Trinity Church in the City of Boston
Proper 8, Year C 2025
June 29,2025
2 Kings 2:1-2, 6-14
Psalm 77:1-2, 11-20
Galatians 5:1,13-25
Luke 9:51-62
Almighty God, you have built your Church upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Jesus Christ himself being the chief cornerstone: Grant us so to be joined together in unity of spirit by their teaching, that we may be made a holy temple acceptable to you; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.
Welcome to summer, my friends!
As our temperatures fluctuate from delightful to uncomfortably warm, I find myself delighting in sunshine and also seeking shelter from the heat. We shift from warming ourselves to attempting to find ways to stop the sweat from dripping down our backs incessantly.
It’s that time of year.
Similarly, our church year has shifted- from the reassuring Easter Gospels, where Jesus appears and reminds the disciples of his teachings. We have entered that time of year when we shift from the comfort of Eastertide to the just as affirming and yet some what uncomfortable gospels of Ordinary Time.
Ordinary time is that season between the high holy days, From Pentecost and Trinity Sunday to the first Sunday of Advent. Some call it “the growing season,” the time when we often hear parables that talk of seeds, plants, sheep and goats, and our Gospels often conclude with consequences and the gnashing of teeth. If the heat weren’t enough, crossing these parables should make even the most faithful squirm.
Now, this is not a fire and brimstone sermon, I am not here to frighten you- my words today are here to invite us into the ordinary time to listen deeper, to engage in the uncomfortable, to find the faithful path in the journey in the world where everything is heating up from the weather to the global tensions.
Today we hear both in our Old Testament and Gospel readings that the leadership is focused on their final days. Elijah knows his work here on earth has come to an end; he is preparing for his own departure. He knows he will be departing, and much like the disciples later in the gospels, Elisha asks for what he needs when Elijah departs. Elisha desires to lead and lead well and knows the power of the Lord will guide and give that power and authority. Elijah knows that God will provide as God will provide.
Leaping from Elijah and Elisha, we hear Jesus “turn towards Jerusalem” telling us that he too is focusing on his departure. Luke’s gospel has spent his first 5 chapters telling us of Jesus’ birth story, teaching and healing and now there is a shift- Jesus is heading to Jerusalem. This journey takes Luke another 15 chapters to tell the whole story and during these chapters Jesus’ tone shifts.
Jesus teaches while walking, he shares parables with consequences, he articulates the hard truth of discipleship and at the same time confirms the endurance of God’s love and presence through hardship and challenge. All while doing the ordinary, going from one place to the other.
Today, I picture the road that Jesus and the disciples are on is long road with many uphills. The temperature is warm, the people are not. It’s dusty and a pebbled walk.
Jesus fills the time with looking forward. He does not reflect back on what an amazing job the work of God has done in people’s lives. He is not commending the disciples on their sacrifice and faithfulness following him.
Jesus is doubling down, he is taking the disciples on the advanced course- they are diving into the deep end and realizing that they do not know how to swim in these waters. The disciples think they are ready for the olympic events and Jesus points out that their swimming is still a lot like dog paddling in the shallow end.
Today we hear that a Samaritan town does not welcome Jesus.
In response, the disciples want to retaliate by “smiting them”- it’s the first we heard that the disciples could do this (cool super disciple power, right?) and Jesus rebukes them. WRONG ANSWER. Keep walking my friends.
Lack of hospitality, while a statement of lack of grace and countercultural, means moving on, not retribution.
Then Jesus encounters three more people who want to follow Jesus and join in the movement BUT:
One is told that following Jesus means being willing to move about and have no permanent residency.
One is told to ignore family responsibilities (also counter cultural to the norm) in order to join the group.
One more is told that you must come now, there is no going back to say goodbye to family.
One could wonder, did the heat get to Jesus that day?
Did the disciples ask one too many questions?
Did Jesus need a nap?
He surely isn’t sugar coating things as he describes and invites these newcomers to following God.
Jesus’ words make me uncomfortable, the asks by the newcomers were simple and pastoral even. Caring for one’s family and closing up chapters in our lives makes sense to us and Jesus is saying …. this call is uncomfortable, immediate, and requires all of us- undistracted, focused, and 100 percent of our mind, body and spirit.
Without any sugar coating Jesus speaks truth, both for the disciples and for these newcomers. God’s love is counter cultural, leaves things behind and at the same time goes beyond the ordinary to endure, re-create, and build up community.
One of my favorite writers, Debie Thomas, states that Jesus is a horrible salesman. He sells “rejection and forbearance, inconvenience and hardship, disruption and disorientation. Come and Die with me, so we can live.”1 https://journeywithjesus.net/essays/2265-truth-in-advertising[/mfn] In his truth in advertising, Jesus is preparing his disciples for the road ahead and inviting the newest members into a countercultural path.
So too, we are guided in this world today. In a world of rejection and violence, retaliation and revenge- we, too, are called into the uncomfortable truth that peace in this world requires counter cultural change. Leadership that will collaborate, building up community rather than arsenals, and leaving things behind.
In the midst of the sweltering heat, we are uncomfortable with the fact that many in our community will be without shelter, that there are those who live in fear in our own neighborhoods, and those in the midst of wars globally, innocent people live in fear of surviving the night.
This path of living faithfully, is hard, bewildering. There are sharp edges where families will disagree, countries will battle, people are left without homelands.
In the midst of these divisions and uncertainty, we too, are like the disciples- people finding faithfulness amidst this ordinary time. The easy answer is wipe them off the map, (even the disciples themselves wanted to do so.)
And yet.
Jesus invites us into the deeper dive, the harder work.
To persevere faithfully despite the hostilities.
To pray, to stay in community, to invite others into a new way that is the harder yet more enduring way of love.
With so many opportunities for seeking peace in prayer and action, we too continue walking the path together to gather, pray, be light in this world and know that much like the disciples- we, too can follow and witness. Through the disruption and disorientation of our times, God persists.
There is an opportunity for being joined together in the unity of the spirit as our collect of the day persists.
We gather for prayer for the larger world, we sing joining the songs of those who have weathered the wars and the pain of the past, we continue to have children, marry, and bury those whom we love- using what we have been given to strive to be part of God’s creation reconciling and restoring the divisions that exist.
Even in the heat, even in the disorientation, we too walk the dusty hot road.
Faithfully.
Seeing the endurance of the faithful before us, around us, and those who are to come. We too, embark on this hot and dusty journey holding in common the love of God who created each of us, the sacrificial love of Jesus and the sustaining love of the Holy Spirit inviting us to continue on the path of hope and new beginnings.
Amen.