Choices: What Is Good and What Is Best
In one episode of the hit television series, StarTrek: The Next Generation, the starship Enterprise responds to a distress call from an isolated colony of human beings. It seems their utopian world is threatened by an object that is traveling through space on a collision course with their planet. Reluctantly, the leaders of the colony allow Captain Picard and his crew to assist them, realizing that the presence of these outsiders threatens the colony’s isolated utopian existence. While their contact is initially cordial, tensions quickly escalate when those on the planet and those aboard the Enterprise both realize that their lives have been irrevocably altered by this encounter. They have no option but to move forward into a very different future. Who would have guessed that their response to a call to serve others would have altered their lives so radically?
Jesus set his face toward Jerusalem. He knew what was waiting for him there, yet he did not shrink from it. The decision to face what was waiting in Jerusalem had been made long before he came to earth. Jesus was on a collision course with destiny. Yet, his disciples were not. They did not know what was coming, but Jesus knew that he only had a limited time left to drive the message home. So, he took them to Jerusalem, traveling through Samaria.
Now, the Jews and the Samaritans are similar to the Hatfields and the McCoys. At one time, they were both children of Israel, with similar beliefs, who worshiped the same God, but disputes arose over which scriptures were authentically the word of God, who they could marry, and where the center of worship should be. For the Samaritans, it was the Pentateuch… anyone… and Mount Gerazim and for the Jews, it included the Law and the Prophets, only other Jews, and Jerusalem. Arguments led to fighting and the destruction of property. Over time, these divisions became deep and permanent, with each side despising the other. Remember this bitter history, for we will refer to it again in the weeks to come. Jesus sent some of his group ahead to let the Samaritans know that he was coming. Yet, when the Samaritans rejected him, Jesus did not respond with anger or vengeance, as his disciples wanted him to do. Instead, Jesus rebuked his disciples for their bitter thoughts and, in doing so, sent a strong message of love and forbearance that still resonates today. How are we to treat those who we consider to be our enemies? If we are following Jesus’ lead, we accept their rejection and move on without acting on our desire to destroy them. Was this because Jesus knew that God’s plan called for all people to be reconciled to God and thus, Samaritans were among those included in God’s plan? Was Jesus trying, once again, to demonstrate to his disciples that there was a difference between the God of wrath they knew from Hebrew Scripture and the God of love exemplified in Jesus Christ? Jesus rebuked them.
Jesus moves on down the road toward Jerusalem and, on the way, he encounters a man who tells him that he will follow him wherever he goes. Once again, Jesus grabs onto a “teachable moment” for his disciples. “Foxes have holes,” he said, “and birds of the air have nests, but the Son of Man has nowhere to lay his head.” Life offers no guarantees, but for those who respond to Christ’s call, any semblance of the life they knew will vanish. For all that he was a carpenter by training, Jesus never had a home of his own. Do you ever wonder about that? Why didn’t Jesus settle in one place and then travel out from there to the various places he wanted to go to preach and to teach? Why didn’t he provide shelter for his disciples… even by building rooms onto their homes that his followers could use to get some much need rest? Perhaps he knew the seductive reality of a recliner and HDTV… or comfort of sleeping in your own bed… or the passionate possessiveness of a home owner. Perhaps, he knew that if he had a home, he would spend more time there than out on the road, doing what God had sent him to do. By dispensing with the home… the bed… the recliner… and the HDTV… or the first century equivalent of all these things… he forced himself to constantly be with other people… to move frequently from place to place… and to never get too comfortable wherever he was. The very transient nature of his existence served to remind him of why he was on the earth… of the work he had to do.
Can our homes… and our lives… really interfere with our desire to do God’s work in this world? Yes. The word that is used to describe this phenomenon is “cacooning.” Faith Popcorn, an American thinker about the future, coined the word “cacooning.” The word describes the lives of so many of us who are so totally wrapped up in our own little worlds… like being in a cacoon… that we can’t even see outside that world or know what is going on around us. If I am “cacooning” in my castle… my house… my condo… my apartment, I am safe from the struggles of the world outside. Cacooning separates us from God’s big world of pain out there… and allows us to ignore the world of hurt out there that needs healing. Yes, we can love our homes too much… and have them become the focus of our energy… the place we escape to… and the place we never wish to leave… especially to mix and mingle with strangers. “Foxes have holes,” he said, “and birds of the air have nests, but the Son of Man has nowhere to lay his head.”
Jesus turns to the next person he meets and says, “Follow me.” The man agrees to follow Jesus, but he wants to return home first to bury his father. You know, this seems like a reasonable request. Doesn’t the fifth commandment tell us to honor our father and mother… and doesn’t attending the funeral qualify as one of the ways that we honor them? Dr. George Caird, the author of a commentary on the Gospel of Luke, summarized what Jesus did in this way: “The most difficult choices in life are not primarily between good and evil, but the most difficult choices in life are between what is good and what is best.” A home… and family… and a steady job… these are all good choices. The desire to to attend a funeral to honor the dead… this is a great choice! But what would have happened to Jesus’ effort to explain the cosmic significance of God’s plan of salvation… and the story of God’s incredible love and mercy… if he had chosen to stay at home… surrounded himself with family… held onto his carpentry job… and attended the funeral of his parents, instead of making the choices that he did? How could his disciples have spread the good news of God’s Kingdom as far as they did in their lifetimes if they had not learned from him that a life of discipleship is a life of sacrifice? It is not that the people who did not follow Jesus were doing anything bad… they were simply not making the decisions that make a real difference in the world. “Cacooned” in their own little worlds, they chose the comfort of the known over the discomfort of the unknown… the companionship of friends over the company of strangers… the predictability of the established routine of their lives over the endless serendipity of following Jesus into unexpected places. Jesus said to him, "Let the dead bury their own dead; but as for you, go and proclaim the kingdom of God."
What choices are we making, I wonder? And are they the best choices we can make as followers of Jesus? The last person that Jesus speaks to in our text today simply wants to say “Goodbye” to the folks at home before joining Jesus on the road. Again, it is a simple request. It seems to be a reasonable request… a good choice… but is it the best choice? There are numerous accounts of missionary “wannabees” who returned to their hometown to say “Goodbye” only to be talked out of their decision by well-meaning family and friends. And there are countless stories of Christian converts who returned home to invite family and friends to their baptism only to revert to their former beliefs and never receive the gift of baptism. The life of a Christian can never be what it was before. The path that Jesus takes leads into the future… not into the past… and the life of a disciple is not a life of comfortable predictability. It is a life of commitment and sacrifice… a life that forces us to choose between what is good and what is best… not for us… but for God.
The analogy that Jesus uses is the one of a man plowing a field. "No one who puts a hand to the plow and looks back,” Jesus says, “is fit for the kingdom of God." How many of us, I wonder, have ever driven a tractor with a plow behind it? Not many. How many of us have driven a mule with a plow behind it? That’s what I thought. If Jesus were teaching today, he probably wouldn’t use the analogy about a farming using a plow guided by hand. Let’s try a different analogy. Imagine yourself driving a car in rush hour traffic… or in a gaper’s block on the highway… bumper to bumper. Now imagine that you have no rear view mirror and you are constantly looking back… trying to see something that is behind you… the accident on the highway… your possessions in the trailer you are pulling… your family in the back seat of your car. What do you think will happen if you keep this up? If you don’t keep your eye on the road ahead, your car will swerve and cause an accident and someone will get hurt. In the same way, if the farmer does not look forward and fix his eyes on the goal, he will not be able to plow a straight furrow. His land will produce fewer crops and those around him may go hungry as a result. "No one who puts a hand to the plow and looks back,” Jesus says, “is fit for the kingdom of God." Making a decision to follow Jesus is not a frivolous one. It takes commitment… courage… and sacrifice to be a disciple.
One of the less well-known, but important Christian figures in the world is Pope Shenouda III of the Coptic Orthodox Church. As one of the foremost Christian figures in the Arab world, Pope Shenouda has found himself in constant tension with Islamic authorities over the imposition of the “sharia” or Islamic law. Three times he has been imprisoned for protesting the requirement that Christian churches spend a like amount of construction cost on the nearest mosque in conjunction with their own improvement projects. When I traveled to Egypt in the summer of 2002 to visit the work of Christians in that country, I learned that Christians are not allowed the build a church within 200 meters of a mosque. There is a requirement that churches file their construction plans with government authorities several months before construction may begin. Within the Islamic community in Egypt, there is a group that has made a commitment to build a mosque on any property bordering the property on which Christians have expressed their intent to build a church. Once construction on the mosque has begun, the Christians are prohibited from building their church and that property must be used in other ways. There are many other ways that Christians face discrimination in the Arab world… in some places, even their lives are at risk… but Pope Shenouda has chosen to be a committed and fearless disciple of Jesus Christ in a place where he is surrounded by opponents of that faith. He has responded to Christ’s call to serve and that is his chosen vocation. He keeps his eye on the goal… on the prize, as the Apostle Paul puts it. He is running the race and the prize is Jesus Christ. His hand is on the plow… and he does not look back.
“Seek ye first the kingdom of God.” Every Sunday, we sing it… but do we believe it? Do we put God before everything else in our lives? Or have we put our hand to the plow… and keep looking back over our shoulder at the life we once knew. What is the best for God… and God’s kingdom on this earth? There are many things in life that are good… the difficult decision is choosing between what is good and what is best… for God and for God’s kingdom in this world. Jesus did not come to earth to give us easy choices. Jesus came to proclaim the love of God… to show us how to live that love each day… and to teach us how to be disciples… to understand the commitment… the courage… and the sacrifice involved in responding to God’s call to serve. What choice will you make? What will you risk for God? May God bless you as you consider your response. Amen.
Luke 9:51-62