How About Some Hellfire?

Luke 9: 51-62

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 Samaritans were basically a Jewish denomination thrown out of Jerusalem by the Jerusalem Jewish denomination.  They wanted Jesus to take their side and get back at the Jerusalem Jews.  The disciples, being Jerusalem Jews, wanted Jesus to take their side and double down on their exclusion of the Samaritans with some hellfire.  Both sides, out fear and hatred, were trying to lead Jesus into joining them in excluding the other.  This lesson from 2000 years ago teaches us that excluding others, regardless of "sides", is NOT following Jesus.  That's why we don’t do that anymore, right?  I wish that were so.  

On Friday Conservative Christian Nationalists on the Supreme Court decided to once again exclude women from having equality in reproductive care and all the other aspects of gender equality that flow from it.  More than that, those same Christian Nationalists let us know they were not done excluding.  They told us plainly that our family, friends, and neighbors in the LGBTQ+ community were next.  It is clear, here in today’s Gospel and throughout Scripture, this is not the Jesus Way.  Rejecting the way of love and compassion, and refusing to treat all people with the dignity and equality that God has placed in each one of us and instead, giving in to fear, hatred, anger, and oppression… that’s NOT following Jesus.  Our two denominations are thankfully a part of this struggle.  While that hasn’t always been true and even now is far from perfect, we’re trying our best these days to FOLLOW Jesus in love, hope, and equality for women, the LGBTQ+ community, people of color, and every single one of our sisters and brothers around the globe however they might identify themselves. 

Trying our best, however, is not perfection.  Even though we know raining hellfire on people is not the Jesus Way, there are times... Friday perhaps... where a heapin’ helpin’ of hellfire being rained down from heaven sounds absolutely positively perfect!  That’s understandable.  We're human.  But even with that option at his fingers, that’s not the path Jesus chose to walk.  Jesus chose not to exclude anyone.  Even the ones who were trying to exclude others!  At times like this, following Jesus becomes particularly hard.  I’ve found this quote from Anne Lamont helpful at helping me to stop trying to lead Jesus and return to following.  She says, “You can safely assume you've created God in your own image (or you’re asking Jesus to follow you) when it turns out that God hates all the same people you do.”  We know hate is not the Jesus Way.  BUT not hating the ones who are actively hating us and the people we love… that is also the Jesus Way and that’s a special kind of hard.  

  

Leaving Samaria, Jesus ran into three other folks, each demonstrating another way to NOT follow Jesus.  The first man wanted to be the one to find Jesus.  But no-one FINDS Jesus.  Jesus finds us!  The second guy wanted to follow Jesus for some, but not for all.  Following Jesus really means to come and die… die to the world’s exclusionary and hateful ways as well as the world’s ways of retribution for the ones who hurt us first.  Jesus walked one path… the Jesus-Way… the path of peace, self sacrifice, love, kindness, acceptance, radical inclusion and compassion… and calls us us to do the same… FULL TIME… in every aspect of our lives!  The third man said he would follow Jesus with one condition.  But following Jesus with one condition, whether that condition is burying your father or doubling down on the world’s inequality out of our own fear and insecurity, just isn’t following Jesus.

This past week we entered into a new chapter of what turns out to be this enormous, multi millennial long book, filled with humanity's continual struggles for peace, equality, and justice.  Samaritans, disciples, guys along a road, or a Christian Nationalist majority of the court:  each in their own ways and in their own chapters, demanding that Jesus follow them instead of the other way round.  You and I have been called through this whole book and right into this current chapter to stand up for love, peace, compassion and equality, and to do that, even while we're resisting the temptation to walk a fearful, angry, hate filled path ourselves.  Our call is to walk in Jesus’ footsteps, always.   

Choosing the Jesus Way of love in these times is hard.  Wanting to rain hellfire instead?  Super tempting!  I get that!  I have a list!  That’s why, more than ever, we need this community to show up in person, to be together with one another, to share our strength with each other so that we can all advocate loudly, clearly, and publicly for what is right, AND at the same time help one another resist sinking to that point where we look to meet cruelty and hatred with our own cruelty and hatred.  May we not seek to lead Jesus, but to follow, because it is only in following that the Kingdom of God, that place of perfect love and equality, becomes visible to all this broken world. Amen.