I’d never wondered how I might preach down a church, But this is exactly what Jesus is doing today: he’s surrounded by a parade of happy people, but his mission isn’t to lead a parade but to bring the Kingdom of God into a world that does not want God to be king.
Jesus must proclaim there is a kingdom more important than Rome, a king more important than Caesar, and a mission that is more important than transmitting Roman culture or the status quo supported by the religious leaders.
He does this without violence or exclusion, for all are welcome at his table—Pharisees and Prostitutes, Samaritans and Sinners of all shapes and sizes.
Jesus is leading a movement of the power and presence of Almighty, All-loving, Father-Mother God. Not by making himself king by force but by making himself a Servant by love, who heals the sick, includes the marginal, and feeds the hungry.
And this work of healing and teaching is a great success in Galilee but now Jesus must head into the Holy City to take on “the powers and principalities of this present darkness”. Jesus will give up his life as a sign of the love of God and his followers must be ready to do so too.
So, Jesus has a moral responsibility to make sure this great crowd of followers understands where he is leading them, in case they want to get off at the next stop.
Since we celebrated the 75th anniversary of the D-Day invasion this past June 6th, I’m reminded of an iconic photograph of General Dwight Eisenhower, meeting with paratroopers the afternoon before they would parachute into France behind Nazi lines.
These men, with their faces blackened, are an example of the kind of people Jesus calls disciples: They don’t hate their families, in fact at that moment they may have never loved them more, but they have left their families, and may very soon break their mothers’ and fathers’ hearts.
In the Semitic world “hate” used in this way, means to turn away from something.
These men were also carrying their cross for thousands would die.
And for this great cause they turn away from all their possessions and now only have what Uncle Sam has given them.
I hesitate to use a wartime image to talk about the Prince of Peace, but it shows the seriousness which Jesus expects from those following him to Jerusalem.
He says, “I am asking you to turn away from your own self-conceived future, for the sake of manifesting God’s future.
Dietrich Bonhoeffer, German theologian and pastor, martyred by the Nazis in 1945, wrote a classic text on discipleship for the students in an underground seminary outlawed by the Nazis. He wrote, “When Jesus calls a man, calls a woman, he bids them come and die.”
This death can be both literal and metaphorical—for to follow Jesus means we die to our dreams of success, fame, and wealth, so we can find our lives in God’s Dream of service, compassion, and healing.
But what exactly is Jesus calling us to give up? Can’t we follow Jesus AND pursue the American Dream of upward mobility and a long comfortable life lived in freedom?
Fred Craddock, the great teacher of preachers, puts it this way: “What Jesus is demanding of disciples…is that in the network of many loyalties in which all of us live, the claim of Christ and the gospel not only takes precedence, but in fact, redefines the others…” Interpretation Commentary of Luke, page 182
Paul’s personal letter to Philemon shows us what this means: Philemon is a Greek man living in Colossae. He owns slaves like most prosperous Greeks of that time, and one of them, Onesimus, runs away from Philemon and ends up in Ephesus with Paul. Both Philemon and his slave Onesimus, under the preaching of Paul have been baptized into the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ, and therefore are brothers in Christ.
And the question before Philemon is the question before all of us: Will his commitment to the norms of his culture determine the shape of his commitment to Christ, or will his commitment to Christ cause him to grow beyond the norms of his culture, where slavery is not only acceptable, but seen as necessary for civilized living?
Paul writes: I, Paul, am appealing to you for my child, Onesimus, whose father I have become during my imprisonment. Formerly he was useless to you, but now he is indeed useful both to you and to me. I am sending him, that is, my own heart, back to you. I wanted to keep him with me, so that he might be of service to me in your place during my imprisonment for the gospel; but I preferred to do nothing without your consent, in order that your good deed might be voluntary and not something forced. Perhaps this is the reason he was separated from you for a while, so that you might have him back forever, no longer as a slave but more than a slave, a beloved brother– especially to me but how much more to you, both in the flesh and in the Lord.
Paul is also putting a big ask in front of Onesimus: go back to your Master, trusting he will not kill you, but receive you as his brother in Christ.
What will Philemon’s neighbors think if he not only forgives Onesimus but also welcomes him as an equal in Christ!
Following Jesus is not a safe abstraction but a call to live inside the Kingdom of God in a world that hates the values of Christ the King. The gospel call to discipleship costs us all.
Jesus finally preaches his church down to almost nothing by the time he is crucified. Only a few women and the apostle John are willing to stand with him. Even the mighty Peter folds like a cheap suit when a young servant girl says, “This man was also one of his followers.”
The cock crows and Peter weeps bitterly, because he is not man enough to follow Jesus all the way.
And in our own power neither are you and I. All we can promise is that we are willing:
+ willing to make following Jesus the central priority of our lives.
+ willing to live Christ’s values in the face of the Powers That Be that worship the traditional comfort of a bygone era that never was.
+ willing to stand with those marginal ones like Onesimus who in our country and around the world are treated as objects to be abused instead of as our sisters and brothers in Christ.
When we sing, “I have decided to follow Jesus”, then we believe in our hearts and say out loud every morning and evening: “Through the grace of Christ, I am living inside the Kingdom of God.”
Through the grace of Christ, we are learning to say not only, “I am loved”, but also learning to say I am Love. We are learning to say not only, “I believe in liberty and justice for all”, but to be liberty and justice for all.
For as Paul keeps reminding us, “Inside the Kingdom where we are, there is neither male nor female, slave or free, rich or poor, for we are all One in Christ.”