Sermon from June 29, 2025

Sermon: “Discipleship: Christ’s Way”

3rd Sunday after Pentecost

Luke 9:51-62

Let us pray: Let the words of my mouth and the meditation of our hearts be acceptable in Your sight, O Lord, our Rock and our Redeemer. Amen (Psalm 19:14)

The text for our meditation today is the Gospel Lesson, from Luke 9:51ff. You can follow along in your pew Bibles, as we think about being disciples of our Lord - His way!

As our text begins, Jesus knows just what was coming for Him - that the days drew near for Him to be taken up - to be taken up first to a cross to suffer and die - and in that process, to suffer the penalty for our sins and the sins of the whole world. And then He would be taken up to a tomb, from which He would rise in victory, defeating the power and curse of death. And then He would be taken up again to the glories of heaven, at His ascension, to open the door to eternal life for us, too, through faith in Him and what He has done for us.

The suffering and death would be terrible, but Jesus set His face to go to Jerusalem to suffer this for us, in our place. A prophecy of Him in Isaiah 50 has Him saying: ”I gave My back to those who struck Me and My cheeks to those who pull out the beard; I hid not My face from disgrace and spitting. But the Lord God helps Me… therefore I have set my face like flint” (like a hard, hard stone) to do my Father’s will” (Isaiah 50:6-7).

All this would happen in Jerusalem, and Jesus went the most direct way there, through Samaria. He hoped to rest in a village there, but the people there would not receive or help Him at all. This was because the Jews and the Samaritans, at that time, hated each other, and as John 4:9 says, “Jews have no dealings at all with Samaritans.”

The disciples, James and John, were so angry at Jesus being rejected that they wondered if they should call for fire from heaven to come down and consume those Samaritans. There were Old Testament examples of such things, as judgment for sin. Even the great prophet Elijah had called for fire of judgment at one time. Jesus had given James and John the nickname ”Sons of Thunder” (Mark 3:17) for they had this angry, judgmental streak in them, which came out at times. But in our text, we hear that Jesus turned and rebuked these disciples - told them they were very wrong in their thinking - and they then moved on to another village, looking for a place to rest

Why did Jesus rebuke His close disciples in this way? Because He knew His true and ultimate mission - to be the Savior for all people, not just one group of people. Most of us know John 3:16 from the Bible. “For God so loved the world that He gave His only Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish, but have eternal life.” That’s truly Good News! But sometimes we don’t go on to read John 3:17, which says: "For God did not send His Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through Him.” Destroying a Samaritan town by fire would save no one.

In His ministry, Jesus reached out to others in loving concern, including Samaritans. In John 4, Jesus reached out to a Samaritan woman at a well and brought her to faith in Him. Through her witness and Jesus’ own Words, many more Samaritans believed in Him and said, “We have heard for ourselves, and we know Jesus is indeed the Savior of the world” (John 4:1-42).

Later on, Jesus told a parable of a man beaten and left to die. A Jewish priest and a Levite don’t help him, but a Samaritan man does. And when Jesus healed 10 people with leprosy, only one man came back to say “thank you,” and he was a Samaritan (Luke 10:30-37 and Luke 17:11-19). And at His ascension, Jesus said to the disciples, “You will be My witnesses in Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria and to the end of the earth (Acts 1:9). And later in the Book of Acts, we hear of the disciples following in Jesus’ steps and reaching people in Samaria with the Gospel in Acts 8:1-22, 9:31, and 15:3.

Jesus did His saving work and taught His disciples to reach out in faith and love to others, and they finally did, even to the formerly hated Samaritans. And we read in Acts 9, “So the church throughout all Judea and Galilee and Samaria had peace and were being built up.” And that is still our calling to this very day, as followers of Christ. But it is a growing process, with much learning through Jesus and His Word.

As our text continues and Jesus moves on toward Jerusalem, we hear that He meets three different men who seem interested in being His disciples, but Jesus seems to treat them in unusual ways. 

The first says, enthusiastically, “I will follow You, Jesus, wherever You go.” That sounds great, but might be largely an emotional response; for Jesus asks him, as he had asked others on other occasions, whether he had counted the possible cost of following Jesus, where foxes and birds have places to live, but Jesus has nowhere to lay His head, at times. Maybe this man needed more time to learn and grow before taking on big commitments. He may have been just a novice, new in the faith, as Paul once cautioned about (1 Timothy 3:6).

Jesus asks a second man to follow Him, but that man says, “Lord, let me first go and bury my father!” Jesus seems very harsh with him, saying, “Leave the dead to bury their own dead.” Some think, though, that this man was too hesitant to follow Jesus and may have just been making excuses, as his father was really neither sick nor dying, and it might be a long time before he would need to bury his father. Jesus was certainly not against family responsibilities and “honoring father and mother,” as the 4th Commandment says, and Paul warns about people who fail to take their responsibility and provide for family members. Even Jesus, on the cross, made sure that His own mother was taken care of, assigning that responsibility to John. Jesus simply says to this man, “As for you, go and proclaim the Kingdom of God” right where you are, and let people know of Me as Savior and Lord. That is something that anyone in faith can do, as we can, still today.

The third person in our text says, “I will follow You, Lord, but let me first say farewell to those at my home.” That sounds like a reasonable request, and Elijah, in our first reading today, allowed Elisha to go back and kiss his parents and do some other things before joining Elijah as a prophet. But something else seems to be going on here, as Jesus tells this man a proverb or simple parable: “No one who puts his hand to the plow and looks back is fit for the Kingdom of God.” In earlier days, before there was modern equipment for plowing, one literally had to hold the plow and keep looking ahead, with a straight focus, to make a straight furrow and not mess things up. Jesus may have known that this man was making only a half-hearted commitment to being a disciple of Jesus. He may have too easily been looking back to old associations and old loyalties, with weak commitment to the present and future work of Christ.

How different Jesus was from these men. He knew His father’s will and set His face like flint to carry it out perfectly. Only He could be the Savior we needed. And he did do everything we need, as a gift of His grace. Our most recent Lutheran Study Bible makes this comment: “Jesus always initiated the call to discipleship. Remarkably, the Gospels
never tell us about anyone offering to follow Jesus and then successfully becoming a disciple. In each case, Jesus seems to challenge the “self-confidence” (LSB, p.1733). It is not as the old song says, “I have decided to follow Jesus” by my own free will. Instead, Jesus told His disciples, “You did not choose Me, but I chose you, and appointed you, to go and bear fruit” (John 15:16).

We rely not on ourselves, but on Christ Jesus and His saving work and His gift of faith, and the Holy Spirit, who has worked that faith in us through our baptism and the Word of God. Jesus said to those who had been brought to belief in Him, ”If you continue in My Word, if you abide in My Word, you are truly My disciples, and you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free” (John 8:31-32) - free to serve your family and Lord, in good and difficult times, and with confidence in Christ’s love and forgiveness and strength for you in this life and eternal joy to come. Amen.

Let us pray: “Now may the peace of God, which surpasses all human understanding, keep your hearts and minds safe, in Christ Jesus our Lord. Amen. (Philippians 4:7)