I would like to be free of my mortgage! I would like to be free to go to work when I want to and stay home when I don’t feel like working. Some days I would like to be free of my obligations and housework and difficult employees and 20-year-olds who think I am an ATM machine. I don’t feel all that “free”, to tell you the truth. But St. Paul says “Christ has set us free – for Freedom.” How and where are we free in this world? If I didn’t have the obligations of job and mortgage I wouldn’t have anywhere to live, would I? And if I didn’t have my 20-somethings I would sometimes be very lonely indeed. According to Paul it is in life in the Spirit that sets us free to be the people of God through our faith in and love for Jesus. And as gentle and lovely as that sounds it is a counter-cultural and revolutionary statement that puts us at odds with most of modern world.
In our Gospel today, Jesus has set his course to Jerusalem, to the final chapter of the story of his ministry. This is Jesus’ last chance to form the mission that will become the church which is the body of Christ, his legacy of love to the world. In the Gospel according to Luke chapters 9 through 23, Luke describes Jesus’ journey to Jerusalem and how Jesus is guided and supported by the Spirit on his way to crucifixion, resurrection, ascension and life with God. And then Jesus sends out the Spirit to be our advocate, comforter and teacher. So on his Way to Jerusalem, Jesus sends some messengers ahead to the next town to tell of his arrival, as was the custom of the day, so that his group would have a place to stay when they got there. Because there were no hotels as we know them, the need for hospitality and a place to lay your head made you dependant on the kindness of strangers. But when Jesus and his followers reached this town, they discovered it was a Samaritan town and that they were not welcome. The Samaritans were related to the Jews ethnically and historically – but they worshiped at another temple on another mountain and there was no love lost between the two groups. This rejection of Jesus and his followers was the result of an ethnic conflict. The disciples got offended and offered to call down fire from heaven to consume the Samaritans and Jesus “rebukes” them and moves on. Jesus had “set his face to Jerusalem” – as his home of worship, but also as the unraveling place for his story and his ultimate mission to give his life up for the love of the people he served. Not as warrior king but as loving servant of the most oppressed and marginalized people in society. What can you imagine Jesus said to the disciples when they wanted to destroy the Samaritan town with fire from heaven? It must have bothered him a lot that they still didn’t get it that his mission was not a military action or a “lightening bolt from God” sort of crusade. He may have turned away discouraged and yet still determined to continue on in the mission that God had set for him. I can see him calming them down and reminding them of the work yet to be done and moving on down the path, setting his face and his will to Jerusalem where his fate awaited him.
As they continued along Jesus encountered more people who wanted to join his walk to Jerusalem – people who had heard about the miracles and the stories of healing and hope. After his encounter with the Samaritans Jesus continued to gather up more workers for his mission, these people who will form the church and reap the first fruit of the Spirit which Paul mentions – “the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, 23gentleness, and self-control.”
The call Jesus sends out to these prospective disciples in our gospel reading is in contrast to the violent reaction of the disciples to the Samaritans. When St. Paul says, “For Freedom Christ has set us free,” Paul is talking not only about freedom from ethnic prejudice, or material possessions, or other earthly concerns which can take up a lot of time and energy and money. He is talking also about the freedom to follow where the Spirit leads. Jesus, too, on his walk makes a call to the potential disciples for this kind of freedom. It is a call for a radical change of life and possible expulsion from their families and communities. The call to a life in Christ is not easy when you have a lot to lose in terms of the world. Can you imagine someone asking you to walk away from home, family, bank account, SUV, boat, vacation plans…retirement plans. That is what Jesus asked of the people on the way to Jerusalem. Maybe that’s why Jesus says the poor are blessed – because taking up a life in Christ is easier when you have less to lose. In our gospel, a young man comes to Jesus and says in all earnestness, “I will follow you wherever you go!” And Jesus tells him the truth about his own life – even a fox has a hole and a bird has a nest but the Son of God has no permanent place to rest his head, he has no home to go to each night. He was what we would call homeless, vagrant, jobless, and dependant on the generosity of the women who follow him. It sounds frightening and tenuous when described in that way. Jesus really lived free of earthly demands like mortgage and job and family ties. The young man in this encounter must have been shocked at this truth about Jesus. We don’t know if he joined up or not. In his place, I don’t know if I would have joined up. Jesus called out to the next candidate for discipleship – “Follow me!” And the man called back, “First let me bury my father!” Now in the culture of Jesus’ time and place this didn’t mean the funeral was tomorrow and the man would catch Jesus up at the next town. This short statement reveals all the weight and obligation of family ties and values that a man could feel. Children were all the retirement that parents had – the children had to prepare to care for them until they died – and their children must do the same for them when the time came. To walk away to follow an itinerant preacher and prophet was to lose the respect of community and possibly abandon one’s parents to poverty and shame. What an awful choice. And even the disciple candidate who wanted to say goodbye to his folks at home and let them know where he was going got the same kind of response from Jesus – Anyone who puts their hand to the plow of a life in Christ and looks back – just looks back with the slightest yearning for the old life, the life lived in the world, is not fit for the Kingdom of God. These are such harsh words and a seemingly impossible condition for discipleship.
How do we reconcile our lives then – in the world and in the Spirit? Are we to give up everything to the poor and go out there and preach the gospel on the streets, live among the homeless and give up all to Christ? Some people are called to that kind of service – Mother Teresa comes to mind – and we know that even she was not without internal conflict about her life in Christ and her relationship with God. How does one give up the life of the world, the values and desires of the flesh, the comfort and struggle of life in a family and live a life that yields up the fruit of the Spirit and makes us each a window into the life of Christ? It is a lifelong journey of struggle and success, failure and joy – but always with a determination, an urgency, setting our faces to Jerusalem. Have we got the stomach and courage for it? Have I got the stomach and courage for it?
Paul says, “13For you were called to freedom, brothers and sisters; only do not use your freedom as an opportunity for self-indulgence, but through love become slaves to one another. 14For the whole law is summed up in a single commandment, “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.” This is what Jesus did. Slavery to the welfare of our brothers and sisters in the world is complete freedom from the crushing weight of the demands of life in the world of earthly concerns. Following Jesus is not an easy journey, but the ultimate fruit of this life in the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, 23gentleness, and self-control.
I wish I could give you some advice how to do this. I still have my house and mortgage; my kids; my job, my Blackberry. I haven’t cashed in my retirement plan and given the money away to the poor. Everyone who follows Jesus struggles with the complex demands and temptations of the world – the only thing I know for sure is that the Spirit will lead me – if I keep my heart open to what she is saying to me and calling me to do and be. And the fruit of the Spirit for me now is the joy of being in this place called St. George’s with you. For the Freedom to follow where the Spirit is leading us, Christ has set us Free. Amen.
