No Turning Back

I preached this sermon at St. Andrew's UMC in Edgewater, MD on June 27, 2010. The earlier sermon referenced in this one is in my post from June 24th.

Luke 9:51-62
When the days drew near for him to be taken up, he set his face to go to Jerusalem. And he sent messengers ahead of him. On their way they entered a village of the Samaritans to make ready for him; but they did not receive him, because his face was set toward Jerusalem. When his disciples James and John saw it, they said, “Lord, do you want us to command fire to come down from heaven and consume them?” But he turned and rebuked them. Then they went on to another village.

As they were going along the road, someone said to him, “I will follow you wherever you go.” 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.” To another he said, “Follow me.” But he said, “Lord, first let me go and bury my father.” But Jesus said to him, “Let the dead bury their own dead; but as for you, go and proclaim the kingdom of God.” Another said, “I will follow you, Lord; but let me first say farewell to those at my home.” Jesus said to him, “No one who puts a hand to the plow and looks back is fit for the kingdom of God.”

No Turning Back:
Luke 9:51-62

Some of you may have noticed that I wasn’t in church last Sunday. Instead, I was out on the B&A Trail in Severna Park, sweaty and exhausted, asking myself a question I ask a lot these days: “What am I doing here?” I’m currently training for my first full marathon- a 26.2 mile road race. My training plan includes a number of other races, with distances ranging from 1 mile to 17. Last Sunday, it was a 10K, or 6.2 miles. The distance wasn’t a problem; the problem was the heat. By the halfway point, the sun was beating down so hard that I could only think of two things: finishing the race, and the fact that I would be back out in less than a week for a 10-mile run. Neither of those things felt possible at the time, but I knew that I had gone too far to turn back.

Last Sunday’s starting line was at Severna Park High School, but the true starting line of my marathon journey was right here in this pulpit one year ago. Last year, on the last Sunday in June, I agreed to preach while Pastor Dave was on vacation, just like I’m doing now. I spent the whole weekend wrestling with the text- a story from Mark about two of Jesus’s miraculous healings. I struggled with how to relate the miracle stories of Biblical times to our modern, scientific era. After a whole weekend of thinking and writing, I finally came to some hopeful conclusions about the possibility of miraculous healing in our time.

One of my preaching professors in seminary told me that I should always preach the word that I most need to hear. The morning I preached that sermon, I learned what he meant. Just a few minutes before I left for church, I turned on the news and saw a picture of one of my all-time favorite teachers, Dr. Kelly Murray from the Pastoral Counseling program at Loyola. I learned that Kelly and her 7 year-old daughter Sloane had been killed in a freak accident earlier that weekend. I cried the whole way from my house to St. Andrew’s. I was overwhelmed by the loss of a brilliant, talented woman who had already given so much to the world and could have given so much more. I thought about Kelly’s husband and her five other daughters. The confident words I had written about healing suddenly seemed hollow. How could anyone possibly heal from something like this?

Preaching that morning was one of the hardest things I’ve ever done. It took every ounce of strength I had just to collect myself and walk to the pulpit. When I got there, I dedicated the sermon to Kelly and Sloane and prayed for the confidence to believe my own message of hope. After the first service, a visitor to the church came up to me and shared how she was struggling with a tragedy in her own family. She said that I had preached the word she most needed to hear. Despite my own despair, I had given her hope that she could heal.

I’ve thought about that conversation many times over the last year. I thought about it as I attended memorial services for Kelly and Sloane. I think about it now when I go to Loyola and don’t see Kelly there. I don’t think I’ll ever understand why Kelly and Sloane had to die, but preaching that day helped me find some meaning in the tragedy. I realized that I need to honor my beloved professor by living out what she taught me. Kelly had many great qualities, but the one that impressed me most was her excellence. When she cared about something, she committed herself to it completely and never settled for less than her best. In the days and weeks after her death, I realized that I need to follow her example and push myself to be more excellent in everything I do. The morning I gave that sermon, I pushed myself to do something that seemed impossible. Through that decision, I continued Kelly’s legacy of teaching and healing.

All year, I’ve been looking for more opportunities to be excellent, which is how I found the marathon. At Kelly’s memorial service, one of her friends talked about her passion for running. She explained that Kelly had been training for her first marathon when she got pregnant with her 6th child. She died only a few months after that child was born, so she never got to finish her race. A few months after hearing that story, my classmate Katie and I had an idea: we would finish Kelly’s race for her. We would run our first marathons, and we would use our races to raise money for a scholarship in honor of Kelly.

We approached the Loyola faculty about our idea and they loved it. Within a couple of weeks, we had personal fundraising websites, training blogs, business cards, and flyers about our campaign. If you go to the Loyola Pastoral Counseling website right now, our story is the first thing you see. We’ve already collected close to $1,000. For Katie and I, there is truly no turning back now. As hot as it gets, as exhausted as we feel, as impossible as the task before us seems, we’ve committed ourselves to this and we need to see it through.

This kind of commitment is at the heart of today’s Gospel lesson. I find Jesus’s tone in this text a little harsh, but I think I understand what he’s getting at. Jesus is making it clear that being a Christian isn’t a hobby, a nice thing to do a few times a year, or a single priority to be balanced with others. Being a Christian is a commitment, a decision to make following Jesus our top priority for our whole lives. Being a Christian means no turning back. If we want to follow Jesus, he needs us to understand that the journey will be long and hard. In this text, he gives us several good reasons why:

First, being a Christian means sacrificing peace, security, and the dream of a simple life. Right now, I’m very focused on finishing my marathon. I have thousands of dollars left to raise and hundreds of miles left to run before I cross the finish line. Still, I’ve already asked myself the all-important question “Then what?” Will I just stay home and rest? I could, but would that honor my commitment to be excellent? If I truly want to continue this journey, I’ll have to find a new challenge. Once I achieve that, I’ll need another one. Books written for first-time marathoners all devote at least one chapter to the “What’s next?” question. Experienced runners know that, once someone tackles a marathon, they will never be satisfied just sitting home. They will always be on the lookout for the next challenge.

Truly being a Christian also means never resting. When Jesus says that “the Son of Man has nowhere to lay his head,” he means it quite literally. When he started his ministry, he gave up not just his home, but the idea of having a home at all. Jesus and his disciples wandered from town to town, depending on the hospitality of strangers for all of their needs. To a lesser degree, our Methodist clergy do the same thing today. When Pastor Dave and Rev. Nowers were ordained, they surrendered their freedom to decide where to live and work. They agreed to go wherever they were sent for their entire careers. Every year of his career in ministry, Rev. Nowers faced the possibility of being uprooted to a new church, a new town, a new home. Pastor Dave still lives with this uncertainty. Until they retire, Methodist clergy can never call a single place “home.”

Even if we are not called to be clergy, being a Christian requires letting go of security and comfort, and taking on a project that will never be completed. As Christians, all of us have the same goals: obedience to God and imitating Jesus. How many of us can honestly say that we’ve achieved those goals, that we have no more work to do and can rest? How many of us honestly believe that we’ll ever achieve those goals in our lifetimes? Being a Christian means striving for a finish line you never expect to reach. Being part of a church is the same way. Have you ever noticed that the work of this church is never done? I’ve been here my entire life, over 31 years, and I can’t remember a time when people weren’t talking of a need to fundraise in order to stay afloat. I can’t remember a time when people weren’t looking for help with a new project or mission. No matter how well we succeed in a single fundraising effort or project, the next one is always right around the corner. If you’re looking for a place to feel rested and at peace, stay away from church.

Being a Christian also requires letting go of our hesitation and making a decision. I’ve owned my house in Eastport for 7 years, and there’s been a gym right down the street that entire time. For 6 of those 7 years, I had really good reasons for not joining. I was in school, I was busy, the gym was too expensive, and I could find plenty of ways to exercise without it. I had visions of myself as a healthy person who exercised regularly, but I never seemed to get there. Last summer, when I finally decided to join the gym, all of those excuses were still there: I was still in school, I was busier than ever, the gym was still expensive, and I could still find ways to exercise without it. My reasons for not joining didn’t go away; I just realized that my reasons for joining were better. And something amazing happened: when I started going go the gym every day, I stopped imagining myself as a healthy, fit person and I actually became a healthy, fit person.

Jesus also calls us let go of our excuses and make a decision. When I first read his words to the man who wishes to bury his father “Let the dead bury their dead,” it sounded very harsh to me. Why shouldn’t this man take time to grieve and support his family? Being with one’s family after a death is not a bad thing, so why is Jesus against it? The more I think about it, though, I don’t think that Jesus is saying that loyalty to one’s family is a bad thing. I think he’s saying that, in order to make a real commitment, we need to reach a point where there are no more excuses.

Sitting here today, I’m sure that many of us have visions of ourselves as better people and better Christians. We might imagine ourselves getting more involved in the church, spending more time in prayer and meditation, or being better spiritual role models for our friends and families. Our reasons for not making these visions a reality may be perfectly valid: we might feel inadequate, we might be overwhelmed by other commitments, or we might simply be distracted by other important things in our lives. Whatever our excuses, Jesus wants us to understand that we must get past them if we want to truly follow him. If we’re waiting for a time when we’ll be free from other commitments and able to focus all our attention on being Christians, then we’ll spend our whole lives waiting. If we want to follow Jesus, we have to make a decision to drop everything and go.

Finally, Jesus wants us to know that being a Christian is lonely sometimes. It means breaking away from the security of what we know and venturing alone into the unknown. Two weekends ago, I volunteered at a weekend grief camp for children and teenagers- the same camp that so many of you donated to back in March. I can assure you that your donations went to good use, because the camp was absolutely wonderful. Everyone at camp- all of the children, all of the staff, all of the volunteers- had experienced the death of a loved one. And we all shared our losses together- the adults right alongside the children. I was amazed at the amount of healing that could take place in only 3 days. Do you know what made that healing possible? No cell phones. No computers. No Ipods. No contact with the world outside our small camp for the entire weekend.

When I first heard about that rule, I wasn’t sure how it would go. Pretty much everyone at camp was separated from something that gives them safety and security. Small children were separated from their caregivers. Teenagers and adults were separated from the constant connection to friends and family which we’ve all grown so accustomed to. I’ll be the first to admit that it wasn’t easy for me to turn off my Blackberry and leave it in the car. Once I did, though, I was amazed at what I experienced. All weekend, everywhere I looked, I saw people 100% engaged with one another. Children and adults having long, deep conversations. Teenage boys singing camp songs and completing art projects without worrying what their friends would think. At our volunteer training, we were told that camp would involve giving with our whole hearts. I know that was true for me, and I couldn’t have done it if I had been checking my Blackberry every 10 minutes.

In Jesus’s time, becoming a Christian meant leaving all safety and security behind. In a totally family-centered society, followers of Jesus took the unprecedented step of leaving their homes and families to join his ministry. Many of the Christian monastics and mystics went even further, moving alone into the desert or cloistering themselves in tiny communities to commune with God. They did this, not because they believed that their families or communities were bad, but because they felt a need to eliminate all distractions from their spiritual callings.

Today, most of us aren’t required to make such dramatic sacrifices in order to become Christians. As Christians living in the United States in 2010, we have it pretty easy. Many of us are blessed with families and friends who support or even share of our beliefs. Most of us can be Christians and remain in our homes and our professions. Being a Christian is socially acceptable- its even a political advantage. While this freedom is certainly a blessing, I think it also makes us complacent. We get so used to being comfortable as Christians that we avoid from those situations where being a Christian should make us uncomfortable. A relative or colleague makes a racist remark and we fail to challenge them. We go to the mall and buy things without thinking about how they were made or whether there might be a better use for our money. We see people in need and tell ourselves that they must have done something to deserve their situation. All too often, we let our desire for comfort and social acceptance prevent us from taking the courageous stands we know we should. We need to let go of these distractions if we ever hope to make our faith the center of our lives.

In this morning’s text, Jesus gives us plenty of good reasons why following him will be hard. Yet, that’s what he calls us to do and that’s what we’re all here to do. So how do we do it? How do we set our feet on the right path and resist the temptation to look back? I think that we do it together. Its true that Jesus asks us to leave our places of safety and security and set out alone to follow him. Once we begin our journey, though, we find companions. A year ago this weekend, I found the courage to walk to this pulpit alone and that visitor found the courage to come to this church alone. It wasn’t easy, but once we set out, we found each other. Two weeks ago, a large group of children and volunteers took the risk of setting out for camp alone, not knowing what would happen when we got there. By the end of the weekend, we had transformed from individuals to a community of people helping each other heal.

The companions we meet on our Christian journey help us carry on, even when it feels impossible. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve come home from a run exhausted, feeling like I’ll never be able to finish my race, and found an encouraging email from someone at Loyola. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve walked into this church exhausted, feeling like following my call to ministry is just too hard and been encouraged by all of your kind words and support. If I had never risked setting out on these journeys, I would never have encountered such wonderful people.

The companions we meet on our Christian journey can even help us face the reality that we may never see our destination. My professor Kelly was a woman who was passionate about healing people in pain. Yet, as gifted as she was, she could never have healed everyone. By sharing her faith and her gifts with others, she ensured that there would be plenty of us to carry on her work even after she was gone. In the Book of Hebrews, chapter 11, Paul talks about our Hebrew ancestors who heeded God’s call to leave their homes and journey to the promised land. He writes “All of these died in faith without having received the promises, but from a distance they saw and greeted them… If they had been thinking of the land that they had left behind, they would have had opportunity to return. But as it is, they [desired] a better country, that is, a heavenly one. Therefore God… has prepared a city for them.”

Deciding to follow Jesus isn’t easy. It can be exhausting. It can be lonely. It can require us to make hard choices. At times, it can feel hopeless. We can only do it if we make a commitment, set our faces toward our goal, and decide that there will be no turning back. But if we can leave our places of safety and security and take those first steps into the unknown, then we’ll find those wonderful companions who will help us reach the city of God. Amen.