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Home Page
The Rector's Welcome
Worship
Sermons
Music & the Organ
Newsletter
Schedule & Events
History
Programs & Ministries
Tour the Building
Links
Map & Directions
Monthly Calendar
Home Page
The Rector's Welcome
Worship
Sermons
Music & the Organ
Newsletter
Schedule & Events
History
Programs & Ministries
Tour the Building
Links
Map & Directions
Monthly Calendar
Fr. J. D. Ousley
27 June 2004“Faith Looking Forward”
In the Name of God: Creator, Redeemer, and Sanctifier. Amen.
The teachings of Jesus were often deeply disturbing to those who heard them. Jesus taught, for example, that "Many are called but few are chosen." He said that God demands our complete obedience: he warned that the "gate" to Heaven will be "narrow."
Yet, even according to the strictest divine standards, the sayings which we just heard in today's second lesson seem harsh — almost inhuman!
Jesus calls a man to follow him and join his religious movement: the convert replies that he must first go and bury his father. Yet Christ turns down what seems like a reasonable request: he says, "Let the dead bury their own dead; but as for you, go and proclaim the kingdom of God."
Why doesn't Jesus allow the disciple to go to his own father's funeral? If the disciple took a few days off before he began a lifetime of service to God's Kingdom — so what? His temporary absence from the company of disciples would seem to make little difference to God's work.
So why must the new Christian "leave the dead to bury the dead?" The best explanation of this passage is that Christ is showing the cost of discipleship.
Even our desire to pay our respects to the departed comes second to our responsibility to the God of the Living. Jesus is saying to his followers, Look forward — not backward! Serve future life, not past death!
This idea emerges more clearly in the saying of Jesus which comes next: "Another follower says to Jesus, "I will follow you, Lord; but first let me say farewell to those at my home."
Jesus replies, 'No one who puts a hand to the plow and looks back is fit for the Kingdom of God.'"
Here, Jesus isn't saying we should never pay attention to our families; he's teaching us that the Kingdom is coming in the future, not the past. Therefore our prayer must be, as in the Lord's Prayer, "Thy Kingdom come." We have to let go of our past in order to look forward to God's future.
Again, the thrust of these sayings isn't "anti-family." Rather, as one Biblical commentator, George Caird, remarks, a Christian "must be prepared to sacrifice security, duty, and affection, if he is to respond to the call of the Kingdom. For this call is so urgent and imperative that all other loyalties must give way before it."
Professor Caird goes on to observe that "The most difficult choices in life are not between the good and the evil, but between the good and the best." Not between the Good and the Evil but between the Good and the Best.
"The Best," here, is the call of God for commitment. The disciples are asked to leave their ordinary lives as farmers and fisherman in order to take on the extraordinary life of Christ's apostles. There's nothing wrong with farming or fishing — for these apostles, though — for these church leaders, The Good gave way to The Best.
These sayings of Jesus have a more general application. For isn't one of the major choices we make in life just this: whether we look forward or backward?
It may be said of an elderly man, "He only lives in the past." The man has made his choice: he lives in his memories; he takes no pleasure in what God has left for him in this life.
Even from a secular point of view, the elderly man is missing something! Anticipation is one of the spices of life, People need things to "look forward to."
In Iris Murdoch's novel, The Sea, the Sea, the hero is an eccentric fellow named Simon. Simon remarks that "Life is a succession of little treats." Simon has built into his daily routine regular, small rewards — so he has things to look forward to.
Now Simon's definition of "treats" isn't everyone's: a typical tasty lunch for him that he looks forward to all morning is "frankfurters with scrambled eggs!" But still, we get the idea.
Christ's teaching about the Kingdom of God begins with this human need for something to look forward to. And Jesus teaches that our need is met in the transcendent future that God promises to each of us.
So Christian faith, in its essence, points to the future. Christians are people who always have something to look forward to.
Some of you may remember the story during the conflict in Bosnia of the Air Force pilot, Scott O'Grady. O'Grady's plane was shot down, and he survived for six days on his own, evading his enemies and living off the land.
After he was rescued by U.S. Forces, the pilot expressed his gratitude to God for his life. "If it wasn't for God's love for me and my love for God," Scott O'Grady said, "I would never have gotten through it."
This was faith looking forward! O'Grady didn't mope about his bad luck in being shot down. He didn't bemoan his lack of food or his loneliness or his slim changes of survival.
Instead, he trusted in God. He kept up his spirits up by preparing for the future he believed God had in store for him.
"No one who puts a hand to the plow and looks back is fit for the Kingdom of God." People who look back — who keep fanning the fires of old obsessions — people who refuse to be happy in the world of today — people who remain in the grip of past fantasies — such people are blocked from God's future.
To "look forward" for Christians is to see that even in the most constrained circumstances, we can trust in The God of the Living.
Not looking back, we go forward into the future — the future which is God's.
And now unto that same God Father, Son, and Holy Spirit be ascribed as is most justly due all might, majesty, power, dominion and praise, now and forever, Amen.