Jesus is on the march and will not be turned back. He is fierce in Sunday’s Gospel, and sometimes startles us with what he says. He “rebukes” the disciples. He shouts “let the dead bury the dead.” Jesus is moving fast, and his mood is intense.
It was not always this way. Do you remember when Jesus began his public ministry? We heard about it, in our liturgical cycle, before Lent and Easter. He came back from the desert filled with the Holy Spirit and headed straight to his home town, Nazareth. He greatly desired to preach his mission but his own towns people rejected him. And it was a blunt rejection. They tried to throw him off a cliff (Luke 4:14ff)!
Scholars call this first portion of Luke’s Gospel the “Galilean Ministry”(Luke 3:1-9:50), and it has been the subject of our scripture readings until this Sunday (except for the abovementioned insertion of Lent and Easter).
Now a new section of Luke begins, called the “Journey to Jerusalem” (Luke 9:51-19:28).* Now it is the people in Samaritan towns who turn him away. He had sent messengers ahead to “warm up the audience,” so to speak, but the villages he went by would not let him come in. Why? Jews and Samaritans were hostile to each other, and surely that is a main part of the reason. But Luke says the real reason is that they knew he was “going up to Jerusalem.”
Think about that phrase. The “going up” part is literal. Jerusalem is built upon a hill or rise, and you have to climb to get up to it. But Luke wanted the metaphorical sense too. Jesus had set his face to go up to the height of the cross.
The Greek word Luke uses for “go up” is the same one used in the Second Book of Kings for the prophet Elijah’s ascent into heaven. “A flaming chariot and flaming horses came . . . and Elijah went up to heaven in a whirlwind” (2 Kings 2:11). Jesus’ “going up” will not be in a fiery chariot. His ascent will finish in a plunge downwards into humiliation and death. For the next ten chapters the Gospel of Luke will trace Jesus’ deeds skillfully as parts of this urgent trip to Jerusalem.
Now we see why Jesus was so severe with people in the Gospel for today: he was going up ruggedly to Jerusalem but they wanted to delay.
Do you or I want to go along with this man on his journey? What if we hear him say, “The Son of Man has nowhere to rest his head [and neither will you]”? Or, “No one who sets a hand to the plow and looks back is fit for the kingdom of God”?
Very harsh. Wouldn’t you or I and turn on our heel and walk away?
Yes, but think about it. Luke is saying that Christianity is a challenge, not just a warm blanket. Jesus values God more than safe sleep, than family funerals, even more than courtesy to relatives and friends. These receive their worth at the very core of themselves from love. Love of God above all, love of our neighbor as ourselves, no matter what.
It is up to us to decide whether to join Jesus in his urgency.
Do you fight against such an idea? Or do you thirst for it? Or both?
John Foley S. J.
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