birds have nests

 

SERMON PREACHED AT HOLY TRINITY, RINGWOOD EAST
ELEVENTH ORDINARY SUNDAY (July 2) 1989

 

READINGS

2 Kings 2:1-2, 6-14
Psalm 77:1-2, 11-20
Galatians 5:1, 13-25
Luke 9:51-62

 

In every ministry, every new ministry, there are inevitable changes of direction, inevitable new ideas. Some will represent improvements; some will be regressive. One of the subtle changes some people have noted in the period since Easter is that when using First Order Communion I often omit inclusion of the so-called “Comfortable Words.”

I have many reasons for doing so, but at least one of them is that in contemporary Anglican Christianity we spend a little too much time reflecting on the comfort brought to us in the sacrificial life of Christ, and too little time reflecting on the discomfort – to us and to Christ – of the Way of the Cross into which we are called.

It is traditional during Lent, and to a lesser extent Advent, to slow down and take stock of something of that cost. But I sense even that is insufficient, and  that much more stock must be taken at all times of the cost of our faith. A comfortable faith is dangerous – and yes, I know only too well that the word “comfortable” has shifted in meaning greatly in the past century.

Jesus was walking along the road and apparently invited a man to follow him. He had already made clear to another traveller something of the cost of faith.

Foxes have holes and birds have nests
      but the Son of Man has nowhere to lay his head.

It is an enigmatic saying, and a metaphorical one. Its meaning is elusive but not literal, for we know clearly from the gospel records that the Son frequently slept and ate in the homes of friends or followers.

In the context in which Luke places the saying it is particularly poignant, for Jesus has just been rejected by a Samaritan village. In the context of his whole life it is powerful, for this in adult form is the babe for whose birth there was no room at an inn, and following whose death there is only a borrowed tomb. The Son of Man dwells amongst human beings and his very vocation is to be misunderstood and rejected.

We have seen already Christ’s utter identification with the poor. We have seen that this does not mean for him a rejection of the company of the rich, but simply that for the one who “came to his own people and they did not accept him” was utterly poor, and in that utter poverty revealed the nature of God. He now simply reaffirms that message as a challenge to the traveller who sought to follow him.

But to a second would-be follower Jesus offers stern stuff.

Another to whom he said, “follow me,” replied,
“Let me go and bury my father first.”
But he answered, “leave the dead to bury their dead.”

It is a command that contradicts even the most sacred values of Jewish custom. Commentators on the passage often emphasise the fact that the person’s father was almost certainly not yet dead, but approaching the point of death. In either case Jesus’ answer is utterly unacceptable.

Burial of the dead was a religious duty that took precedence over all others, Including even study of the Law. Priests, who were not normally allowed to touch dead bodies, could do so in the case of relatives … the burial of a father was a religious duty of the utmost significance.
                                                   (I. Howard Marshall, The Gospel of Luke, Exeter: Paternoster, 1978, 411)

 

Jesus, in other words, is spitting in the face of all that his people, all that his culture held dear. He is offering not comfort but utter rejection, utter misunderstanding, utter scorn.

Your duty is to go and spread the news of the Kingdom of God.

Nothing else, even all that is humanly decent, all that has become the mores of a decent society, nothing can take priority over the claim the Christ places on the lives of his followers.

We have seen also, in the readings from the book of Kings, the Old Testament response to this context. Elijah allows Elisha the decency of farewelling those he loves before his pilgrimage  begins. For Jesus the Way of the Cross must exclude even that.

In truth I tell you, till heaven and earth disappear, not one dot, not one little stroke Sleep well then, is to disappear from the Law until its purpose is achieved.

                                                                                                (Matt. 5:18)

 

In that sense there is little offer of comfort in the gospel of Christ. There is little of security, little that provides for us barricades against a world that many of us sense is changing too fast.

Those who naïvely proclaim biblical support, for example, for their belief in the orthodox family unit have read only selective portions of the gospel. Christ flies in the face of all that his hearers held dear, scandalised rather than comforted all who upheld rigorously the standards of Old Testament legalism.

For even that, says Christ, even the family, even at the burial rites of those we love, even the possession of basic needs must be surrendered to the service of the gospel. It is small wonder that Saint Paul describes his cross as a scandal to the Jews and a stumbling block to the Greeks. The commitment to Christ surpasses all else.

All this is consistent with a crazy upside down gospel that pronounces that it is the poor who are the icon of God’s nature, and which proclaims the love of God for humanity by hanging God naked on a cross.

Is there, then, comfort in the cross? In Christ? I fear not, if our expectation of comfort is for this side of the grave. But surely Good Friday is only half the story, and the real comfort lies in that icy Easter morning as we stand stunned at the empty tomb and proclaim with all Christians, “Christ is risen: death where is your sting?”

The Lord be with you.