In Luke 9:51-62, the disciples continue to misunderstand what Jesus is showing them: God’s love isn’t transactional. It restores us all.
satisfaction and the justice of God
Proper 8C | Luke 9:51-62
“Lord, do you want us to command fire to come down from heaven and consume them?”
Let’s take a moment to just let those words sink in.
James and John, Sons of Zebedee, the thunder brothers, the ones who desire to be at Jesus’s right hand when he takes on Rome clearly see themselves as his lead officers of war.
“Lord, do you want us to command fire to come down from heaven and consume them?”
They ask.
The “them” in question is a city. All who live there, adults and children, servants and doctors, livestock and pets, all engulfed in an inferno of hate and destruction. God’s nuclear power dropped upon a civilization.
How could these brothers, two of the first disciples called by Jesus, think this is a good idea?
This is not just an argument. Or even war.
They want to invoke a complete annihilation.
Here’s where I’m supposed to say how ridiculous this response is. That they want to murder a whole city because some strangers snubbed Jesus. And not just strangers: Samaritans. “Those people.” The ones from the other side of the tracks.
I’m supposed to point out the ridiculousness of this, but I don’t want to steal from the true evil of their question. I don’t want us to think them foolish or ridiculous.
I want us to keep on imagining just how earnest and monstrous their response truly is.
And I want us to think of the correlations through the years. All those times when monstrous decisions have been made to protect the honor of Jesus. Those Crusades and Holocausts.
I want us to think, too, of the murderous rage justified to expand the gospel through manifest destiny, imperialism, and terror campaigns of lynching.
What I don’t want is for us to ignore how often people like us have so rejected the mission of Christ, that we would justify dehumanizing and annihilating hundreds or thousands or millions of people at a time. For any reason at all.
For there is no justification which makes dehumanizing another person something a follower of Jesus can ever defend.
How did we get here?
Some time has passed since last week, when Jesus restored the Greek man possessed by a legion of demons. After that, Jesus brought a girl back to life and healed a woman suffering hemorrhages for 12 years. Then he sends The Twelve out, including James and John to heal and proclaim the Good News on their own.
And like a counter to the 5,000 demons who drove themselves off a cliff in chapter 8, Jesus feeds 5,000 men with two fish and five loaves of bread. This is being human! This is restoration! Sitting and eating with each other.
Then Peter calls Jesus the Messiah and Jesus makes his first Passion prediction. He takes Peter, John, and James up a mountain for the Transfiguration—where they witness Jesus as a peer to Moses and Elijah.
That’s when things turn.
They come down the mountain and the disciples can’t heal a boy, so Jesus has to do it himself. The disciples argue about which of them is the greatest.
John admits that they tried to stop another exorcist because he wasn’t officially part of Jesus’s entourage. And Jesus rebukes them for this arrogance.
This is what happened before. Things had turned. Everything is changing.
At the beginning of this chapter, Jesus’s closest disciples can heal the world. And now they can’t heal one boy and they are being overwhelmed by arrogance and hatred.
The Turn
The author we know as Luke describes this turn in a literal way. That Jesus has turned his face to Jerusalem. Right there, it says
“When the days drew near for Jesus to be taken up, he set his face to go to Jerusalem.”
It’s a physical movement Jesus makes, turning and setting his face in this specific direction. And because we know how the story goes, we know why he does this. Jesus is facing his own crucifixion.
And like the disciples, we’re in the middle of it. The turn, the mission: everything.
The Jesus story is always in motion. They never stay long—Jesus and his followers are always moving. Walking, usually; though sometimes they sail by boat. That was the movement last week, crossing the sea to the land of the Gerasenes. Then back.
It’s a fitting image for us, two thousand years later, jumping in, catching up, following along too.
But this is also the middle of the book, the middle of the story.
The first half was preparation and the beginning of the journey. Now it’s time. Jesus is turning toward Jerusalem.
And the good news worked on Samaritans before the turn, before he set his face. And we all know Jesus can proclaim good news to anybody. But now isn’t the time. Not from Jesus.
Rebuked
“Lord, do you want us to command fire to come down from heaven and consume them?”
But he turned and rebuked them.
He didn’t let it go or laugh it off. Nor did he get wrapped up in politics or worry that they might stop pledging.
He rebuked them. Because that’s not what we do. We don’t kill anybody, let alone slaughter a whole city. We don’t invite God to condemn someone over a slight! What arrogance! What abuse of power! James and John should be ashamed of themselves for even thinking that. It is shocking they even get to follow Jesus after this.
And as for the Samaritans, they don’t hear the good news from Jesus today. But they will from the followers Jesus sends out in the next few verses.
These same disciples, so quick to judge and destroy will be told to rely on the hospitality of others and be hosted and invited to share the good news by people in foreign countries.
And when they get back, he’ll tell them a parable about being a neighbor to someone. A story about a Samaritan and an innkeeper who are in the role of hospitality and savior. While the religious elite walk on by, thinking themselves superior.
Blessed
It is remarkable James and John would ever think Jesus would want them to incinerate a city. But how is that any different than what many of our siblings in faith offer each other? Maybe not literal incineration; but the same dehumanizing nothingness. Indifference to their life . . . or death.
We are called to bless each other with our whole selves. Called to hold nothing back. To be generous and thoughtful; to reveal the hope of Christ in our giving and faithfulness.
But we’d rather talk about sex or immigration status. We’d rather check people’s papers before we serve them or make the poor prove they have enough need before we can be generous.
How much dignity must we strip, or force others to strip from themselves, before we declare them worthy of love?
Jesus has no part in that.
But he also doesn’t do anything in part.
He’s facing his own death. And he’s all in on love, blessing, and restoring justice.
Enough
Yesterday, the Rev. Dr. Starsky Wilson, the keynote speaker at the Bishop’s Summit on Faith and Giving reminded us of a fundamental teaching of Jesus.
“God has more than enough so that you may have enough to pursue justice in the world.”
God’s abundance is for justice. Which is not revenge or tribal division; not superiority or Machiavellian machinations. And none of this “I got mine, so you go get yours. Good luck with that.”
Enough for all. Which is the presence of justice, by the way. Because that is what true blessing looks like: making sure we all have enough.
We don’t need to ask how these two brothers got Jesus’s message so wrong. Because we know how. Selfishness and shame are universal.
But Jesus sends them out anyway. It wouldn’t surprise me at all if in just a few minutes later, when he’s sending the 70 out to all the nations, he says “Hey James, John. You know, I’ve got the perfect place for you two! You remember how to get to Samaria, don’t you?”
Of course, after Jesus leaves, he arranges the perfect coda. He takes off, ascends into heaven. And it isn’t a Samaritan city which is consumed by fire. It’s Jerusalem. And that fire isn’t destruction, but the Holy Spirit, connecting people from all over the world to a story of love. And the Spirit even makes it so everybody can hear that same message.
It’s about love, equity, and justice: and there’s enough for everyone.