July 1, 2007
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The Norwegian Lutheran Memorial Church Pr. Per Inge
Vik Straightforward Refusal There is a Jewish legend about Moses in the desert. He visits out there with a shepherd, who in the evening takes away the fattest and finest milk, pours it into a wooden vessel and leaves it on a stone some distance away. ”This milk I give to God,” the shepherd says. ”I always take the best milk out, as an offering to God.” Moses knows some theology. He cannot resist teaching the shepherd that God is spirit, - he does not drink milk. And if the shepherd does not believe it, he can just take a peek during the night. Well, as night falls, the shepherd hides behind a bush. After a long while waiting, he sees in the moonshine a little fox sneaking and lapping up the milk. ” Now you must be happy,” Moses says next morning, ”for now you know more about God than you did yesterday.” ”Well,” the shepherd replied, ”I had only one way to show God that I loved him, and now that is taken away from me.” The next night God speaks to Moses saying, ”Moses, you were wrong. Truly I am Spirit, but even so I welcomed the milk, as through that the shepherd surrendered to me, and showed me his love. But as I am pure spirit, and had no use for the milk, I shared it with the little fox, who needed it very much.” God has a special weakness for the weak. We heard about it a couple of weeks ago, as we in the service heard the story about Jesus’ visit to the house of the pharisee Simon. A prostitute comes in the middle of the fine party and shows unadmissible behavior. She washes Jesus’ feet with her tears, dries them with her hair, and anoints his feet with an expensive kind of oil. The gospel story for today is the introductory verses of the big travel narrative in Luke’s gospel. This is something special for Luke. He, Mark and Matthew follow each other in many stories so far. But beginning with our text for today, in chapter 9, v.51, Luke starts the story about Jesus’ way up to Jerusalem on the last Easter he lived. This story continues for nine and a half chapters. A considerable part of what is being told here, is rendered only in this gospel. When the days drew near for him to be taken up, he set his face to go to Jerusalem. Jesus himself knew about his determination, that he had to go up there to suffer and die for human kind. That was why he set his face to go to Jerusalem. That was also why the Samaritans were not willing to welcome him and his followers, because his face was set toward Jerusalem. The Samaritans would not recognize Jerusalem. Or in reality, they were locked out from there by the Jews. The Samaritans and their worship of God was held to be unclean by the Jews. They had mingled with other tribes during the Jews’ exile to Babylon. So the returning Jews didn’t want any relationship with them. Since the Temple in Jerusalem was in ruins, the Samaritans had started to worship God on Mount Gerizim in Samaria. I have been on Gerizim, witnessing the Samaritans’ Passover Celebration. In contradiction to today’s Jews, they still celebrate Passover with killing the Passover lamb and the draining of blood, to commemorate the exodus from Egypt. The enormous grills where the lambs are roasted whole is quite spectacular. This practice stopped in Jerusalem only one generation after the death of Jesus, when the Romans destroyed Jerusalem and tore down the second temple. The temple that was rebuilt after the Babylonian exile, and that was restored and enlarged by Herod the Great. Jesus’ atonement death relieved the old sacrificing of lambs, making them superfluous. Jesus’ disciples were indignated that Jesus and those who followed him on his way to Jerusalem were rejected by the Samaritans. Two of them, the brothers James and John proposed an immediate punishment. Holy wrath in practice! But Jesus gave them a straightforward refusal. He abstained from executing punishment. The reason is obvious. He was not determined to condemn the world. He turned his eyes towards where he was headed, Jerusalem, to accomplish the deed of salvation there. So today’s text is about two things. 1. Jesus shows grace instead of casting judgement and executing punishment. This is the first part of this story. The second thing today is about being whole hearted in the surrender and the love to God. That we cannot leave a little space for God in our hearts. For a small God does not exist. He wants first place, that he also can claim. As the holy Creator and Sustainer of our life, he has the right to it. So the simple shepherd in the desert was correct in giving God the best that he had. What do we think about that it has a cost to be a disciple of Jesus? Probably most of us have little experience and also little consciousness of it. In a society where the majority of the people are nominal Christians, it is quite OK to be the followers of Jesus. But the Son of Man had nowhere to lay his head. Opposite of the prophet Elija, who gave his successor Elisha permission to say good bye to his parents before taking up his role of prophet (1.Kings 19:19-21), Jesus told those who wanted to follow him, "No one who puts a hand to the plow and looks back is fit for the kingdom of God." The Master set his face to go to Jerusalem, and there was no time for retreat, neither for himself nor for those who wanted to follow him. We cannot soften or psychologize his statement about leaving home (v.57-58), family duties (v.59-60) or family bonds (v.61-62). When the Kingdom of God has arrived, there is nothing more important than that. When Jesus calls people to follow him, everything else must come second, third or fourth. Our knowledge about God is limited. We have that in common with the shepherd in the desert. Regard-less of how much we try to learn about him. We know only a little piece of God’s being. He is more unfathomable, greater and more endless than we can imagine. We will not be whole hearted, complete in our surrender to Him. Regardless of how strong an effort we make. Therefore we need to start from scratch. Repent. Life as a Christian never stands still. It always moves, forwards to the goal, and back to Christ. To Grace. Glory be to the Father and to the Son and the Holy Spirit, who was, is and will always be, one true God from eternity to eternity. Amen |
The Norwegian Lutheran Memorial Church · 924 E. 21st St, Minneapolis, MN 55404-2952 · (612)874-0716 |