Discipleship has layers – 1 Kings 19:19-21, Luke 9:57-62
Are there any Shrek fans here? I find that gospel passages – like the passage in Luke we read today – are like ogres and like onions!
Not because they stink. Though it does seem pretty stinky of Jesus to deny people’s natural human inclinations like this – to tell them they can’t even stay for their parent’s funerals or say goodbye properly!
No. Gospel passages are like ogres, and like onions, because they all have…
LAYERS!
The first layer in this reading is that this is the start of what is called the Lukan travel narrative in Luke – the purposeful journey of Jesus towards Jerusalem and what awaits him there. And in this challenging context, we have a series of sayings about the cost of discipleship, what it means to follow Jesus.
The second layer to this reading is that these sayings – the first two at least – are not new. They also appear in Matthew’s gospel (Matthew 8:18-22) and in ‘Q’, New Testament scholars tell us, a source common to Matthew and Luke. And because they are ‘sayings’ or ‘proverbs’ they are intended to communicate powerfully but perhaps not be taken literally. “No crying over spilt milk,” for example. Jesus obviously did sleep at night, so he did find places to lay his head, but he is telling his would-be followers that discipleship will involve rejection (in the previous verses he has been rejected by a Samaritan village). And just as not attending a parent’s funeral is a big deal, Jesus is saying that discipleship, proclaiming the justice and joy of God’s Kingdom, is an even bigger deal.
There’s a third layer here where “the dead who bury their own dead” may be a reference to people who are spiritually dead who refuse to be engaged in the life-giving work of the Kingdom of God.
But essentially, what these sayings mean, is that following Jesus, being a disciple, is big. It will mean changes in your life, and it will mean sacrifices in your life. It does mean letting God steer the ship, as Callum said.
On the surface, the third saying is similar, but there is another layer here, a fourth layer to this passage, because as we know, we also read it, this saying has the whole Old Testament story behind it, the story of the calling of Elisha by Elijah. (They are two different guys. They just have very similar names.)
This story tries to toy with us. It does a ‘will he, won’t he’ kind of thing. It tries to suggest Elisha, the wealthy ploughman (24 oxen is a pretty good indicator of wealth) is like “one who puts a hand to the plough and looks back”. It has him saying, “Let me kiss my father and mother [or formally farewell them] and then I will follow you.” And it has Elijah saying inscrutably, like some sort of Yoda, “Go
back again; for what have I done to you?” [Steve came into my office – after I asked him to read this – and said, “How do I say this?” And I said, your guess is as good as mine. No one is 100% sure of the Hebrew here.]
But what isn’t obscure – what shines out of this story – what was well known to Jesus’ audience and writer of Luke – is that Elisha is the epitome of a disciple, one who is both truly faithful and truly human.
It is a remarkable story! The grumpy old hairy prophet Elijah (if you don’t believe he was grumpy – read all of 1 Kings 19; and if you don’t believe he was hairy, check out 2 Kings 1:8) does a kind of drive-by commissioning – “Elijah passed by him and threw his mantle over him,” and keeps going! But Elisha recognises immediately ‘what has been done to him’. He leaves the oxen and runs after Elijah. His request to take formal leave of his parents also shows faithfulness (he is a good boy!) and then he slaughters his twelfth pair of oxen and chops up and uses the yoke to cook a feast for his community. Talk about burning your bridges! This is an act that is decisive and symbolic and sacrificial and celebratory. And then this man of significant social standing, we’re told, “set out and followed Elijah, and became his servant.”
Elisha, as I said, epitomises a disciple who both truly human and truly faithful. And that is why he is referenced here because this is what we are called to be as Jesus’ disciples – truly human and truly faithful. Discipleship, like the layers in this story, also has many many layers. We are called to be true to who we are. Called to be faithful to those we love. Called to be true and faithful to our God. As Mitch said, “The spirit worked, and in seeing how Christians live, love, mourn and work; they were humanised.” And they were ‘faith-ised’ – signs of faith for Mitch.
There is a final layer to this passage. In describing the one who, faithfully and humanly, puts a hand to the plough and does not look back, yes, Jesus is describing discipleship, but he is also describing himself. He is the one, who in this passage, and in this Lukan travel narrative who has, it says, verse 51, “set his face to go to Jerusalem”; set his face to suffer and die to redeem us, to overcome the evil of our world with good, to show us love, for which, as the song said, we have no other context, because, in putting his hand to the plough, in setting his face to go to Jerusalem, Christ runs to us again and again and again and again.
May we turn and respond to the faithfulness and love of our God.