Pastor Dan Eddy
Luke 9:57-62
Priorities
6-27-10
P: The Holy Gospel according to St. Luke, the
9th Chapter:
C: Glory to
you, O Lord.
57 As they [the Disciples] were going along
the road, someone said to him [Jesus], “I will follow you wherever you go.” 58 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.” 59 To
another he said, “Follow me.” But he said, “Lord, let me
first go and bury my father.” 60 And
Jesus said to him, “Leave the dead to bury their own dead. But as for you, go and
proclaim the
P: This is the
Gospel of the Lord.
C: Praise to
You, O Christ.
I.
Introduction…Imagine Jesus is the chairman
of the Stewardship Committee
Imagine for a
moment that Jesus is in charge of the Stewardship Committee here at CLC. Sorry
Jim and Eric…you’re out. Christ’s goal for our congregation is to have more members
participate in the mission of the Church.
So imagine you
come up and say, “I would like to help
out
And Jesus
response is: “Okay but it’s not going to
be all peaches and cream. It will involve sacrifice, risk and discomfort. Why
don’t you deliberate on it for a while?”
How would you
respond? That’s in essence what He was
saying to the first believer in our Gospel text.
Then imagine
Jesus approaches you a dedicated member and He says, “Keep doing what’s your doing.”
And you say, “Well, actually Jesus I’ve been meaning to
talk to you. I have to take some time away from helping out the congregation.
I’ve got some personal matters to take care of…but as soon as they’re resolved
I’ll be back to help out.”
And Jesus’
responds: “Let others take care of that.
I need you to continue sharing your faith in our community.”
How would you
respond? That’s in essence what He was saying to the second believer in our
Gospel text.
Lastly, imagine
you’re a new member and you say, “I
would like to help out here, but first I’ve got to let my family know I will be
spending a lot of time here.”
And Jesus humorously
responds: “Don’t bother informing them.
Get started today with the work of the church. No one riding a lawnmower,
looking back while trying to do a good job mowing the grass, is fit to help out
in this congregation.”
How would you
respond? That’s in essence what He was saying to the third believer in our
Gospel reading.
All Jesus’
responses seem insensitive. Note Luke does not record any of the reactions of
the three people. But how would you respond?
Is this the way
Jesus is asking us, as a congregation, to treat those who want to follow Him by
serving the Church?
II.
Jesus tests each person’s statements to
reveal true motives
No, Jesus is not
advocating disrespect for our fellow brothers and sisters in Christ, but rather
this text is showing us how He challenges you and me to serve Him by un-rooting
our true motives when it comes to following Him. God wants you to let go of the baggage that’s inferring with you
following Him. Following is more than believing…it’s doing. It’s more than
attending worship on Sunday morning.
For the first
believer, Jesus did not want this follower to be disillusioned with working in
God’s Kingdom of the Church. Serving the Lord has its many frustrations. Lack
of people, time, and financial resources. That’s one of the reasons we’re
having a congregational meeting today.
He didn’t want
this person to have such a high expectation in thinking anything Jesus did
would bring instant success. The work of ministry is tiring, not knowing where
it is going next, and enduring many of its failures. He wanted the baggage of high exceptions
removed. It’s one thing to plan big. It’s another to be disappointed with God
when we don’t get what we want.
Some of you have
shared with me some of your frustrating years here at CLC where you didn’t know
whether this congregation’s doors would remain open. I’ve heard of the days
where bills were posted on the walls downstairs. And people, during coffee hour,
were encouraged to take an invoice and pay it. Others spent their Saturdays
mowing the lawn or shoveling the snow. Average worship attendance declined to
around 25 to 30 in the late 90s.
If new members
came in and were to stay, they realized a lot of work needed to be done if the
congregation was to survive so it could again thrive.
Not all of Jesus’
mission efforts were successful by worldly standards. They wanted to throw Him
off a cliff in His hometown. Another time when He said He was the bread of life
to dine on His flesh and drink His blood…many people said “I’m out of here. I’m not following this freak.” And where was His
support as He carried that heavy cross to
Christ’s earthly
ministry leading to His suffering on the Cross involved sacrifice, risk and
discomfort. But it was worth it, because today you are His child whom He has
saved and loves. And through adversity and conflict, our faith grows….if we let
God remove the baggage.
For the second
person, the sense from the original Greek text is that he was not only a
believer but was already following Jesus. So what would it have hurt to go
attend to a father’s death? What’s a few days break in the whole scheme of
things?
Well in ancient
times for a son to bury his father involved more that a couple of days. The
sense from the text is either the father had died or was about to. In any
event, the total death, burial and settling of the estate process could take up
to a year. Abandoning his family would have gone against local customs and he
might not have received his inheritance.
Jesus is not
saying here to ignore the family…but was challenging this guy to think about
his priorities. This guy’s baggage was
worldly obligations and expectations that interfered with His work in God’s
Kingdom. Jesus was saying, “Don’t
allow cultural norms to draw you away from me,” adding, “Let the spiritually dead…those without
faith…bury the physically dead. If you really want to honor your father, keep
on announcing the Good News of salvation, drawing people into my Father’s
kingdom for eternity.”
Jesus knows that
perhaps sometimes we focus so much on things outside the Church that we can lose
focus on things inside His kingdom.
Christ was even
accused of ignoring His own earthly family when His mother, and half brothers
and sisters, wanted Jesus to pay more attention to them. And Jesus told them
that His real family were those who hear the Word of
God and put it into actions of love.
Perhaps Jesus’
concerns for the second believer were similar to the third. Here, too, is a
believer except before he even got started
following Jesus he just wanted to say goodbye to his family. What’s the harm in
that?
Perhaps Jesus
felt this man had contracted “The Yeah But
First” Syndrome. “Yeah, Jesus
I really want to follow you BUT first I’ve got to do….” No, Jesus
wants to be first…that’s what He was saying to this person.
I think Jesus
knew if one man stopped following Him to tend to his family and another one
stopped to say goodbye before even following Him, He would never see either of
them again.
The third man’s baggage was the fear of
getting started.
If family members
don’t share your passion for helping here at CLC, not all, but in many cases,
they will do what they can to draw you away. Perhaps, that’s what Jesus’
concern was for these men.
III.
Jesus wants us to be cured of “The Yeah, But
First” Syndrome.
Jesus doesn’t
want our following Him in this congregation to be conditioned on anything.
Christ wants total dedication. He doesn’t want us to work for this mission
half-hazardly.
Today is a real
cross-roads in our congregation. We have to decide whether we, as a
congregation, are going to ask our Lord to cure us from “The Yeah, But First” Syndrome. “Yeah, I want to see the kingdom
of God grow at CLC but first…I want others to step up to the plate and
help out...but first I want to be really successful at my career then I will
help out…but first I want to raise my kids and then I will help out…but first I
want to be assured bad things won’t happen.”
Let go off of “The Yeah, But First” Syndrome.
Bring it to God in confession
and let Him remove your baggage so you have a clear path to follow Him, a clear
path to grow in your faith, and a clear path to increase your love for others.
He wants you
again to be excited to hear “Jesus
Christ died for your sins and rose victoriously from the dead to give you
forgiveness of sins, power over death, and eternal life.” Let Him again
restore joy to your salvation.
And He wants you
and me and everyone here to make it a priority to speak and show His love to
those out there caught in the baggage of their sins.
Christ wants you
to follow through on the faith He gave you at your baptism by following Him in
doing the work of the church. It’s more than attending Sunday morning worship.
IV.
The rewards of serving in the Kingdom
Is it worth all
the hassles, turmoil and troubles for us? You bet.
The work in God’s
kingdom does have its rewards. Look at little Angus Duane MacNeil. At
approximately 9:15 this morning he went from condemned by his sins to saved by
His Savior through the power of God’s Word brought to him by water. He is the 8th
person this congregation has baptized in the past three years. Eight new names
added to the Book of Life in Heaven.
The rewards in
God’s Kingdom will come when 16 years from now Angus, I pray, will stand up
here and give His testimony about Christ like we have seen so many others do
over the years here on their Confirmation day.
The rewards in
the Kingdom come in knowing that we will again see people like Jody Spear,
Sonja Busi, Chris Johnson, and others, who have recently passed in heaven.
The rewards: just
four years ago, we averaged 50 in worship and today it’s 75. Four years ago, we
averaged 8 in Sunday Bible study…today 18..plus the addition of the Men’s and
Women’s Bible studies and fellowship groups.
The rewards in the
Kingdom are seen when we go through our membership directory and see how many
new people have been added (9 in just the past year alone) and how various
people’s faith have been strengthened. People who were so close to leaving the
church all together and today are stronger than ever in the faith. People who
use to never pray out loud now do. People who never opened a Bible and are now being
blessed even more by the Word of God. People who make it a priority to think of
Christ Jesus first, reflected in helping our members and the un or
under-churched in our communities.
V.
Conclusion: Priorities leading to growth
For any of this
to happen, it takes making the
Imagine again
Jesus comes to you and asks you to follow Him in His kingdom at CLC…what is your
response?
Let it be “Yes, let me follow you faithfully,
unconditionally, and completely, making You my top priority, no matter what
happens.” In Jesus’ name, Amen.