Our Thirst for Vengeance

Sermon for the Third Sunday after Pentecost, Year C

The Church of the Epiphany | Washington, DC

Luke 9:51-62

I set a goal last week to walk ten thousand steps per day.

It’s a good thing to stay active, to drink water, so I’m frequently told—and having clear goals helps to keep our bodies moving, especially on days when it is 100 degree outside. So, I started wearing a watch to track my steps throughout the day... And so far this week I can confirm I have hit that goal a total of two days.

For some of you, like my wife, Mary, who works in a hospital, walking 10k steps happens almost without even thinking about it. But in my experience, it can feel like I’m counting every single step along the way; other times I get distracted, or frankly altogether disinterested. For some of us, it just takes a little longer to learn how to walk.

In our Gospel lesson today, Jesus is on the move—and he brings along several followers on the way with him, helping them to walk faithfully one step after another. Just earlier in the Gospel narrative, Jesus’ transfiguration takes place on a mountaintop and seems to bring with it a clarion call. So, the journey now pivots, and he sets that bright, shining face on Jerusalem—which shorthand the gospel writers use to tell us he is on a mission.

His path is clear, he knows remaining on it will demand great focus, and that the place of its completion leads him to Jerusalem. So, he gets moving. As we might say, with our own shorthand, “Jesus understood the assignment.”

Even with this deeper clarity and urgency, Jesus remains open and responsive—restoring bodies and souls to a wholeness of life, and inviting new followers to join in experiencing that new life even now. There have always been many different examples of how people respond: some immediately drop their nets and follow, while others walk away with heavy hearts, unsure how to integrate this call into the shape of their lives.

In our lesson, Luke presents three more examples of discipleship...

First, someone has been so moved by what they witnessed in this new prophet that they voluntarily pledge to go wherever he may lead. To which, Jesus responds, “Even foxes and birds have homes but the Son of Man has nowhere to lay his head at night.”

Another hears the invitation but seemingly gets caught up in other obligations. It’s worth noting that they aren’t petty indulgences but in fact quite noble causes. But to this one Jesus says, “Let the dead bury their own dead.”

Finally, a third passionately declares, “I will follow you, Lord; but let me first say farewell to those at my home.” Again, this would seem like a reasonable request, and probably one we would even affirm as practicing good self-care.

Aside from these short little snippets though, we are provided no information. No context for their lives, no wrestling with the complexity that is inevitable when making huge life-altering decisions. And most importantly: no resolution. We do not know how they respond. Are they in fact new converts, or merely well-intentioned would-be disciples?

We are left to our own conclusions, and to wondering just what it means to be a true follower. Can we still claim to be a disciple of this wandering, unhoused prophet while embracing material comforts and attempting to preserve relationships? And if we’re just a little more honest with ourselves: whether or not our own lives measure up to this call.

Jesus’ responses aren’t exactly great sales pitches. Rather, they hold a radical candor intended to inspire honest commitment. Christian discipleship will evidently be difficult. It may cost us stability and security, and we may need to let go of some relationships in our lives if we are to be faithful to the life God desires for us. As we seek to live into something new God has revealed to us, the cost may be painful at times.

What I’m most struck by this morning is the slow work of transformation taking place in Jesus’ disciples... As they continue on this way, following Jesus, they come to a Samaritan village. And what follows is fairly predictable given the legacy of hostility between Jews and Samaritans. Imagine any familiar setting of protracted conflict and sectarianism between different groups: perhaps Catholics and Protestants in the North of Ireland, the New York Yankees and Boston Red Sox, or Israel/Palestine... This is the kind of relationship where things escalate quickly because they start from the hot coals of a long history of grievances recorded in every possible direction.

Yet again, the invitation to join into what Jesus is doing is extended, but his focus on Jerusalem is a dealbreaker. The Samaritans simply have no interest in given up any more space in their lives to this adversary than they already have to. That they are not eager to enter into relationship comes as no surprise.

For James and John though—the two brothers whom Jesus calls the “Sons of Thunder,” which as an aside sounds like a great patch to put on a leather jacket, which I just might do someday if Mary ever allows me to own another motorcycle—the lack of hospitality is enraging. “How dare these ungrateful Samaritans turn us away; isn’t it just like those people?,” they think. Which quickly becomes, “Lord, do you want us to command fire to come down from heaven and consume them?” ...Lord, let fire rain down from heaven on our enemies.

I can’t help but picture present scenes from the Middle East. Perhaps you’ve seen the videos of dance raves and roof-top dinner parties in Lebanon set to a backdrop of thousands of ballistic missiles streaking across the heavens. Literal fire raining down from the sky onto Iran—only to then be joined by US bombs days later.

In a piece titled, ‘We Can’t Bomb Our Way to Peace in the Middle East,’ Rose Marie Berger and Wes Granberg-Michaelson write that “All of this was preventable.”

Rose is a former colleague of mine from Sojourners. During our annual staff picnic a favorite light-hearted team building activity involved frantically racing around with a list of silly or interesting facts about our colleagues, attempting to match each one to a real person. None of us had to guess who was describes in the prompt: “This person has been in over 30 active conflict zones.” When Rose reflects on the work of peace building and denuclearization, it comes rooted in real context.

“In moments like this,” the authors write, “people of faith are confronting some of history’s oldest and most powerful myths, which try to wed the presence of God with nationalistic trust in military might, ignoring that human suffering is always its consequence.”

Cycles of violence merely invite escalating forms of retaliation and retribution. Bombing our way to peace is an old story that offers no creative solutions, it only further entrenches past grievances. We know this well-worn path and have no troubling finding its wide gate, but setting out feet upon it will lead to our mutually assured destruction.

This burden of so-called redemptive violence is too heavy to carry.

Pope Leo put it this way,

“War does not solve problems... On the contrary, it amplifies them and causes deep wounds in the history of peoples—wounds that take generations to heal. No military victory can ever compensate for a mother’s pain, a child’s fear, or a stolen future.” “Humanity cries out and pleads for peace.”

Friends, we must learn to walk a new way.

If we wish to inhabit God’s Kingdom, Galatians suggests to us this morning that we need to unlearn some old habits. The transformative justice of and mutual flourishing comes as the fruit of the Spirit—and learning to live this way is what discipleship looks like.

James and John long for a display of God’s power against their enemies, but Jesus refuses to indulge their thirst for vengeance. The path he invites them on leads to a different way of wielding power—which will dismantle and defeat the Way of violence, oppression, and death so that we might know life, together. There is another way.

So, "[Jesus] turned and rebuked them. Then they went on to another village."

Guided by the Spirit in whom we live and move and have our being, let us follow Jesus.

Amen