Year C
Luke 9:51-62
The Very Rev. Denise Vaughn
The “All or Nothing” Commitment
Belmont College in North Carolina, sits on property that was once a large southern plantation. The land was given to the Roman Catholic Church and they built an abbey and a college on the property. On the property, the monks found a huge granite stone upon which men, women, and children had stood centuries before and were sold as slaves. The monks took the stone and hollowed out a hole in the top and carried it into the abbey’s chapel, where to this day it serves as a baptismal font. The engraving on it reads: “Upon this rock men were once sold into slavery. Now upon this rock, through the water of baptism, people become free children of God.”
We are free children in Christ and with the upcoming 4th of July holiday many of us have freedom on our minds. The idea of freedom is one of the bedrock concepts that will be lifted up all around. But what does freedom really mean? When the founders of our country envisioned a free society, they were thinking about the opportunity to steadfastly pursue the gifts of “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.” This way of pursuing freedom is to be at the center of the American experience. For followers of Christ, it is at the center of the Christian message as indicated today in all our texts. To fully realize this way of freedom whether we are talking about secular freedom or religious freedom, requires vigilance and responsibility, it requires commitment because without these we can lose the freedoms we so cherish.
Paul today stresses this commitment to freedom in his letter to the Galatians, he says “For freedom Christ has set us free.” However, we are “free” not to do whatever we want but to be what God created us to be under the bond of love that calls us to become slaves of one another. Thus we love one another, and our lives and actions reveal that freedom in Christ by bearing bumper crops of spiritual fruit that nourish all around us. We bear this spiritual fruit when we are “guided by the Spirit.” Paul’s description of life in the Spirit can sound quite intimidating as he lists certain negative or sinful behaviors that are prohibited but goes on to list “fruits” or positive characteristics of life in the Spirit.
This familiar list of “fruits” or positive characteristics that includes: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control, are not easy to exhibit all the time and therefore it may leave us tempted to wonder “Then who can be saved?” This is where the gospel of grace comes in. The list is not about living a life in order to become right with God. Paul’s letter to the Galatians is all about the fact that we are already right with God because of God’s love for us in Christ’s sacrifice. But this new life of freedom in Christ should be evident in our behavior. Our freedom is not freedom to exhibit those negative characteristics. Yet, because God’s Spirit lives in those who belong to Christ, we are given the strength to live a spirit-filled life filled with good fruits.
This same Spirit of freedom was what gave Elisha the strength to accept Elijah’s call to be a prophet for God. Today’s text continues the story about Elijah’s flight from Jezebel to Mt. Horeb, and how God spoke to him in a “still small voice” as he stood in the mouth of the cave. The prophet explained his zeal for the Lord and that his life was in danger. To his surprise, no doubt, God hears his friend and allows him to resign. He tells him to go to the wilderness of Damascus, where he was to anoint Hazael king over Syria and Jehu as the king of Israel; he was also to call Elisha, who would succeed him as the prophet to Israel.
Elijah obeys and did what God told him to do. Elisha’s call allows the freedom to leave what he is doing and to follow the prophet. This freedom which he has to leave the oxen and his family is complemented by the new unconditional responsibility which he undertakes by following Elijah. Luke today stresses the unconditional nature of following Jesus by contrasting the words of Jesus to the words of Elijah. Jesus is stressing in his exchange with the man he calls to follow that it’s all about commitment or our priorities. The late Dietrich Bonhoeffer wrote in ‘The Cost of Discipleship,’ “When Jesus calls a man, he bids him come and die.” That is, we die to our lives that we might live to his.
Christ showed his commitment to all that awaited him, “he set his face to go to Jerusalem.” What lies ahead is not for the half-hearted! To follow Jesus is to also arrive finally at a cross. Therefore, most of us prefer slavery and security to freedom and the risk and hardship it may require. Jesus today speaks to the things that hold us back in our commitment: comforts, our worldly commitments and friends. Jesus says we’re working with God, plowing the fields, sowing seed. And we can’t be looking back over our shoulders at the comforts, the worldly commitments, and old friendships that would bid us set the work aside.
The priority or commitment of being a disciple for us will vary from different times, or places. We are not to reject our responsibilities to family and vocation but, to see those needs in the light of our faith and through the lens of our deepening commitment to Christ. What Jesus offers us is the opportunity to follow on a journey of faith that brings freedom. But the gift of freedom which has been won for us by Christ’s saving death is not an effective gift without our exercising it daily. Yet, our freedom allows us opportunity to choose the way of the Spirit, or the way of the flesh. That’s why Paul says. Stand firm, and do not submit to a yoke of slavery.” “For Freedom Christ has set us free”
This challenge is met every day in our daily lives. Thankfully, we live under God’s grace which is offered to us freely, but it can also “break” people by its demand for commitment to Christ. Even though, the Spirit of God never stops calling us and giving us strength to exhibit those positive fruits of “love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control that bring freedom. This freedom in Christ allows us to serve freely from love rather than from obligation. Elijah, Elisha and Paul understood what freedom meant. They committed to their mission. Jesus’ mission was clear to him. It was “all or nothing.” When it comes to the cross, that mission needs to be equally clear to us also but we have the God given freedom to make a choice.