Galatians 5:1, 13-25
Luke 9:51-62
“Free to Follow”
The Gospel text this morning, in which Jesus and his disciples are out travelling in the towns and villages sharing the good news, prompted me to start thinking about the church’s mission. Like Jesus and his first followers, the church throughout history has tried to take up the call to tell the world about God’s love and to invite folks to follow Christ.
Certainly, there have been times and places where the Christian church was very committed and determined to spread the good news about Jesus Christ throughout the world to every nation, people, and culture. And that was great… but also not great.
Along with the message of God’s amazing grace and love for us in Jesus Christ came the subtle (and often not so subtle) message that white, European culture, spirituality, gender roles, and community norms were the only good and right way to live in the world. Christian missionaries contributed to the colonizing impulses of powerful nations, and in the process did great harm to Indigenous people, cultures, languages, and spiritualities throughout the world.
And, of course, you could go further back in history to find Christian crusaders who were literally giving people the choice between being baptized or being killed. That is not the way we engage in mission anymore!
I like the way that our Presbyterian statement of Christian belief (“Living Faith”) expresses how we strive to do mission:
As God sent Christ to us,
so Christ sends us into the world.
We are here to proclaim Christ in word and deed.
It goes on to describe mission as both evangelism (sharing the good news with people) and as service – a call to help people in need and to permeate all of life with the compassion of God.
When it comes to our mission towards people who belong to other religions, our church invites us to consider that others may already have a faith. Our statement says this:
Their lives often give evidence of devotion and reverence for life.
We recognize that truth and goodness in them
are the work of God’s Spirit, the author of all truth.
We should not address others in a spirit of arrogance
implying that we are better than they.
But rather, in the spirit of humility,
as beggars telling others where food is to be found,
we point to life in Christ.
I gave this morning’s sermon the title “Free to Follow” because any kind of faith that is imposed, forced, or coerced is not faith at all, but rather oppression. I feel like it’s important to acknowledge that here in Canada in this time, we have the amazing privilege and freedom of being able to choose to have faith or not to have faith. We can choose to practice our faith or not.
Our freedom is only limited in that we can’t impose our faith on others, maintaining their religious freedom as well. And this freedom is an amazing gift that many people around the world and throughout time have not had the opportunity to enjoy.
The lectionary gives us a wonderful text from the Gospel of Luke about how the invitation to follow Jesus goes out, and the variety of responses that come back. First, Jesus and his disciples visit a village of Samaritans, but the people in that town don’t want to welcome him.
The text states that the Samaritans rejected Jesus “because his face was set towards Jerusalem,” which may be a bit unclear. The phrase is an echo from the first verse of today’s passage, which began with these words: “When the days drew near for Jesus to be taken up, he set his face to go to Jerusalem.”
We’re about a third of the way into the Gospel, here at the end of chapter nine, and Jesus is beginning to move towards the ultimate goal of his ministry. He’s heading for Jerusalem. He’s moving towards danger, mistreatment, and ultimately death. He already knows that his mission is not only to preach, heal, and welcome people in love, but that he’ll need to give his whole life in order for the message of God’s love to get out to the whole world and all people throughout time and space.
One interpretation of the Samaritans’ rejection supposes that they rejected Jesus because following his way would require too much of them. It’s like in other places in the Gospel where Jesus says, “Take up your cross and follow me.” The hard reality is that following Jesus is not all “sunshine and roses.” It’s not about heart-shaped emojis, but it requires the difficult work of loving people that are hard to love and giving to others without counting the cost.
In contrast to Christian evangelists who preach a “prosperity gospel” in which they promise riches, comfort, and privilege to people who convert to Christianity, we know that the way of Jesus is not an easy way. It’s a way that comes with many blessings of joy, peace, and the assurance of God’s love, but it requires a lot from us as well. Like the first disciples, we are called to give our lives in grateful response for all that God has done for us.
When the Samaritans reject the invitation to follow Jesus, James and John react like the Crusaders of the 11th to 13th centuries – the “follow Jesus or die” method of evangelism. “Lord, do you want us to command fire to come down from heaven and consume them?” they ask before leaving the town. But Jesus, of course, rebukes them and directs them to just keep moving along to the next community.
As the passage continues, we hear about a variety of responses from other individuals who are invited to follow Jesus. One is very excited to join the journey, but Jesus warns him that it’s going to be difficult: “Foxes have holes, and birds of the air have nests, but the Son of Man has nowhere to lay his head.”
A second person is also interested, but she has some family commitments she has to take care of first. Jesus gives her the harsh response that discipleship has to be her first priority. Another potential follower wants to go home and say goodbye to his family, and Jesus makes it clear that those who look back won’t discover the Reign of God that is ahead of them.
Like James and John who judged and condemned the Samaritan villagers, we may be inclined to hear these stories and to think of people we know who don’t seem to have as much commitment to the church as we think they should. Family plans always seem to trump church activities. Social engagements are prioritized over time given for service. And money is directed largely towards personal desires, at the expense of giving generously to the mission and ministry of the church.
This text holds together two realities – that as disciples of Jesus, it is not our job to judge or to condemn one another. (Remember Jesus rebuking James and John for suggesting God rain down fire upon the Samaritans?) But at the same time, Jesus makes it clear that true discipleship is a choice that each one of us must make to give ourselves fully and completely towards his mission of love, service, and generosity for the world.
We are free to follow, or not to follow. And we get to exercise that freedom, not just once when we choose to be baptized or to profess our faith for the first time. We get to exercise that freedom each and every day as we decide how to live, how to spend our time, how to spend our money, and what to give our energy, skills, gifts, and service towards.
When the Apostle Paul wrote to the Christians at Galatia, he told them that following Jesus was choosing freedom. He explained that our faith is not rooted in a long list of rules that must be followed perfectly or strict demands upon us. He said that our faith can be summed up in a single commandment, “You shall love your neighbour as yourself,” and we are freely invited to choose to do that in all the creative and interesting ways that we are gifted to live that out.
Following Jesus most definitely involves turning away from negative ways of living and being in community. Paul mentions a long list of things we are invited to reject, including idolatry, strife, jealousy, anger, envy, and more.
When a couple of young people professed their faith for the first time in our congregation recently, we used a traditional liturgy that had them promising to “turn away from evil… and towards God,” freely choosing the Way of Jesus, even though it may be difficult and require sacrifice at times.
But Paul also knew from his own experience that the way of Jesus was the way of freedom and joy. He reminded the Galatians that they had already received the gift of the Holy Spirit through their Baptism. And it was that Spirit of God living in them that would produce all the wonderful virtues that any one of us would struggle to live up to on our own.
The invitation to follow Jesus is an invitation to live by the Spirit and to be guided by the Spirit so that it won’t just be a daily struggle to follow a difficult way. But when we freely choose to go “all in,” not turning back, not putting other things first, not making our faith an occasional extra in our lives… then the Spirit of God will begin to grow all those good things within us: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control.
Like James and John, the church has made some mistakes in the ways we’ve gone about our mission to spread the news about Jesus. But just as Jesus kept on making invitations, freely inviting people to follow his way, we still have a mission to keep on sharing that invitation with others.
And every single one of us will be free to follow – Jews and Samaritans, Galatians and residents of Saskatchewan. May the Holy Spirit give us the courage to choose Jesus, and grow much fruit within us as we follow him on the way.