Best audience ever!

June 30, 2013

6 Pentecost, Proper 8 (Year C)

Luke 9:51- 62

 

On the last day of school, my daughter’s elementary school had a talent show.  About a week before, a notice came home announcing it, and inviting any student that was interested to sign up by giving a brief statement of their talent.  Sophie wanted to be in the talent show.   I couldn’t believe it.  I never in a thousand years would have signed up for a talent show when I was a kid.  First, I was too insecure to feel like I had any talents when I was her age.  Second, I couldn’t have imagined being up there – totally vulnerable – in front of all those people – my peers.  What if I was no good?  What if I got nervous and forgot what I was doing?  What if they didn’t clap for me, or worse yet, made fun of me?  And so I immediately projected all my childhood fears and angst onto my daughter.

            Exactly the same thing happens when I read this morning’s Gospel reading.  I project myself on to this story and become these disciples being rebuked by Jesus.  I am these three wannabe disciples that Jesus is challenging to give up their homes and their families to follow him.  And there’s no way I can measure up to what he’s asking.  There’s no way I can live the lonely and hard existence Jesus is living.  There’s no way I can give Jesus the absolute, unwavering, 100% kind of devotion that he seems to be asking for.  Immediately I am indicted by this reading, thinking about how little I pay attention to how God is leading, much less think about how to follow.  Thinking about the myriad ways that I botch this discipleship thing.  By clinging to possessions or to my stubborn convictions.  By offering up excuses for not praying rather than sitting in silence.  By my imperfect treatment of the people around me.  By not putting God first, or even in the top 10, of my attention.  By worrying and over-planning and agonizing instead of trusting God.  I read into this story a condemnation instead of an invitation.

            But when I spent time with the passage this past week, I started to see a different side to this reading.

            After all, the disciples don’t really fare particularly well in Luke’s treatment.  They constantly misunderstand him, they quarrel about which of them is the greatest, they fall asleep in his hour of need, they betray and desert him on the cross, they don’t even initially believe in his resurrection.  So maybe this isn’t a story about how to be a perfect disciple.  Maybe instead it’s a story about a God who loves us perfectly, passionately, gracefully, forgivingly – despite all that other stuff.

            The commentators agree that the turning point of Luke’s Gospel is at the start of our reading this morning.  Jesus “set his face to go to Jerusalem.”  Everything before now has been preparing him for this.  He knows he is on the wrong end of the political and religious powers.  He knows the kind of end he is facing in Jerusalem – betrayal, pain, and death.  And yet he is steadfast and committed to the journey.  Not because he is a model of discipleship.  Not because he is a hero.  But because he so loves the world.

            The World.  The whole world, as Luke makes clearer than some of the other Gospel writers. 

At the very beginning of his Gospel, Luke traces Jesus’ lineage back not just to David or even Abraham but to Adam, and therefore to all of humanity. 

On the cross, only Luke has Jesus forgive those who crucify him. 

And at the very end of Acts, Luke extends the spread of the Church to Rome and therefore the whole world. 

            And Luke also includes the whole world right here in this little reading when Jesus sends messengers into Samaria. There was bitter enmity between the Jews and the Samaritans.  Proper Jews had no dealings with the Samaritans, who were originally Jewish but had mixed blood and religion with the local culture – Jews would not eat with Samaritans or touch anything that a Samaritan had touched.  Jews would go well out of their way to avoid traveling through Samaria.   But not Jesus.  Rather than avoiding Samaria, Jesus decides to go straight through it.

            But, unsurprisingly perhaps given the history between the two peoples, the Samaritans don’t receive Jesus or his disciples.  I can identify with those Samaritans; I bet most of us can.  There are times when I’ve stubbornly refused to receive Jesus.  Times when I’ve known what he wanted me to do or not do, but kept on my own path anyway.  And times when I’ve just been too busy or distracted to welcome Jesus.  I think in this story, the Samaritans become a sort of metaphorical stand-in for the rest of us. 

            So what a relief that when the disciples come tattling to Jesus, seeking permission to destroy the unwelcoming Samaritans, Jesus refuses to respond with violence.  That isn’t who he is; it isn’t what he’s there to do.  He isn’t about punishing people who resist his invitation or compelling people to follow him.  Jesus’ concern is universal, rooted in love and forgiveness, compassion and mercy.  He was – is – rejected over and over but never gives up.  He just keeps inviting us to take the next step along with him until one day we finally realize that our true home is right there with him and in him; until one day we realize that his incredible love is actually meant for us.

            Now, in case you were wondering about the talent show, it went great.  The piano was in the back of the stage and its top was closed, so Sophie’s playing was pretty quiet, but she played perfectly and didn’t look too nervous and the audience clapped and cheered for her.  All my anxieties were unfounded.  And the audience kept on cheering.  Even when a kid’s singing was totally off key or couldn’t be heard over the recorded music, or the jokes weren’t funny, or the dancer was behind drum set and couldn’t be seen.  The audience gave roaring ovations for every single act.

But there was one moment that stood out as the most beautiful of the whole show.  There was a little girl, a first grader who actually went through St. Aidan’s Day School and was in class with my son, who got up on stage to do a sort of modern-y, ballet-y kind of dance to the song “Call me maybe.”  She got started, kicking her legs, doing a few twirls, having fun, it looked like.  And then, suddenly, there was some kind of technical difficulty and the music stopped.  For a few seconds there was a dead, horrible silence and the little girl froze – she had no idea what to do.  But the audience took over, singing the words in unison, loudly and right on beat so the little girl could finish her dance.

            I think Jesus shows us in Luke’s Gospel story today that God is like that audience.  We may not have discovered our calling, or be the best disciple, or be paying enough attention.  We may not be the best, or the funniest, or be in tune with where we ought to be.  But God is cheering for us, rooting for us, providing background music for us when we get scared and lose our way.  God is holding the world in being by love, a love that is resolute and determined, a love that overcomes fear and death, a love that is meant for each one of us.