PROPER 8C - 1 Kings 19:15-16, 19-21; Psalm 16:5-11; Galatians 5:1, 13-25; Luke 9:51-62 -

1 July 2007 - A sermon preached by The Rev. Peter A. Munson for St. Ambrose Episcopal Church, Boulder, Colorado

 

Moving On to What’s Next in the Journey

 

NEVER LOOK BACK?

 

Is Jesus insensitive? He tells one man to follow him on the road to Jerusalem and the man replies that he is obligated to first bury his father. Jesus replies, “Let the dead bury their own dead; but as for you, go and proclaim the kingdom of God.” Another man said he would follow Jesus, but first he wanted to say goodbye to his family. Jesus said to him, “No one who puts a hand to the plow and looks back is fit for the kingdom of God.” (Luke 9:59-62)

 

Is Jesus insensitive? Is he saying that we must ignore our families and friends if we want to follow him?

 

Two Fridays ago, I met my long-term friend from Minnesota, Don Hickman, up in Estes Park. Don was here with his wife and children, his mom, his sister, his brother and sister-in-law, and his aunt and uncle. They were staying at a cabin at the YMCA of the Rockies. They’ve all been to Colorado many times. In 1979, Don and I led hikes together at the Y. I climbed a number of fourteeners with Don, most of them with his dad, Jim. The Hickman family was in Colorado this time for a particular reason. You see, Jim - Don’s dad - died very suddenly last August, after a short battle with liver cancer. Right before Jim died, Margaret, his wife, asked him if he would like his ashes scattered in sight of Long’s Peak. She said that he nodded and smiled. She told me, “Pete, he was in so much pain at the end. That was the last time I saw him smile before he died. I knew then that we had to gather everyone together in Colorado for this purpose.”

 

And so, at the family’s request, I led a dozen of us through a short service, and we scattered Jim’s ashes within sight of Longs Peak, and a slew of other beautiful mountains, for that matter. We took some time to remember Jim again, although they had done that right after Jim died, at his funeral service. We remembered how important Jim was to us - whether it was as spouse of 56 years, or as father, grandfather, brother, or friend. We remembered things about Jim that made us all nod and smile and think to ourselves, “Yes, that was Jim!”

 

Would Jesus say that what we did was wrong? Is Jesus saying, “Never look back!” No. He isn’t saying that. You and I know that Jesus, especially when talking about the cost of discipleship, used hyperbole. He wanted to make sure his listeners thought about the cost of following him, and didn’t just jump onto the path without thinking about what might be involved. Besides, honoring a loved one fits right in with proclaiming the kingdom of God. To stop and say, “This is how this person touched our lives...” - that is one aspect of proclaiming the kingdom.

 

WE CAN’T DWELL IN THE PAST

 

We can and should reflect on our past. I don’t know how else we learn from our experiences or our mistakes. People say, “You learn from experience!” In my experience, no one learns from his/her experience unless he or she takes some time to reflect on it. Otherwise, we go marching on, perhaps destined to do the same things, and make the same mistakes, over and over again.

 

So we can reflect on our past, and thank and honor our loved ones and mentors who played such an important part in who we have become. But Jesus is saying, “Don’t live there. Know when to move on. Life is meant to be lived forward, not backwards.”

 

A high school graduate may have some nice high school memories, but that person can’t stay focused on high school memories or accomplishments for the rest of his life. Neither should a college graduate be reliving her college days all the time.

 

A divorced person can’t spend all his time thinking about what went wrong, what could have been if this or that would have happened.

 

A person who loses a job can’t sit around moping about what happened, why it happened, and how it never should have happened.

 

None of us can afford to say, “I’ve grown this much in my life, and I’m not going to grow any more. I know all I need to know. I’m done learning, done exploring, done stepping out in faith.”

 

One of the main points in the couples’ workshops that Julia and I give is that relationships are for learning. When one or both individuals in the couple start saying, “Oh, I think we’re good. This is good enough.” - and there is no vision for how the marriage might continue to get even better, then the relationship starts to get stale and boring.

 

I am turning 50 this summer, and Julia and I will be celebrating our 20^th anniversary. There will, naturally, be a little time spent looking back. What have I done? Where have we been together? What has happened? But my life isn’t over because I’m turning 50!. If anything, there’s more of a sense of urgency now, more of a sense of “What do I not want to put up with anymore, and what do I really want to focus on?”

 

We are celebrating our 40^th birthday as a church next month. It is appropriate to spend some time looking back, to celebrate our heritage - all the good leaders among the laity and clergy who have helped carve out an identity and make St. Ambrose what it is today. We need to mark these milestones and celebrate what we have been given, what has been entrusted to us. But it has been entrusted to us. By that I mean, it is up to us - as we seek God’s direction and follow where we believe the Lord is leading us - it is up to us, working together, to take St. Ambrose where it needs to go next. We need to celebrate our past. But we cannot live there.

 

We can’t get so focused on the “glory days” of St. Ambrose that we fail to move ahead, that we fail to be faithful disciples who respond to Jesus’ ongoing call upon our lives.

 

ELIJAH, JESUS, PAUL, AND US

God made it quite clear to Elijah that his time as the prophet in Israel was over, and that it was time for him to anoint Elisha in his place. His next act of faith, then, was to do this anointing, to throw his mantle over Elisha, and then see what God had in store for him next, by continuing to listen, and continuing to follow.

 

Jesus knew it was time to leave Galilee, his homeland - the region that he was familiar with and comfortable in - and head to Jerusalem. And he knew what going to Jerusalem meant. He could spend a little time reflecting on his childhood and his ministry in Galilee. But once he knew it was time to go to Jerusalem, there was no looking back. And so it is that we have this wonderful phrase given to us by Luke. “He set his face to go to Jerusalem.” Jesus was taking his own advice. He knew he couldn’t go back to Galilee, and revel in the glory days, when the water became wine, when the 5000 men (plus women and children) were fed on a few scraps, when he preached on the mountain overlooking the Sea of Galilee and everyone was spellbound, when he healed all those people, when he walked on the water, and calmed the storm.

 

No. He knew he couldn’t dwell on all of that. He knew that that would be putting his hand to the plow, and then looking back. There were still people who needed to hear the word of God preached to them in Jerusalem. They were people who needed to be healed there, too. There was Lazarus who would be waiting for him in the tomb. And there was, of course, the cross. His greatest glory - the ultimate glory - was still to come.

 

Paul talked about this process of moving on to what’s next in the journey in his letter to the Philippians. He starts out presenting all his credentials. Listen to this:

 

“If anyone else has reason to be confident in the flesh, I have more: circumcised on the eighth day, a member of the people of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew born of Hebrews; as to the law, a Pharisee; as to zeal, a persecutor of the church; as to righteousness under the law, blameless. Yet whatever gains I had, these I have come to regard as loss because of Christ. More than that, I regard everything as loss because of the surpassing value of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake I have suffered the loss of all things, and I regard them as rubbish [literally “garbage” or “human excrement”], in order that I may gain Christ and be found in him... I want to know Christ and the power of his resurrection and the sharing of his sufferings by becoming like him in his death, if somehow I may attain the resurrection from the dead. Not that I have already obtained this or have already reached the goal; but I press on to make it my own, because Christ Jesus has made me his own. Beloved, I do not consider that I have made it; but this one thing I do: forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead, I press on toward the goal for the prize of the heavenly call of God in Christ Jesus.” (Philippians 3:4b-14)

 

Paul wrote this letter while he was in prison, by the way. But clearly, he was already moving on to the next thing that Christ was calling him to do.

 

CONCLUSION

 

So... what time is it for you? What is the next thing that God is calling you to do today, or for the next number of days?

 

What season is it for us at St. Ambrose? As we continue in our vision forums, and begin next week to discuss what God is calling us to be and to do, at almost the same time as we celebrate our forty years of history, we must continue to follow in The Way, in the path where Jesus leads us. We must, as Paul says, “press on.”

 

I will leave you with some words from today’s Psalm. There are words of hope and words of life. The Psalmist has hope - plain and simple - because he trusts in God. The future... what is next for you... what is next for me... what is next for us... is in God’s hands. And it is because of that Good News - because of who God is, and how much God loves us - that we don’t have to put our hand to the plow and look back. We can, with faith and courage, press on.

 

Wherever you are today, whatever you believe the next thing is that God is calling you to do, you might want to hang on to these words from Psalm 16:8-11.

 

“I have set the Lord always before me; because he is at my right hand I shall not fall.

 

My heart, therefore, is glad, and my spirit rejoices; my body also shall rest in hope.

 

For you will not abandon me to the grave, not let your holy one see the Pit.

 

You will show me the path of life; in your presence there is fullness of joy, and in your right hand are pleasures for evermore.”

 

It’s okay to reflect back on our experiences, to celebrate them and learn from them. But God also calls us to press on, to move into the next part of our journey, with Jesus as our guide. The Lord is before us. Let us press on. Because he is at our right hand, we shall not fall.