Vote for Me and I'll Set You Free!

Draft Copy of sermon for 7/1

Luke 9:51-62

Grace, mercy, and peace be to you from God the Father, and from our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. Amen

We moved here at the end of July last year, so I’ve had to wait almost a full year for the 4^th of July celebration in Amherst. In the meantime, you’ve built it up so much in my imagination, I’m afraid that it won’t live up to my expectations. But I have faith that the fourth in Amherst will be all you’ve said and more!

So, I can hardly wait for the cotton candy, Uncle Sam on stilts, and the kazoo band! But most of all, I can’t wait to see the presidential candidates up close and personal. (You promised me they’d be there.) That’ll be cool.

Now, you may be wondering why I’m so dead set on seeing the candidates in the flesh. Haven’t I seen enough of Chris Dodd already from his endless commercials? Hasn’t Mitt Romney already appeared in enough sound bites on the news to satisfy me? No, I need to see them because I want to look them in the eye and shake hands, and get me a feeling of who they are as a person. I believe I can do that if I meet them, or at least get close.

What do you think? It worked in that Stephen King movie The Dead Zone. The lead character, played by Christopher Walken, has the psychic ability to see one’s future when touched. Inadvertently, he shakes the hand of an unstoppable charismatic presidential candidate (played by Martin Sheen, ironically enough) and sees him in the future as president—pushing the button to commence nuclear annihilation. Fortunately Walken prevents him from winning the election. Unfortunately he dies doing that.

Nothing so dramatic for me. I have no psychic abilities, save for an uncanny ability to know when it’s mealtime. I just figure that meeting them face to face will help me pick out one – one to follow and support. The right one hopefully.

Because I’ve picked out the wrong one before, let me tell you. The first time I jumped into the melee of political campaigning, fresh-faced and eager to help, was for a relatively young, very charismatic candidate who appeared to me to be “the one.” His name was Gary Hart. More recently I was attracted to the grassroots, internet-based campaign of another presidential would-be, Howard Dean. YYEEE-HOOOWW! Oh yeah, I can pick ‘em.

There’s gotta be a better way to decide. Oh, I guess you could read their requisite book, and watch them on CNN (or FOX, just to make this a fair and balanced sermon). You could listen to their vision for America and hear all their promises. But there’s nothing quite like a personal encounter. And so, I thought maybe if I could look in their eyes and shake hands, I could tell if he or she was the real deal—the one. And then I could commit to them. Whole–heartedly. Totally.

Have you ever wondered this: What if Jesus ran for president of the United States? Probably you haven’t! It’s kind of silly to think that way, but it’s probably the best analogy we have to use to get at today’s gospel. So I wonder - would you think he was the real deal, and sign on to work his campaign? What would it be like, to be on the campaign trail with Jesus? Oo, and what would Jesus’ campaign song be, do you think? I know—and it’s perfect for the reading:

I have decided to follow Jesus, I have decided to follow Jesus,

I have decided to follow Jesus, No turning back, no turning back!

Good old camp song. Wonderful—except it’s wrong. Oh, the “no turning back part” is dead on, all right. You can’t be following someone if you’re facing a different direction, which is implied by “turning back.” So, yes, to follow Jesus means you leave much behind, without so much as a twinge of regret, or a single look in the rearview.

No, it’s that first phrase that’s wrong. Wrong subject, wrong verb—right object: Jesus. And following Jesus is okay. But “I have decided” says to me that this following is something I do, something I chose to do. And that’s just not the case.

Look through the four gospels. I can’t think of one instance—not even one—in which the person just up and decides to follow Jesus. The disciples don’t think to themselves, “Hmm, this guy Jesus seems right for Messiah—he speaks well, he does great miracles, he casts out demons with little effort—I think I will follow him.” No, it didn’t work that way with the twelve. They were just living life when Jesus came along and said, “Hey Peter, Andrew, James and John, follow me and you’ll fish for men.” “Hey Philip, hey Matthew, follow me!” And they followed. But the subject is Jesus, the verb is “follow.” No “I,” no “decide.”

In fact, to be truly faithful to the gospel accounts, Jesus’ song should really go like this:

I have decided not to follow Jesus, I have decided not to follow Jesus

I have decided not to follow Jesus, I’m turning back, I’m turning back!

Because there’s more biblical evidence for people rejecting Jesus, than there is for them hopping on his bandwagon. Just look at chapter nine of Luke.

Today we heard about four such occurrences. First, as Jesus heads towards his destiny in Jerusalem, the campaign’s “advance team” encounters a Samaritan town on the itinerary that “won’t receive him.” When James and John hear about it, they ask Jesus if they should call down fire from heaven to consume the belligerent burg. Jesus scolds them—that would definitely be “negative campaigning.”

Then a man comes up to the podium as Jesus is finishing his stump speech and says to him, “You’re the man! I will follow you wherever you go—New Hampshire, Iowa, South Carolina—even New Jersey!” Jesus tells him, in effect, that where he’s going isn’t a place, or an elected office for that matter. He’s headed for the cross—and he won’t be staying in a Holiday Inn Express on the way there. More than likely that threw a wet blanket on the would be staffer. “Oh, no room service? Then never mind.”

We might think that Jesus’ call is irresistible and the reaction to it immediate, but the next two encounters in this passage belie that notion. Jesus issues the call to two people—follow me! The first of these would-be’s is willing to leave home and work, but asks Jesus’ understanding that he attend to his father’s funeral first. The second wishes only to say a quick “Goodbye,” to those at home—maybe tell them where he’s off to. Reasonable requests, don’t you think? I’m sure even Ross Perot would have understood and been a little flexible with these two.

But Jesus reacts very un-Jesus-like to his two followers-to-be. “Let the dead tend to the dead,” he tells the first. And to the latter, “You’re can’t be working for me if you’re living in the past.” Pretty harsh. You might expect that kind of stuff from Anne Coulter, but from Jesus Christ? Is Jesus’ campaign delving into the “politics of personal attack,” Or is he simply stating a fact—telling it like it is? It is the latter of course.

Politicians don’t often do that—tell it like it is. Oh, they purport to. But really what they lay out on the table is a form of reality carefully packaged for their target audience. Which may change subtly or extensively, from day to day, state to state, from stop to stop even. Politicians interpret life as they think you would, if you were to then draw the conclusion that they are the best choice to “fix” that reality.

For instance, “We are not secure,” is a reality crafted by politicians who wish to be seen as the ones who will change that. That reality is as much skewed as the one which concludes we can extricate ourselves fully and swiftly, without repercussions, from the disequilibrium we have caused in Iraq and the Middle East.

These are examples of realities painted on the insides of the rose colored glasses politicians give us to wear. We see what they think we think we see. Which is real, as far as perception is reality.

But Jesus isn’t interested in our perceptions—of ourselves or of our world. He deals in truth. And he deals in truth telling. Even when that sounds harsh. And the truth about following Jesus—really following him—is that it takes your total commitment, your total concentration, your whole life! It takes putting everything else in life below your discipleship. Under Jesus.

And that’s a hard teaching! How can God expect us to put Jesus before our spouse? Or in front of our children and families? And what about putting Jesus before our work—wouldn’t that go over great when your boss assigned you Sunday overtime?

The answer to those conundrums is slightly convoluted. If God is first in your life—there will be times you have to sacrifice. The thing is, even though Jesus’ call to follow is a radical one, requiring our total commitment to him, some of the primary things he calls us to do are: to love our spouses and children, to care for the sick and the aging, and to honor God with our vocations. When these things are done selflessly, with deference to Jesus’ lordship over us, they are following Jesus. And yet, even with that in mind, we find it hard to answer Jesus’ call.

Because we are “but-heads.” Not b-u-t-t—that would be rude and ungentlemanly of me. No—I mean b-u-t but-heads. Like the eager beaver in the gospel, “I would have followed you wherever you went, but dude, you don’t even have a bus.” Or the first guy “I will follow, but first let me bury my father.” And the second guy, “I will follow you, Jesus, but let me first say buh-bye to everyone.” Even the Samaritan village, “We might’ve let you come here and preach, but you’re headed for Jerusalem, which is the high holy place for our rivals, the Judeans.”

They were but-heads and we are but-heads. Why? Because we use that word quite liberally as well. “I would have gone to church, but it was such a nice day I thought it would be better to get out and enjoy nature. I would increase my pledge but we have those payments on the boat. I would be a Sunday School teacher, but nobody asked me and I wouldn’t want to seem full of myself. I would join the youth group, but they do that highway pickup thing—I only want to do fun things.” And on and on and on—but, but, but, but.

And the really wild part of all this is, the buts, for the most part, are reasonable. At least that’s our perception of reality. But, like I said, Jesus doesn’t accept our perceptions. He transforms them. He wants to forge a new reality for us. Which he does at first by requiring such total commitment that it is impossible for anyone (anyone!) to decide to follow Jesus on their own accord. So instead of saying “I have decided to follow Jesus,” instead we say, “Lord Jesus, I can never follow you as I ought to, yet still make me a disciple!”

The short of it is this—you don’t vote for Jesus. Jesus isn’t running for anything—he’s the Lord of all! No, you don’t vote for Jesus, Jesus votes for you! And brothers and sisters if you thought Admiral Stockdale was a groaner of a candidate, you should look in the mirror. We are full of excuses, slow to respond, quick to complain, and we make lackluster campaigners at best. And yet Jesus chose us. He chose us to be made new. He chose us to be forgiven the past, so our eyes might always be on the future. He chose us to follow him. And he will equip us and guide us, if we keep out of his way. If we keep the buts out of our relationship with the master. If we let the world take care of the world, and just go and proclaim the kingdom of God. Because in the end, campaigning for Jesus will make the world a better place.

I have been chosen to follow Jesus, I have been chosen to follow Jesus,

I have been chosen to follow Jesus—no turning back, no turning back!