The Upload
Posted on Jun 24, 2016 by
Dear Brothers and Sisters in Christ:
I pray you have had a blessed week.
It seems like every time I look at my Facebook page these days, someone is posting a photo where they are on their vacation. I guess it is that time of year when everyone is taking vacation or preparing travel somewhere for vacation.
In Jesus’ day, taking a vacation was not really something people did, although for many, they did take at least one trip a year to Jerusalem. They didn’t call this vacation, though, they called it pilgrimage and in our Gospel text for this Sunday, Luke 9:51-62, we are told that Jesus decides it is time for his last pilgrimage to Jerusalem. Luke says Jesus “set his face for Jerusalem” (9:51). Now pilgrimages were not about sight seeing and having fun. The purpose was to take time out of one’s life to have Sabbath and remember all God had done for you by traveling to the Temple where one would offer sacrifices and remember how God had claimed them as His people and redeemed them from slavery.
But for Jesus, this trip to Jerusalem was going to be very different. It wasn’t just about going to the Temple and giving thanks, no this time his mission was going to be different. This time, as we now know, Jesus would fulfill God’s will and he would offer the final sacrifice. This trip was about the cross.
The problem though, was that Jesus’ disciples didn’t understand that this trip was going to be different. To make this trip, everyone had to be focused and there would be no getting Jesus to deviate from his mission. Oh, those who were following Jesus would try to alter his course, but he would have none of it. As our story begins, Jesus lets a Samaritan village know he is coming, and the people send back word asking him not to come. Now, we don’t really know why they react this way, but when James and John get angry and want to take time to have God to destroy this little village, Jesus rebukes them and says, “No, let’s go.”
You have to wonder, though, did Jesus just not care that the Samaritans rejected him? Did he plan to have God destroy them later? Why didn’t Jesus want to take the time to build a relationship with them so they, too, might come to know him as their Lord and Savior? My belief is that Jesus was trying to point out to his disciples that this wasn’t their job, nor is it ours today. Our job is not to save people, Jesus did that on the cross. Our job is to share the Gospel and move on. The point of this story is that we need to know that anywhere we go, God has been there before us. Anywhere we go, God is there already. Anywhere we go, God will still be there when we leave. Anywhere we go with the gospel, God has already been working. Sometimes the people are ready to receive this good new and sometimes they are not. Sometimes they receive us with open arms; sometimes they turn their backs. But that is not our concern. We neither condemn nor punish those who aren’t ready, nor do we take credit when the gospel story we share is received. When we travel with Jesus and when we seek to share the gospel we are called to lay aside our concerns for how we will be received, replacing them with a deep awareness that God is with us, all the way, all the time, and what happens is in holy hands and is not within our control.
I pray that each of us takes the time everyday to try and share the gospel, but I also pray that we don’t try to use this message to condemn, or to punish. The gospel is the good news that in Christ, God is going about redeeming the world. Our job is to tell the story and that is it! It is an easy job actually and I pray we don’t make it harder than it is.
Have a blessed and holy week!
Shalom,
Pr. Dave