One of the reasons why I love C. S. Lewis’ series, The Chronicles of Narnia, is because of the character of the great lion Aslan. I had a Roman Catholic priest who knew Lewis personally once say to me, “Lewis must have had a vision of heaven to create the character of Aslan the way he did.” And as he said that, the priest got all choked up, just at the thought of it.
One of the reasons why Aslan is such a great character is because he seems to hold certain character traits in perfect tension, perfect balance. For example, Aslan is at the same time strong yet gentle.
I believe Jesus does the same thing. We see in the character of Jesus in the Gospels a person who holds contrasting character traits in perfect tension, perfect balance. For example, in our passage for today from Luke 9:51-62, we see both the tolerance and the honesty of Jesus. We don’t often think of those two character-traits together, but in this single passage, we see both traits operating in Jesus in perfect balance.
Now, tolerance, is a word which I think is often greatly abused in our day, to the point where it becomes something very weak. But true tolerance is a great strength.
Then there is honesty. That is a character trait so devalued in our day that one wonders whether it still exists, especially in politics.
Well, we are going to see both of these virtues at work in Jesus in the best way in this story. Listen for God’s word to you…
When the days drew near for him to be taken up, he set his face to go to Jerusalem. And he sent messengers ahead of him. On their way they entered a village of the Samaritans to make ready for him; but they did not receive him, because his face was set toward Jerusalem. When his disciples James and John saw it, they said, “Lord, do you want us to command fire to come down from heaven and consume them?” But he turned and rebuked them. Then they went on to another village.
As they were going along the road, someone said to him, “I will follow you wherever you go.” And Jesus said to him, “Foxes have holes, and birds of the air have nests; but the Son of Man has nowhere to lay his head.” To another he said, “Follow me.” But he said, “Lord, first let me go and bury my father.” But Jesus said to him, “Let the dead bury their own dead; but as for you, go and proclaim the kingdom of God.” Another said, “I will follow you, Lord; but let me first say farewell to those at my home.” Jesus said to him, “No one who puts a hand to the plow and looks back is fit for the kingdom of God.”
The Tolerance of Jesus
Jesus showed tolerance toward the Samaritans even though they did not receive him.
William Barclay explains how unusual it was for a Jew to even travel through Samaria…
The direct way from Galilee to Jerusalem led through Samaria; but most Jews avoided it. There was a centuries’ old quarrel between the Jews and the Samaritans (John 4:9). The Samaritans in fact did everything they could to hinder and even to injure any bands of pilgrims who attempted to pass through their territory. For Jesus to take that way to Jerusalem was unusual; and to attempt to find hospitality in a Samaritan village was still more unusual. When he did this he was extending a hand of friendship to a people who were enemies. In this case not only was hospitality refused but the offer of friendship was spurned. No doubt, therefore James and John believed they were doing a praiseworthy thing when they offered to call in divine aid to blot out the village. But Jesus would not permit them.
There is no passage in which Jesus so directly teaches the duty of tolerance as in this. In many ways tolerance is a lost virtue, and often, where it does exist, it exists from the wrong cause.
Barclay goes on to illustrate the virtue of tolerance from the life of John Wesley…
Of all the greatest religious leaders none was such a pattern of tolerance as John Wesley. “I have no more right,” he said, “to object to a man for holding a different opinion from mine than I have to differ with a man because he wears a wig and I wear my own hair… I resolved to use every possible method of preventing … a narrowness of spirit, a party zeal… that miserable bigotry which makes many so unready to believe that there is any work of God but among themselves… We think and let think.”
Barclay explains that when Wesley’s nephew Samuel, the son of his hymn-writing brother Charles, entered the Roman Catholic Church, he wrote to him, “Whether in this Church or that I care not. You may be saved in either or damned in either.” Furthermore, the Methodist invitation to partake of the Lord’s Supper was always, “Let all who love the Lord come here.”
Barclay goes on to say,
The conviction that our beliefs and our methods alone are correct has been the cause of more tragedy and distress in the church than almost any other thing…
There are many ways to God. He has his own secret stairway into every heart. He fulfils himself in many ways; and no man or church has a monopoly of his truth.
Then Barclay states this one qualification…
But—and this is intensely important—our tolerance must be based not on indifference but on love. We ought to be tolerant not because we could not care less; but because we look at the other person with eyes of love. When Abraham Lincoln was criticized for being too courteous to his enemies and reminded that it was his duty to destroy them, he gave the great answer, “Do I not destroy my enemies when I make them my friends?”
Then Barclay makes this application…
Even if a man be utterly mistaken, we must never regard him as an enemy to be destroyed but as a strayed friend to be recovered by love.
I love that statement!
I believe that there is only one way to God the Father. That is the way that Jesus stated. He said, “I am the way, the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.” (John 14:6) But there are many ways to Jesus. And I believe that there are many who are on the way to Jesus, or who are in fact following Jesus, but may not realize it.
One day we shall have many surprises in heaven. So, it is best to be tolerant and loving like our Master, lest in that final day he says to us, “I knew you not.”
The Honesty of Jesus
Now let us examine a second character quality of Jesus in this passage, namely, his honesty.
Jesus has encounters with three potential followers in this passage, and with each of them he is almost brutally honest. However, Jesus speaks to each out of honest love. And I believe there are three invitations from Jesus to us which we can hear in this passage today.
First, Jesus invites us to: count the cost of following him before we decide to follow.
One person comes up to Jesus after Jesus has set his face toward Jerusalem, and that person says to him, “I will follow you wherever you go.” Jesus says to that person, “Foxes have holes, and birds of the air have nests; but the Son of Man has nowhere to lay his head.” That’s another way of saying, count the cost! Following Jesus is not always comfortable.
I remember one church in which Becky and I served. We had a new couple come to our church, who lived right around the corner from our church building. They had a big, beautiful, new house, and they very graciously invited us over for a meal one day. During our conversation, the man of the house said to me: “I am behind you all the way!”
I don’t know what happened, but pretty soon that couple was so far behind me I could not see them anymore! They left the church.
Personally, I don’t think Jesus puts much stock in enthusiastic statements of commitment to him and his Church. What Jesus does value is the obvious fruit of a long obedience in the same direction.
The second invitation Jesus issues in this passage is to seize the day.
To another person Jesus said, “Follow me.” But that person said, “Lord, first let me go and bury my father.” Then Jesus said to him, “Let the dead bury their own dead; but as for you, go and proclaim the kingdom of God.”
Now, that statement, on the lips of Jesus, can sound very harsh. But one must understand it in its cultural context.
William Barclay tells the story of an Arab who was offered a scholarship to Oxford or Cambridge. His answer was, “I will take it after I have buried my father.” At the time his father was not much more than forty years of age.
So, in a middle eastern context, the statement, “Let me bury my father first,” does not mean that the person’s father was at death’s door. It simply means, “Let me take care of my family obligations first.”
There is an interesting parallel to this story about Jesus calling this man to follow him. The parallel is in 1 Kings 19:19-21 where we read about Elijah calling Elisha to be his disciple…
So he set out from there, and found Elisha son of Shaphat, who was plowing. There were twelve yoke of oxen ahead of him, and he was with the twelfth. Elijah passed by him and threw his mantle over him. He left the oxen, ran after Elijah, and said, “Let me kiss my father and my mother, and then I will follow you.” Then Elijah said to him, “Go back again; for what have I done to you?” He returned from following him, took the yoke of oxen, and slaughtered them; using the equipment from the oxen, he boiled their flesh, and gave it to the people, and they ate. Then he set out and followed Elijah and became his servant.
In Elisha’s case, he is allowed to go back and kiss his father and mother goodbye. But Jesus seems to suggest that his calling is more urgent even than that of the great prophet Elijah. And in fact, Jesus’ calling was more urgent. Luke tells us when Jesus issued this call, he was on his way to Jerusalem, on his way to the cross. So, for Jesus, and his disciples, there was no time to lose.
We live in different circumstances today, but I believe Jesus still wants us to prioritize him and his kingdom purposes over our family ties. In fact, Christ and his kingdom need to be our number one priority in life.
This doesn’t mean we should abandon our families. Jesus’ disciples left their families for a time to follow him, but they went back to their families. Even Paul later talks about the right of the missionary to be accompanied by his or her spouse. (1 Corinthians 9:5)
The question is: when push comes to shove, who wins? Jesus? Or some lesser priority?
Again, I find the words of William Barclay instructive:
The point Jesus was making is that in everything there is a crucial moment; if that moment is missed the thing most likely will never be done at all. The man in the story had stirrings in his heart to get out of his spiritually dead surroundings; if he missed that moment he would never get out.
The psychologists tell us that every time we have a fine feeling, and do not act on it, the less likely we are to act on it at all. The emotion becomes a substitute for the action. Take one example—sometimes we feel that we would like to write a letter, perhaps of sympathy, perhaps of thanks, perhaps of congratulations. If we put it off until tomorrow, it will in all likelihood never be written. Jesus urges us to act at once when our hearts are stirred.
So, Jesus invites us to count the cost, but after we have done so, we should seize the day. Jesus knows perfectly where we each are in life, and which of these steps we most need to take. Thus, he suits his invitation to the individual.
Jesus’ third invitation is: don’t look back.
Now, I have never ploughed a furrow of any kind, but it stands to reason that if you look back when you are ploughing, you won’t plough in a straight line. The same principle works in other endeavors. If, when I am leading singing, as I do every Sunday in our 4:30 service, I think back to how I sang the last line, I won’t have the proper focus to sing the next line of music.
I love this story, again from William Barclay…
Watkinson, the great preacher, tells how once at the seaside, when he was with his little grandson, he met an old minister. The old man was very disgruntled and, to add to all his troubles, he had a slight touch of sunstroke. The little boy had been listening but had not picked it up quite correctly; and when they left the grumbling complaints of the old man, he turned to Watkinson and said, “Granddad, I hope younever suffer from a sunset!”
The Christian marches on, not to the sunset, but to the dawn.
A.W. Tozer once said that people who are crucified with Christ have three distinct marks:
- they are facing only one direction,
- they can never turn back, and
- they no longer have plans of their own.
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