“When the days drew near for him to be taken up, he set his face to go to Jerusalem.”
—Luke 9:51
Our Wednesday Bible Discussion group has wrestled with and learned from the upcoming Sunday readings for some time. We share what each of us has fervently tried to save: the planet, democracy, the church, or our collective future. We do it with the best of intentions when we try to make a meaningful difference in a broken world.
There is high group energy and insights during these Wednesday discussions. We bring our whole selves to one another as we learn about our different perspectives on scripture. We discuss what we believe Jesus calls each of us to be. All of it matters.
There is "hidden" communication as well. Much of what we discuss relies on the logic of many systems we perceive as currently collapsing. We follow a logic of urgency. We look for control. and the best ways to measure success.
Essentially, we are trying to organize ways out of collapse, but outwitting collapse may not be what’s currently needed. We live in a time of systemic unraveling: political, ecological, economic, and spiritual. Authoritarians thrive in chaos, and it is manufactured on purpose. Corruption, then, is not an accident. It is the operating system. The world is not ending, but this world, as we’ve known it, may be.
Luke 9:51–62 marks a pivotal moment in the Gospel. Jesus has healed, taught, and gathered crowds. Now, he sets his face toward Jerusalem. He sets his face toward the center of power, toward confrontation, and toward death. Luke's tone shifts in these verses.
Along the way, enthusiastic people have come to Jesus: “I’ll follow you wherever you go!” Jesus replies by warning them: “Foxes have holes, birds have nests, but the Son of Man has nowhere to lay his head.”
A potential follower says, before he commits, “Let me go bury my father first.” Jesus responds, “Let the dead bury the dead.” Still another wants to say goodbye to their family. Jesus says, “No one who puts a hand to the plow and looks back is fit for the kingdom.”
Let’s be honest, these are hard words. Jesus sounds harsh, unreasonable, and without sentiment. Harsh, but not cruel. Instead, it’s rather clarifying. It is clear the U.S. and Iran are at war after Saturday's bombing attack. Discipleship in wartime is neither occasional nor conditional. It’s not something we do only when it's safe. Hard soil must be plowed. Wartime discipleship breaks ground when planting any seeds of peace in a landscape scorched by violence.
As Jesus and his disciples head toward Jerusalem, they enter a Samaritan village. The people reject them. James and John are offended and self-righteous. They ask: “Lord, do you want us to command fire to come down from heaven and consume them?” Jesus rebukes them in this vital moment. When violence is in the air, Jesus’ followers want retaliation. They want certainty and a cleansing fire. They want to win.
Jesus calls for a resistance movement instead. A nonviolent underground that doesn’t wait for peace to act but sows it now. Many of Luke's would-be disciples bring what we want to bring when we commit. Our good intentions, reasonable plans, and what we are balancing to take on that commitment. We act as if we were embarking on a new project.
But Jesus is not recruiting project managers, nor is he inviting people into a particular way of taking on tasks before us. We live in a time when everything becomes urgent. We build plans, spreadsheets, and systems to act. We try to engineer our salvation. Yet here comes Jesus, not to sell us on following his vision, but with a face set toward suffering, and toward a path that we long for most. How shall we remain daily in the presence of God?
What if our collective salvation is not just about escaping conditions we fear? The current "solution" with Iran may not be to win peace, but to stay watchful. To stay with brokenness.To stay with the earth. To stay with each other.
This is what Pastor Emillie preaches, and she is always inspiring. She yearns for Creator to forge a faith for our times. by taking us from our world of strategy and domination to a world of related stories: We choose to move from relying on systemic solutions and "peace through threats", to developing our relational sensing.
I remember a time when our congregation's focus was on scalability. We thought our mission was to have more members who contributed. Currently, our focus is on soilability. We are exploring what we can uniquely grow, here and now. Rather than problem-solving, we have begun a heartfelt task of pattern-seeing. We move from identifying our hoped-for deliverables to what I define as humble devotion.
Jesus never promised deliverables. He promised presence. “I will be with you always,” he said, rather than “I will fix this for you.” In today’s text, Jesus invites people to follow him without looking back, because the way forward is not built by a perfect strategy. The foundation will not be declarations of either war or peace, but on courage, on community, and trusting in a God who meets us in the unknown.
Last Wednesday, our group speculated on the fall described in Genesis. Given human nature, we wondered if the Genesis fall was fortuitous or inevitable. Human history is built around our institutions delivering all we think we desire. This may be Creator's time to tend to God's sacred ground with prayer, presence, and mutual remembering.
As we contemplate future ministry at Creator, will we encourage actions that better attune us to the gestalt around us, rather than defining some agreed-upon agenda? Can our relationships with one another self-organize around the resonance of the moment rather than taking on some misfitted roles? The ongoing stories we carry may guide the rhythm of this congregation better than road mapping future ministry.
This may not look effective in the eyes of dying systems, but it is deeply faithful. It might, at this point, be the best way to continue because, in the kin-dom of God, faithfulness always matters more than success. So, the invitation today may not be to follow Jesus with laundry lists of the conditions and outcomes we want, but with curiosity, open hands, and companionship.
Let's listen more than fix. Let's continue to discern more than direct, grab courage to experiment when we are tempted to follow some established, but ultimately hollow, traditions, and to nourish one another rather than looking for control.
Will we dare to walk, not with a map, but with one another? Maybe our world can pray for the kin-dom life which Jesus promised, and that constantly rises before us, just like God's rainbow promise to Noah.
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