“Following Jesus”
June 29, 2025
Rev. Rebecca Migliore
Here we are in the weeks after Pentecost, what the church often calls “Ordinary Time” which stretches all the way to late in November. And what are we going to do during this time? We will be walking with Jesus (and his disciples)—listening to the master class that Jesus is conducting on what it means to follow him.
We are told in our reading that Jesus set his face to go to Jerusalem. Jerusalem, the holiest city for these Jews. Jerusalem, (in Jesus’ day) where the temple is--the sacred place of worship, the seat of God on earth, the place where everyone is expected to come to celebrate the high holy days. Jerusalem, the place filled with elders and chief priests and scribes who will not be open to Jesus’ message of reform. Jerusalem, the end point, in Jesus’ mind.
And maybe, Jerusalem, as a subtle explanation for the beginning of our gospel reading. For when Jesus sets his face to Jerusalem, he is in the territory of the Samaritans. And Samaritans do not think the best place to worship is Jerusalem—they think it is somewhere else. This leads to a deep-seated and seemingly religious-based animosity between Jews and Samaritans. So, those listening to this story would have no difficulty in imagining that the Samaritans in the village Jesus is traveling through (and in which he was intending to spend the night)—behave in the most vile way. They refuse to offer hospitality! (Can you imagine such a place? Where they would not open their arms to welcome strangers?)
This is a cardinal sin in Jesus’ time (and a breaking of the Levitical code of conduct). So, the disciples get angry—for Jesus, and maybe for themselves. They had been out on the road, they were probably tired and hungry and ready for someone to offer them food and a place to sleep and here these people deny them. (Maybe because of the Jerusalem thing-- had they heard Jesus was focusing on Jerusalem, and that touched old wounds?).
The disciples have a suggestion—let us rain down fire and have it consume them! Doesn’t this sound like the behavior of so many religious people down through the ages? They don’t think like we do, they don’t worship like we worship, they don’t use the right words, so let’s round them up, exile them, or better yet, put them to the sword, or the pyre, or other forms of torture and death.
Which reminds me of an old joke. “A new busload of souls was being given an introductory tour of heaven. The tour guide intoned “We have something for everyone. On the left, we have the Pentecostals sharing testimonies. On the right there are Methodists singing hymns. Don’t look now, but the Presbyterians have formed a committee to talk something out! And yes, the Catholics are gathering to recite the rosary.” As the bus traveled further, the guide asked for quiet. In a hushed whisper, the guide explained “Just over that hill are the Southern Baptists, and they think they are the only ones here.” [Of course, this joke can be told in any number of ways—putting different people in that last category!]
No, Jesus’ disciples aren’t the only ones to show religious intolerance. What does Jesus do? He rebukes them. Don’t be stupid, he says. That’s not what the kin[g]dom looks like. That’s not what I’ve been talking about. And they move on.
There is motion in this passage. Even though Jesus wanted to stop, and even though it says that they moved on to another village, we pass over any eating or sleeping and move directly to “as they were going along the road…” or we could say “as they were going on the Way”? As they were following Jesus they encounter three people.
Now this is the time to remind all of us that our gospels are not transcripts of events happening in real time. This is not a blow-by-blow account of everything that happened between Jesus’ birth and his ascension. This is a crafted story. These three people who we meet are not Tom, Tracy, and Jean—specific people—they are stand-ins for all of us. They help answer the question—how do we follow Jesus?
We shouldn’t get too caught up in the specifics. I’m not sure Jesus is saying that to be a follower we need to be houseless, or refuse to bury our loved ones, or never tell anyone where we are going. In some ways, these are behavioral norms: most of us have a place to stay, most of us mourn those who mean something to us, most of us ask God to watch between us when we are apart from one another. What is Jesus getting at?
It seems that the writer of Luke wants us to hear the message—if Jesus has set his face to Jerusalem, and if we are following him, then we too are pointed to Jerusalem. We too are asked to change, to reform, to look at how we live our lives.
--Being along the Way of Jesus asks us not to sink into the status quo, not to be complacent with the way things are, not to build fences and close doors and gather only with those near and dear.
--Being along the Way of Jesus asks us to rethink our priorities—or to reorient them back to what the Shema and the Levitical code suggest: that Loving God with all we have is our first priority and close by that is Loving our neighbor as ourselves. Everything else moves down the list.
--Being along the Way of Jesus asks us to face forward, to be on the look out for where and what God is doing right now, and what God might be calling us to do and be in the future. Jesus uses the image that they would all have been used to—a farmer in the field, keeping a foot on the plow, leaning in to get the blade deep into the ground as the ox or ass or other beast of burden pulled. Everyone would know that you can’t be looking back, lest you veer off your intended furrow. No, you can only drive by facing forward. Here is how the SALT commentary sums up this part of our passage:
“Taken together and considered in the wake of the drama in the Samaritan village, these three warnings portray discipleship as a striking contrast to conventional, ordinary life: not nestled in at home, but on the move through the neighborhood; not bogged down in common duties, but on the move and proclaiming God’s reign; not looking backward to the entanglements of the past (including the clannish conventions of “religious intolerance”), but on the move, opening up, and focused on the future.” (SALT, for Third Week of Pentecost, 2025)
What should we hear today as UPC?
What I hear is an underlining of the necessity of hospitality in our world. Yes, we are being hospitable every week at the West Orange Food Pantry when we help provide food or diapers. We are being hospitable when we make and deliver sustainable lunches to St. Andrew’s in Newark each month.
We are being hospitable when we take our turn at Christine’s Kitchen a few times a year. We are being hospitable as we try to stock the shelves in Hazel and Washington Schools (so they have emergency changes of clothing)—our summer mission project. In this, and in everything we do and say, we are urged to continue to open our arms wide to every child of God, to make everyone feel welcome here. That is hospitality.
I also hear the invitation to see faith in action as just that—action, movement, even change. Not change for change’s sake, but the acknowledgement that our world is ever evolving, and that might require us to be alert, to be willing to seek new ways to do old things, or even to try some new things as we attempt to be faithful for such a time as this. That is what it means to be on the way, following Jesus. At least we have made a start. I wonder what is next?
May we be ready and willing with God’s help, Alleluia, Amen.