Rejected by Jesus

The Golden Girls was a sitcom in the 80’s about 4 women living together in Florida.  It showed their lives in a unique manner.  Each of the woman had their own quirks and intricacies.  They were different and yet the same.  The theme song began with the words, Thank you for being my friend.    As adults we learn that friendship is something that can’t be forced, it occurs organically.  For children it is somewhat different.  I remember being in elementary school and it was common for kids to ask each other, Will you be my friend?  It was a difficult time waiting for the other child to respond.  We hoped that they would answer yes, I will be your friend, but sometimes the answer was no.  We were rejected.  Those are difficult memories to recall.  The feelings were sadness, sorrow, maybe even heartache.  So imagine just how much more difficult it would be to walk up to Jesus and ask to be his follower and be rejected?  Rejected by Jesus?  Just for a second imagine that?  Jesus, the messiah, rejects you as his follower?  It sounds like something that wouldn’t happen, like something out of the twilight zone, and yet in todays gospel reading it doesn’t just happen once.  It happens 3 times!  Three different would be disciples come to Jesus and Jesus says no.  So why?  What are the criteria for being a follower of Jesus? Let’s take a look. 

The first example is easy, the Samaritans want nothing to do with him or his followers as he is looking to Jerusalem which is not where their Holy City was located.  This example is like walking into the Phillies stadium wearing a Mets jersey or an Eagles game wearing a cowboys jersey.  The two groups are just completely incompatible.

The first would be follower says, I will follow you wherever you go.  Sounds reasonable to me.  A disciple of Jesus should understand that Jesus doesn’t stay put.  But then Jesus comes back with his answer, “Foxes have holes, and birds of the air have nests; but the Son of Man has nowhere to lay his head.” Really? To make it in modern terms, the man is saying to Jesus, I want to be your groupie, I want to follow you on tour and benefit from your stardom.  It seems Jesus sensed that the follower was looking for an easy life rather than what life as a disciple really entailed.

Jesus then makes an offer for the second person to follow Jesus.  That man asks that he go bury his father first.  And with that response, Jesus responds with friend rejected.  Is burying a family member really that unreasonable?  In traditional Jewish custom it was the responsibility of the family to care for the dead.  Jesus sounds harsh here, and more than a little insensitive. But what he’s trying to say is this: If you want to be my type, you have to focus on life, not death. Put your energy into proclaiming the kingdom of God, not into digging holes for dead bodies. Jesus certainly knows that corpses need to be put in the ground, but he assumes that there are many spiritually dead non-disciples that can do this particular duty. If you want to be a disciple, your focus has to be on the kingdom and nothing else.

The third person comes and says I want to follow, but first let me say my goodbyes.  As people that know the story, we already have some indication about Jesus answer.  When Jesus called James and John sons of Zebedee, they just left their nets on the beach and started following him.  So we can imagine Jesus will say no. But in this instance Jesus says no with a lengthy reason about plowshares.  Now I am no farmer so I had to research this one.  As it turns out, this is what it means: “to look back from the plow (whether to family living or dead) was to risk cutting a crooked or shallow furrow and thus ruining the work altogether! There is no place for looking back or even trying to look in two directions at once (being “two-faced”); rather, would-be disciples must be single-minded in purpose, setting their faces like Jesus on the task at hand.

If Jesus said no to these people, where does that leave us? What might be the things that hold us back from following Jesus?  How do we deal with the issue of personal responsibilities while also facing Jerusalem?

Is Jesus really asking us to forgo comfort, duty and family in order to follow him on the path to the kingdom of God?  If that sounds like a relationship that isn’t very enjoyable, we would probably say, thanks but no thanks.  But that isn’t what He is offering.  Jesus is offering us a life of joy, fulfillment and unconditional love.  He just needs to ensure that we are serious about being in a relationship with him.

Today’s Scripture teaches that happiness will come if we are compatible with Jesus in several important ways. First, we need to share his determination to travel to Jerusalem, and this means seeing our final goal as resurrection life with God. If we end up putting all our passion into places that promise us money or power or fame, then we will find ourselves falling out of relationship with Jesus. It is only by traveling with him to Jerusalem, and moving with him through sacrifice to new life, that we will discover our deepest fulfillment as human beings.

Next Jesus asks us to put our faith in him, rather than in any of the creature comforts of this world. We are challenged to trust Jesus to give our lives meaning and balance and security — not our bank accounts, pension funds, media rooms, luxury sedans, hot tubs or high-speed Internet connections.

One of the shocking discoveries of life in the 21st century is that true satisfaction doesn’t come through a high standard of living and an endless array of attractive luxury items. Many of us thought it would, but it doesn’t. Instead, inner peace comes through a life that has meaning — meaning that can be found by following Jesus.

Finally, we are challenged to look ahead, not back. It is so tempting to gaze to the past and wonder why our lives turned out the way they did, so easy to second-guess ourselves and play “what-if” games with the choices we have made.

In the examples provided in today’s reading, we are shown what it takes to enter into a relationship with Christ.  Jesus is asking us to not look back but rather to focus our eyes forward on the everlasting life that God has promised us through Jesus Christ.  Each week as we gather around the altar to receive the Eucharist, we look forward by remembering the gifts given to us as disciples of Christ.  In the sacrament, we reinforce our lifelong and eternal relationship with God, a relationship where we will never be rejected by Jesus, but rather Jesus extends his hand saying, Thank you for being my friend and follower.