Pentecost 4                       Luke 9:51-62, Gal. 5:1,13-25                          6/27/04

                                                     "Choices"

All of our lessons today are about choices.

Elisha made choices. He didn’t have to follow Elijah. He could have said, "Hey there! Here’s your cape that you dropped," and gone back to his plowing.

Being a prophet was often a thankless, even scary job. Many prophets were employed by a ruler and their prophesies had better be good news. On the other hand, a prophet of God spoke God’s word, usually a warning about a ruler or people’s sinful way of life or worship of false gods. A prophet of God had to tell people things they didn’t want to hear. As a result prophets of God often had to run for their lives. Elijah at times in his life was sought by armies on orders from King Ahab and Queen Jezabel.

Prophets had to say and do things they didn’t want to say or do. Jonah was ordered by God to preach to the people of Ninevah and was told they would repent. The Ninevites had been evil people and Jonah ran from God rather than obey...we all know how he gave a big fish a whale of a case of indigestion as a result.

Then there was Amos who was told by God to marry a prostitute as a metaphor for the people’s sinfulness and Jeremiah who was only a teenager when called to lead the unleadable out of sin.

It may seem as though prophets have no choice - God calls and they say, "Here am I, send me" - but ask almost any pastor. Most of us have stories to tell about how many times we said, "Uh, no thanks" to God’s call.

Then in our gospel lesson many people make choices. In the very first verse we are told that Jesus "set His face to go to Jerusalem." This simply, but profoundly means, Jesus made the choice to go and give His life. He was determined to do God’s will and complete His mission - but, it was a choice.

Next, we read of a village making a choice to reject Jesus and not show Him hospitality. It was an unwritten law of the times that hospitality was to be offered to travelers. To refuse placed the person in danger from wild animals, robbers and other kinds of evil. Jesus makes a choice also - to not punish the Samaritans. They may not realize it but they lost the opportunity to have God among them, to hear His word, feel His touch, eat of His food. This will be consequence enough.

Then, we have these strange conversational bits between Jesus and His followers or potential followers. The first man makes a choice to follow Jesus, but is warned that being a disciple is not easy.

It is a hard and lonely life.

The second man is called by Jesus, but asks to first do his duty to his deceased father. Among nomadic people the fear was that if you died there would be no one to bury you and your body would become prey to scavengers. Thus, the main meaning of the 4^th Commandment, was "Honor your father and your mother..." by giving them a proper burial. Jesus says to let the spiritually dead bury the physically dead. If you want real life your first duty is to proclaim the kingdom Jesus is bringing into being.

To hammer home the point about choices Luke includes Jesus’ rebuff of a man who just wants to say goodbye to his family before following Jesus. How cruel it seems to both the man and his family to expect him to just leave without a word. But, the command to love God above all else supercedes even obligations to family. Furthermore, Jesus and the future are ahead. If one tries to move forward while holding onto the past or looking back, they will surely stumble and fall.

And this brings us to the second lesson, Gal. 5, and our choices. Paul writes about Christian freedom. We have been set free from the law of sin by the sacrifice of Christ. This freedom presents us with many choices. In fact, we have multiple choices set before us each day. We can choose to seek what pleases us, what makes us feel good, what may seem like fun, or we can choose at each moment to be loving to others and thus use our freedom to please God.

Actually though, there are really only two choices. But, they are made over and over each day. We can either choose to sell ourselves back into slavery to the devil or we can choose to live by the Spirit. Those sins listed in our lesson are somehow addictive. You can’t be just a little impure. You can’t bow down just this once to an idol, especially the idol of self. You can’t be just a little envious or jealous. You can’t go on just a weekend drunken binge...at least not for long. No, once you give in a little, these addictive sins drive you to more and more.

On the other hand, Jesus offers the choice of life by the Spirit. By allowing the Spirit to guide our choices, we experience the fruits of the Spirit: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. These come naturally when we let the Spirit take over our lives.

I used to think that love, patience, kindness, etc., were virtues I had to work to achieve. That God expected them of me and I wasn’t much of a Christian if I didn’t do them or have them consistently. But, that is a misreading. That is submitting to slavery to the law again and leads only to despair. For none of us can be perfectly anything...at least not anything good.

No, first comes Jesus and forgiveness. Being forgiven frees us from sin and from trying to obey the law. Being free - truly free - enables us to be open to the Spirit. And being filled with the Spirit produces in us those wonderful fruits of the Spirit. And, when we have tasted that fruit, we know how rotten the old stuff like impurity, idolatry, strife, jealousy, etc. was. The Spirit in us then resists going back to that slavery again.

There are means that will help us be open to and stay connected to the Spirit. The ELCA has been promoting what are called "Seven Faith Practices. These are pray frequently, study Scriptures diligently, worship regularly, invite others often, pass on the faith, serve for the sake of others and give freely of time, talents and resources. The Spirit will work through these faith practices to strengthen our faith, produce fruit and bring ever greater freedom to our lives. But the choices are ours. Amen.