Setting Your Face

Sermon-5 Pentecost-Proper 8-June 27, 2010
The Cloud of Unknowing, "O God, our great companion, lead us ever more deeply into the mystery of your life and ours, that we may be faithful interpreters of Life to each other, through our Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.
The first seven months of the church year (from the end of November on) is a busy time. For 4 weeks in Advent we’re getting ready for Jesus to be born. Then Christmas. Then Epiphany, the season of light. Then Lent, as we walk with Jesus to the cross, Holy Week, Easter and the Resurrection. Six weeks of the risen Jesus appearing to people. Pentecost and the coming of the Holy Spirit. In our lives at Trinity following Pentecost we have graduation, Appreciation Sunday, and the Strawberry Festival. And now we are here. Seven months of non-stop movement. Whew. And now we’re in the Pentecost season. And for the next 22 weeks we will listen to one Sunday after another from the gospel of Luke, with Jesus teaching, proclaiming, confronting, performing miracles, explaining, mentoring, training. It all begins with this phrase, this verse, “(Jesus) he set his face to go to Jerusalem.” So simple, it sounds like a throwaway line. But it means everything. It’s when everything changes.
Up til now, Jesus was just slouching through Israel, growing in understanding of who he was, what he was about. But right here, chapter 9, verse 51, Jesus made the biggest decision of his life-he set his face to go to Jerusalem, and nothing would ever be the same again.
Do you have one moment in your life? Can you look back at a time in your life and say, this is where it all changed, this is where I began my direction, this is when I made the decision to go ahead? I can’t. I look back and always see a series of small choices, and whole lot of unimportant moments that got me to where I am, but not Luke, not this gospel. For him, everything starts NOW, chapter 9, verse 51. When Jesus set his face to g to Jerusalem, it was like Jean-Luc Picard saying, “the battle is here”. Jesus decides to walk from the northernmost part of Israel, Galilee, to Jerusalem in the south. But even more, it’s as if he’s buying a bus ticket from Belleville, Michigan for Washington, D. C. And that’s what we will hear for the next 22 weeks-Jesus gathering steam, developing his message, growing, teaching, training his disciples for the confrontation that’s coming-always looking ahead, always on message. It begins today. Because he set his face for Jerusalem. So that’s what you will hear for the next 5 months from Luke the gospel writer-Jesus on a direct line, focused, aiming towards the capital city, Dorothy going to Oz, Grant headed towards Richmond. No deviations, no side trips. This is it. There is one goal now, for Jesus-to go to the center of it all and face the powers that be.
I’m going to follow the suggestion of Alyce McKenzie Professor of Homiletics at, Southern Methodist University. She says that the gospel on this journey for the next several weeks throughout this summer is all about how NOT to be a disciple. Starting today. It’s as if Luke is saying, Jesus makes the decision to go –and everyone ELSE has to learn what it means, what his message is-and none of them understand, nobody gets it.
It starts with the Samaritans. They don’t want Jesus. Samaria was a land between Galilee and Jerusalem, and the people there had a different set of scriptures and worshipped at a different mountain than the Jews. They didn’t want Jesus because he had set his face to go to Jerusalem. So, it says, they “did not receive him”. That’s a nice euphemism. It means that he couldn’t get a meal, couldn’t get a room, would not be welcome for about 50 miles traveling through this territory. Most Jews going from Galilee to Jerusalem would cross the Jordan and walk through lands of Gentiles rather than travel through Samaria. So first, you want to know how not to be a disciple? Put out the “No Jesus allowed here sign”. Second, John and James, the disciples that my friend Mark calls, the “Thunderboys” say, “we can fix this-let’s just call fire from the skies and destroy Samaria.” Lesson number 2 on how NOT to be a disciple, don’t kill people who don’t want you.
The best commentary on this passage is a story about Abraham Lincoln. During the Civil War, Abraham Lincoln was being criticized for not being harsh enough and severe enough on the soldiers of the South; and one time, after a battle, a general from the North came up to him and said: Why didn’t you destroy your enemy? And President Lincoln answered with those famous words: “Do I not destroy my enemy by making him my friend?”
Lesson number three, know what you’re getting yourself into. All the way along this journey people keep coming up to Jesus, saying, “I’m ready, I want to join up.” Except I have to do this one thing. Jesus had set his face for Jerusalem. This is the moment. You can’t get in only half way. Three times we hear people come up to Jesus wanting to enlist, 3 times Jesus discourages them. This is hard, he tells them, no distractions, no variations, no sidetrips. If you’re going to be my disciple, you have to be all in. And he makes it sound, so difficult, so demanding, so focused that all of them slide away.
How not to be a disciple? Don’t make room in your heart for Jesus. 2nd, get the message wrong-think that it’s all about power and forcing people to believe; third, wait until being a follower is convenient, wait until you have time, and circumstances are right, believe that you can only get in part way-water down the commitment.
That’s how this journey begins. That’s what happens when Jesus sets his face towards Jerusalem. He has to train everyone. He has to teach them what it is not. That’s what you’ll hear this summer. What following Jesus to Jerusalem is NOT. One last story.
Composer Giacomo Puccini, perhaps the greatest opera composer of all time, was suddenly stricken by cancer In 1922 while working on his last opera, "Turandot," which many now consider his best. Puccini said to his students, "If I don't finish 'Turandot,' I want you to finish it for me." Soon afterwards, he died. Puccini's students studied the opera carefully and finally completed it. Four years later, In 1926 the world premiere of "Turandot" was performed in Milan with Puccini's favorite student, Arturo Toscanini, directing. Everything went beautifully until the opera reached the point in the opera where Puccini had been forced to put down his pen because of the fatal weakness. Tears ran down Toscanini's face. He stopped the music, put down his baton, turned to the audience and cried out, "Thus far the Master wrote, but he died." A vast silence filled the opera house. Toscanini picked up the baton again, smiled through his tears and exclaimed, "But his disciples finished his work."
This summer, is not JUST about how NOT to be a disciple. It’s not enough to learn how NOT to follow the master. This summer it will be about how we are to finish his work. Here’s the first lesson on our journey, we set our face to go to Jerusalem with him. Amen.