everything to live it.’ If that’s the case, I don’t know how it ever gets proclaimed. If it depends on us becoming ‘good,’ or practicing flawless nonattachment, then it doesn’t seem like it’s very good news. The followers of Christ are dense, forgetful and bumbling.” (1)
So, again, what is Jesus saying to us? Think again about the children’s sermon. Julie demonstrated ‘spotting’ for us, how you can do many things in dance, spin and spin and spin, but if you don’t spot, if you don’t set your face on a particular point, you will simply lose your balance and fall over, no matter how good a dancer you are, no matter how pretty your turns look. You have to spot, and know where your spot is at all times. That’s one of the first things they teach you in dance, and something they drill in your brain for years, because you need to know how to spot to know how to dance.
A lot of times I think we try to soften Jesus’ message when we shouldn’t, because we’re trying to make Jesus easier to take than he really is. We try to say Jesus doesn’t really want us to give up our stuff, but I think maybe he does. And we try to say Jesus doesn’t really mean for us to interact everyday with the very people we don’t like and are even perhaps scared to be around, but I think he does. And we try to say Jesus doesn’t really mean we have to lose our lives to God in order to live, but I think he does! But here is one place where I think Jesus actually isn’t being as hard or harsh is we think he’s being. When I started writing this sermon, I was ready to preach about how Jesus is asking us to make tough choices, to choose God’s path over other things, to choose a life of discipleship that offers little comfort, instead of choosing the comforts of life that we cling to. And there is some truth to that. But I was missing the grace that is also there, always there, in what Jesus is saying. Jesus is challenging us, always. But Jesus’ message to us here really isn’t hard and harsh. He’s not asking us to not care about anything but this path of discipleship. He’s asking us to make everything work together with this path of discipleship. When Julie spots for dance, she isn’t asked only to spot, but she’s asked to come back to the spot at every turn. We’re asked not to forget about everything else, but to remember where our face is set, so that in everything else we do we remember our focus and purpose and make our focus and purpose part of everything else we do. Rev. Dr. Greg Rickel puts it this way:
As in so many things in this life, we like to make this an either/or scenario. It's got to be one or the other . . . But take a closer look at this text: instead of an “either/or,” Jesus is really positing a “both/and.” Notice that both of the poor souls that ask to go take care of other business are exclusive in their request as well. “Sure, I will follow you Lord, but first, let me go bury my father." And then another, "well sure I'll follow you Lord, would love to, but first let me go tell them good bye at home; I mean they are expecting me for dinner; it would be rude to just not show up!"
In both cases, and in many cases in this world as well . . . [our] answer is, "Yes, Lord, I will follow, I will pray, I will give, I will work, I will whatever, BUT FIRST, I need to pay off my boat; [but first] I need to find a job; [but first] I need to get my taxes done; [but first] I need to get the clothes washed. It is the "But First" that seems to be key here.
Those who come to Jesus, meaning well, who wanted to follow Jesus, seem to be telling Jesus, “to get on your train, I have to get off mine.” In a sense that is true, but this thinking makes it seem like two different journeys. It seems unlikely that we could live on the Christian journey at all if this were the truth. And this is the whole notion of setting one’ s face to Jerusalem . . . Setting your face toward Jerusalem, on a journey . . . is it one you must start only after all else in your life is finished? One would hope not, or else we would never get started on it.
. . . In some ways we should expect no other response from Jesus, he says loud and clear to them: “Hey, you can't compartmentalize following me, you can't do it when you get time, when you clear some space on your Palm Pilot, after the clothes are washed. This is a way of life, which means yes, the clothes must get washed, and the bills must get paid, and the kids must get fed, and the taxes must get paid, and you most likely have to keep those appointments in your Palm Pilot.”
“BUT, follow me anyway; follow me while doing those things; follow me in a way that makes you do those things in a new way. Follow me forever: no ‘BUT FIRSTs’ . . . Instead: ‘both/and.’” Following Jesus is 24/7[.] It doesn't mean not doing everything else, it means doing everything else with your face set toward Jerusalem. (2)
So the only question left for us is whether or not we’ve set our face in the same direction as Jesus. Are we set on a path of discipleship? Are we set toward the kingdom of God? Is that the spot – the point – we come back to, and focus everything else around? The Samaritan village had the courage to admit that they didn’t like what Jesus had set his face at – and their refusal to welcome him knowing what he was focused on is probably a more honest response then when we sometimes pretend we’re welcoming Jesus into our lives without wanting his face to be so set! Is your face set?
When we share in Communion together, we set our face towards God’s grace. God is always offering us grace, even as God challenges us to order our lives around God’s path, instead of trying to bend God’s path to they way we’ve ordered our lives. God is ever offering us grace, calling us to accept God’s love. Won’t you travel on God path? Receive, enjoy God’s loving grace? It’s a good direction to set your face. Amen.
(1) Debbie Blue, “Blogging Toward Sunday,” http://www.theolog.org/blog/2007/06/blogging-towa-1.html#more
(2) Rev. Dr. Greg Rickel, http://www.episcopalchurch.org/6087_39276_ENG_HTM.htm