Introduction
It just so happens that I have the first sermon of the new year this year, but this time I don't want to talk about good intentions in general, as I did last time. Instead, I would like to reflect with you on the topic of "discipleship", which is not wrong as we look ahead to the coming year. Perhaps such a reflection will lead to the right resolutions.
I would like to read from Luke 9, 57-62 (NGÜ)
I believe that most people are familiar with this text, but I also believe that there are various problems in understanding it.
We have three encounters here that I would now like to look at with you.
The Son of Man has no place
What do we think when we hear this statement from this man?
"I will follow you wherever you go."
That means: "I want to follow Jesus unconditionally."
What do we think when someone says something like that today?
Perhaps there is also the fact that this person then also says that he sees himself called by Jesus to our church and wants to get involved here.
Do we then think "Yay, 6 right people for our church" or are we more sceptical and secretly think "let's see what happens"?
I have to admit, I'm more of a sceptic. That's not only because I've heard a lot of big words in my life that ultimately didn't lead to results, but also because I've produced hot air here and there myself.
Ultimately, the middle way between enthusiasm and scepticism will be the right one.
Objectively speaking, Jesus says neither anything positive nor anything negative about this man. It is certainly not a standard answer, but Jesus had and still has the ability to see through people. He sees the motives that drive people and what occupies them.
And he doesn't want people to say flippantly, "Yay, I'm following Jesus" when they don't really mean it.
Jesus expresses it like this in Luke 14:27-30 (New Testament):
That's the way it is: if you tell everyone you know, 'I'm going to follow Jesus now too' and then throw it away after a few weeks, you make a fool of yourself everywhere and Jesus wants to protect us from that too.
For Jesus, the most important thing is to be a genuine follower. When he was still walking the earth, he had a lot of followers in the sense that at times a lot of people travelled around with him.
It often came to the point that Jesus said things that his "followers" did not want to hear. One such situation is described in John 16 and ends in verses 65+66:
Jesus accepts this. Authenticity is more important to him than numbers.
There are consequences to following Jesus, then as now, and for this man here it was apparently important that Jesus was obliged to wander the earth. Everyone has their home, except Jesus.
But I want to come back to that later.
For now, let's move on to the next encounter:
The dead and their dead
I had to think a lot about that.
Is he not allowed to go to his father's funeral?
I'm probably not the only one who had problems with this text, because I've heard different explanations.
One explanation was that the father wasn't dead yet, but that the man wanted to stay at home until his father died.
Another explanation I heard was that a non-believer can also take care of the funeral and that the believer should concentrate primarily on the important things such as proclaiming God's kingdom.
And both possible explanations lead to the fact that the person addressed should not take care of the funeral, but go off to proclaim the kingdom of God.
I believe that the explanation is much simpler.
Jesus does not say that he should not go to the funeral.
The person addressed asks: "Let me go" and Jesus says: "Go".
I was at a neighbour's funeral recently and at the funeral reception afterwards my mother-in-law and I sat at a table with friends of this neighbour. We talked about this and that and we also touched a little on the subject of death and the meaning of life. It can happen that you talk about death at a funeral dinner, can't it?
My mother-in-law tried to point out Jesus in the conversation. I was irritated because I don't think I've ever talked about the Gospel at a wake before.
I thought about this situation for a while afterwards and when I read these two verses, I was reminded of this wake. I guess I behaved more like one of the dead people who put another dead person in the ground.
"But you go and proclaim the message of the kingdom of God", that would have been my mission. Of course, you always have to see how it fits in the specific situation and with whom you are sitting at the table, but the basic rule is: "But you go and proclaim the message of the kingdom of God".
I don't believe that funerals back then were fundamentally different from those of today.
Of course, there wasn't that fancy funeral crumble cake, but there was and still is grief, bewilderment, the pain of parting, helplessness, helplessness, perhaps also relief when death came after a long illness, and there was and is certainly always the question of what comes after death.
Discipleship does not necessarily mean being in a certain place, where the earthly Jesus was, but rather: "But you go and proclaim the message of the kingdom of God".
Then the man should go and take care of his father's funeral but, if possible, point to Jesus.
We cannot escape our earthly duties by means of discipleship, but where we have to fulfil them, we can point to Jesus Christ.
Let's move on to the third person:
Looking back?
I would like to tell you a funny story about this.
I was once at some Christian event, a Christian wedding or a training course, I can't remember.
On the way back, a girl gave me a lift and she told me that she had been to an English Bible school.
She had to give an introductory speech there, where she spoke about her calling, and she had chosen this particular text.
And when she read it out, she made a mistake at one point:
Jesus replied, No-one who puts his hand to the plug (instead of plough) and looks back is fit for service in the kingdom of God.
Plough means "plough" (pronounced "plau") in English, but is spelled "ploug" and she pronounced it like "plag" when she read it, which means plug, e.g. power plug.
She said that the room roared with laughter and she didn't know why.
"Anyone who puts their hand on the plug and looks back is not fit for the kingdom of God."
But now let's take a serious approach to this text.
At first glance, this text sounds as if Jesus wanted the man to leave his family in the middle of the night without saying anything.
But that's not what Jesus is saying here.
The image he uses here is, I think, clear to everyone: if you are leading a plough and then you look back, you can't keep on track and you plough somewhere.
I remember when I used to ride a moped: I didn't have a rear-view mirror on my moped and if I looked back to the left, it was very difficult for me to drive straight ahead. I usually pulled slightly to the left.
Keeping in lane seems to be important in the kingdom of God.
On the one hand, this is fundamentally true: you live in a lane whose end is your final union with Jesus Christ, so you live with your eyes fixed on Jesus. There may be hills, stones or other obstacles along the way, but if you keep your eyes on Jesus, you can keep going.
Of course, keeping on track also applies to a specific ministry that you have taken on.
The man wanted to walk on with Jesus and leave his family behind. We don't know whether he wanted to leave his wife and child or his parents behind, and I don't want to judge whether he somehow wanted to flee from his duties. I think he really wanted to walk with Jesus now, learn from him as his master and saw this as the next stage of his life.
You could compare this to today, for example, when someone wants to leave their family for a year to go to a Bible school. If the material provision of the relatives is secured and they agree to this, then there is nothing wrong with it.
Why does Jesus say this to him?
He wants to say goodbye, but is this farewell really a farewell to home or will he always look back with sadness that he has gone?
When you leave, you have to leave and the life that follows must not be characterised by the pain of missing you, because then you look back and cannot stay on track in your service.
Even if the farewell is perhaps limited in time, it must be a farewell.
We find a parallel passage to this in 1 Kings 19
Elijah appoints a disciple, Elisha, and he is also willing, but he wants to say goodbye to his parents first.
Elijah has nothing against it.
What Elisha is doing here is interesting.
He was responsible for a team of cattle and he slaughters this team and roasts it on the wood of the harness. He's celebrating his farewell with his colleagues and his father was probably there too, because he was also ploughing. Perhaps he also sent someone else to fetch his mother. It doesn't say, but it's possible.
A few things become clear here. On the one hand, a farewell party, even a lavish celebration if you like, is not wrong when you accept a service in God's kingdom that takes you away from home.
On the other hand, Elisha really has left his old life behind him. He has destroyed his work materials and thus symbolically dissolved his old workplace. So he really did say goodbye to his old life.
And then he set out and followed Elijah and served him.
Similarities between the three people in our text
So the first and the third wanted to follow Jesus of their own accord and both are told by Jesus about certain consequences of following him.
The second is asked by Jesus to follow him, but asks to be allowed to take care of his father's burial first. He is sent by Jesus - in my opinion - to this burial: "Go and proclaim the message of the kingdom of God!"
How did the three of them visualise "discipleship"?
I think they had a somewhat limited view of it.
They wanted to be with Jesus, which is generally true, but they also wanted to ignore the everyday, or quickly tick it off as something annoying.
Wanting to be with Jesus Christ is generally the right thing to do and we can all be with Jesus at all times today, whereas back then the earthly Jesus was of course not yet able to make this possible.
But today we are also in danger of separating discipleship and everyday life.
Discipleship takes place in the church, especially in church ministries, and we have to survive everyday life somehow .... but that's not how it should be.
Jesus first sends us into our everyday lives. This is where our first job takes place.
But discipleship can and will of course go beyond everyday life.
Jesus has already called many people to special ministries and such ministries are not only difficult but also bring rewards.
But it can mean that you no longer have a real home here on earth and it can also mean saying goodbye to loved ones. Jesus shows us here in the text that we need to think carefully about such consequences in certain ministries.
However, Jesus also gives wonderful promises for such cases (Mark 10:29, 30; New Testament):
Despite all the consequences, which we must of course realise beforehand, we must never forget his wonderful promises.
But he never overburdens us, and if we are unable to do some things, we can still be with him where we are and co-operate in his kingdom.
AMEN