By Jared Warner
Willow Creek Friends Church
June 29, 2025
Click Here to Join our Meeting For Worship
Luke 9:51–62 (ESV)
51 When the days drew near for him to be taken up, he set his face to go to Jerusalem. 52 And he sent messengers ahead of him, who went and entered a village of the Samaritans, to make preparations for him. 53 But the people did not receive him, because his face was set toward Jerusalem. 54 And when his disciples James and John saw it, they said, “Lord, do you want us to tell fire to come down from heaven and consume them?” 55 But he turned and rebuked them. 56 And they went on to another village. 57 As they were going along the road, someone said to him, “I will follow you wherever you go.” 58 And Jesus said to him, “Foxes have holes, and birds of the air have nests, but the Son of Man has nowhere to lay his head.” 59 To another he said, “Follow me.” But he said, “Lord, let me first go and bury my father.” 60 And Jesus said to him, “Leave the dead to bury their own dead. But as for you, go and proclaim the kingdom of God.” 61 Yet another said, “I will follow you, Lord, but let me first say farewell to those at my home.” 62 Jesus said to him, “No one who puts his hand to the plow and looks back is fit for the kingdom of God.”
Last week, we discussed Elijah. As I spoke about him I mentioned the historic tension between Israel and Judah. This tension did not go away. It remained present in the time of Jesus, it even remains today in some degree. When we read scripture it is important to remember that the passages we read are largely from the perspective of Judah. When David moved the Ark of the Covenant to Jerusalem, and when Solomon built the Temple, Judah centralized the Jewish faith. This centralization demanded that everyone must travel to Jerusalem to worship at the temple. This is a religious and political stance.
Today we may not recognize just how much this changed the climate in the kingdoms of Israel. We live in a culture that has freedom of religion. This means that the government cannot make a law dictating when, where, or how we worship. Our government cannot make a law demanding that we worship. It is legal for an atheist, a Muslim, someone of Jewish decent, or a variety of Christian churches to live within this nation and express their beliefs or lack there of freely. We should continue to support this freedom because it is important. Why you might be asking. Why would I as a pastor support the freedom of an atheist? I support this freedom because scripture supports it.
Judah, under David and Solomon, centralized the worship of God. Everyone was required to worship God in one way, in one place, at the same time. Everyone had to go to the capital of the nation, this is a breeding ground for corruption and spiritual abuse. And that is what occurred. Those that opposed this were deemed to be apostate and were forced to live outside of the civil society, and eventually these people rebelled against the government.
This happens throughout history. It is the story within our own nation. This week we will be celebrating Independence Day. We will celebrate by spending way too much money on things that go boom. But why do we celebrate and what are we celebrating?
If we were to look at our own history we would find that people, our ancestors, or even ourselves, came to this land seeking something that they could not have in the place they once lived. In the Bay colonies they sought to worship as they desired. In the Virginia colonies they sought financial independence. In Pennsylvanian our spiritual ancestors performed something Penn would call the Holy Experiment. We came for reasons, and we left a place where those things were not available.
What happened? Well the Bay colonies did establish a society where they could worship as they desired, but you could only worship as the leaders desired. In the south they did find financial independence for those that took a chance to make that trip, but that financial independence came with a great social cost, as that financial freedom was gained through the exploitation labor.
We often only see the positive side of history, we tend to overlook the negative aspects. But I want us to look deeper at the Bay colonies for a moment. The people that left Europe to settle around Plymouth wanted to religious freedom. They left England because they did not agree with the direction the Church of England was going. They first went to Holland where there was great liberty, but quickly these asylum seekers became nervous that the liberal culture would aversely influence their religious group. They then chartered a ship to sail across the Atlantic and eventually came to Plymouth. There they did establish a society where their faith could be fully lived. But soon the governmental leaders began to use their faith to make laws and to influence society. Well meaning individuals in their righteousness began to make laws forcing religious aberrance. Then one day a woman by the name of Mary came preaching.
It was not proper in their society for a woman to teach scripture or to teach men, so they arrested her, tried and convicted her, and led her out to Boston Commons to be executed. This woman had a rope around her neck when the judge came forward and stayed the execution. Instead of losing her life, the judge exiled Ms. Dyer. But she was compelled to minster as she was a Quaker, so she continued to pursue the ministry she was called to participate in, and she eventually found herself in the same situation again. This time the judge did not spare her life and she was executed for her religious beliefs.
Our history books teach us that our nation was founded on the ideas of liberty. This liberty came with a cost. It was the life of Mary Dyer that drove England and her colonies to adopt religious freedom, because society as a whole found the execution of a woman professing Christ to be distasteful.
The liberty that we celebrate this week was not only won by soldiers on the battle field. It was formed by the lives of many individuals: women, enslaved laborers, immigrants seeking asylum, and a desire to live our lives as think is best.
Judah sought to centralize political and religious life, and ten of the twelve tribes rejected that idea. Elijah the prophet of God, was from one of those rejecting tribes. We look at those ten tribes with disdain because they left God and sought foreign gods, but we often do not acknowledge the fact that society contributed to their fall. For centuries there was this elitism that surrounded these two cultural groups. Judah was the chosen line the line of David and they took that to mean that they had the divine right and mandate to rule every aspect of life. Yet Elijah did not worship in Jerusalem, the father of the prophets whose teachings were preserved in Judah’s scriptures rejected the notion that Judah owned God.
This divide continued. It lasted through the years of exile, and remained in the days of Christ. In today’s passage we are told that Jesus set his face to go to Jerusalem. This is an idiomatic way of saying that he was determined to go. Everyone knew what awaited him when he would get to that place, yet Jesus was determined and his disciples were willing to go with him even to death.
Jesus made his way to Jerusalem through Samaria. Remember there is a centuries long division between the people of Judah and those of Samaria. They no longer saw themselves as brothers and children of Israel, instead they see themselves as enemies. The mere fact that Jesus would go through Samaria to get to Jerusalem was bold. This was the most direct route to take, but old tensions remained. The people of Samaria would often take offense to people that were traveling through their lands to go to Jerusalem, if a traveler was lucky they would be denied hospitality, if they were not lucky they would find themselves in dire financial ruin. As a result most people that needed to travel from Galilee to Jerusalem, would revise their route to bypass Samaria completely. Jesus did not do this. Instead he walked directly in.
He sent his disciples ahead of him, to make preparations. This meant that they ran ahead into the village to secure lodging and food for the group. But the people of that community did not receive him. They inquired why they wanted to come into their community and once they heard that they were going through Samaria to go to Jerusalem, they refused hospitality. This angered the disciples of Jesus, James and John. They felt as if they were being canceled, judged, discriminated against. And they did not like it one bit.
I want us to think about this for a moment. It is true that they were being denied service. But why were they being denied service? A few years ago there was a story in the news that a baker was being sued for not baking a cake for a wedding for a same gendered couple. Many within the Christian community were greatly annoyed by this, they sent money to support this business’s legal fees and we went to our governments to petition laws based on freedom of religion. We were right in many ways, but we were also wrong. We were wrong because we were upset just as James and John were upset.
Jesus had set his face toward Jerusalem, he was traveling for religious reasons, and this Samaritan village did not receive him for the very same reasons. They had no desire to promote or accommodate a religious practice they did not agree with. Do you think our contemporary Evangelical legal defense ministries would go to take up the case of the Samaritan inn keeper? Would Christian radio come to the defense of of the Samaritan restaurant owners that refused to give service to individuals based on their preferences?
I am asking this with all seriousness. We can become blinded by our righteousness. We in our efforts to make our society follow our ideals can turn a blind eye to the reality around us. We defend a baker because we agree with them, yet we shun entire denominations because they see things differently. We are willing to hang Mary Dyer because she had the gall to preach, when we came to this land to worship freely.
James and John saw the lack of hospitality and they said, “Lord, do you want us to tell fire to come down from heaven and consume them?”
Why would they say this? I have spoken a great deal about Elijah. And we all know that Elijah once called fire from the heavens in a spiritual dual with the prophets of Baal. Although this story happened in the land of Samaria, that is not what the sons of thunder are referring to. They are making reference to an older story in the history of Israel. We know that place as Sodom. Most of us have heard about this place, we often hear reference of it in religious circles in opposition of certain lifestyle choices, but there is one aspect of the story that we often do not hear. Why was Sodom destroyed by fire from heaven? Most of us will say it is because they wanted to have their way with the visitors that came to Lot. But that is not the teaching of scripture. In the writings of the prophet Ezekiel, Sodom’s sin was a combination of arrogance, overindulgence, neglect of the poor and needy, their lack of compassion, and hospitality. Sodom was consumed by divine fire because they were inhospitable, not because of relational preferences. And this is what the Sons of Thunder are speaking of. This land, Samaria, in their eyes is as bad as Sodom and God should annihilate them for their selfishness and inhospitality.
It is true they are behaving in a way contrary to the teachings of scripture. Throughout the Old Testament and the teachings of Jesus in the New, we are encouraged to give aide to the travelers, we are encouraged to make sure the widows and the orphans have food and lodging. We are to care for the less fortunate. And Samaria is neglecting this teaching. They, like in the days of Elijah, have sought after foreign ideas instead of holding to the teachings of God. James and John have justifiable anger. But Jesus does not encourage them in this. Instead he rebukes them.
The idea of rebuke here is one of severe chastisement. It is the same word that is used against unclean spirits and used to describe the Jesus’s statement to Peter when Peter objects to Jesus’ future trial and execution, “Get behind me Satan!” Jesus rebukes the righteous not the sinner.
I want us to just sit with that for a moment.
This entire community in Samaria rejected Jesus. They would not let him stay for a single night. When his disciples complained about the inhospitality, Jesus rebuked them and not the people of Samaria.
The disciples have walked with Jesus, they had listened to his words, observed his actions, participated in his lifestyle every day for nearly three years. He showed them a different type of lifestyle than the lifestyle of the world. The world seeks power and influence. They want wealth, and recognition. Jesus goes on to teach, “the sinners lord it, their power, over others.” and tell his disciples, “that is not so among you.” Meaning the world seeks power so they can force others to do what they think is right, but the true follower of Jesus does what is right with the hope that others will choose to join them. James and John were resorting back to the ways of the world. They were wanting to force Samaria to do what was right, instead of showing them a better way. That is not the ways, or the teachings of the Kingdom.
They continue to walk toward another village, and as they walk people come out of the surrounding comminutes. Samaria is not opposed to Jesus, they are opposed to Jerusalem. Just as it is today. People reject what we make religion, yet many embrace the ideas Jesus taught. Someone says to Jesus, “I will follow you wherever you go.” This shows us that there is a desire even in this seemingly unrighteous nation of Samaria that people wanted to follow Jesus.
Jesus answers this individual saying, “Foxes have holes, and birds of the air have nests, but the Son of Man has nowhere to lay his head.” Jesus is saying here that no matter where we are, the ways of Jesus will be rejected. The Samaritan village rejected him because he set his face toward Jerusalem. His own disciples rejected him because they wanted to call fire down from heaven to force the acceptance of God’s teachings. We will always find ourselves on the wrong side of society when we follow Jesus.
Ninety percent of what I have said in the sermon has probably made you squirm a bit. When I say David was wrong, we squirm because we love David. He was a man after God’s own heart, but David was a man, he was not perfect. He did things in his life that were sinful and I am not only talking about his lust. I have said that Sodom was judged not because they practiced homosexuality but instead because they were inhospitable, and we squirm. We squirm, even though scripture itself says they were judged for that reason and not what our contemporary religious narrative claims. I even say that our freedom was not achieved by the sacrifice of soldiers but include women and the enslaved in our quest for liberty. And we squirm because we have ideas in our mind that there are certain things that are right. A true follower of Jesus does not fit nicely in a box, because to follow Jesus means we must live our faith every moment of every day. We cannot just rest and say I have attended a Meeting for Worship so I am good. We must instead take what we learn today and live that out in our community.
Another individual is among those that came to Jesus as he walked, and Jesus says to them, “Follow me.” That man is excited, and says to Jesus, “Lord, let me first go and bury my father.” Let me first take care of my business. Let me first get my life in order. Let me first… there are many things in life that we would like to accomplish. Jesus is not going to wait on us to finish what we think is important. He wants us to live for him now. I became a pastor before I went to school to become a pastor. I do not necessarily recommend this, but when we put things off we may never get to it. We need to live for Jesus now in this moment, as well as tomorrow and the day after. We cannot wait, because the kingdom is now.
And another says, “I will follow you Lord, but let me first say farewell to those at my home.” Let me first make sure those around me know I am doing this. Let me first get acceptance and recognition. Jesus says to this individual, “No one who puts his hand to the plow and looks back is fit for the kingdom of God.”
This last statement is the one that hits me the hardest. I have worked a field and I know how hard it is to keep the lines straight. My dad would often tell me to make sure the lines are straight because everyone in the entire county would be judging me and him if I had crooked lines in the field. I took this to heart growing up. I did everything in my power to keep the lines straight and I rarely did. As recently as last summer my dad got after me about my lines in the field.
There is only one way to keep the lines straight. It is to look ahead and to not worry about what is behind you. You have to look at the goal not where you are. And as you are looking forward you make adjustments based on your desired end not your current situation. This man wants to say farewell, his focus is short sighted, instead of on the desired goal.
Each of these interactions are focused on the same thing. The rebuke of James and John, and the three interactions with people along the road. Each of the people have their attention diverted. James and John are averted because of righteousness, another is diverted because of acceptance, another accomplishment, and the last recognition from others. Jesus rebukes each of these. And yet there are profound teachings in the commanding verbs that are used. Follow, let, leave, proclaim, and again let.
Let is the one that occurs twice. Jesus did not uses these verbs but they were the verbs that the people he encountered used. Permit me to do this. Give me permission to do this or that. So we can take these away. Let me first go and bury my father. Let me first say farewell. This is our desire to control God. But Jesus does not accept this. This leaves us with three words of teaching: Follow, Leave, and Proclaim.
The first is to follow Jesus. This is to behave as Jesus would behave, to take on his lifestyle. The second is to leave. In this instance Jesus says leave the dead to bury the dead. This means to permit, and is similar to let, but in this case Jesus is telling us to follow him, and to permit the rest of the world to do what they want. You might think that is a terrible thing to say, but we are to leave that behind and continue straight ahead following him. And the last teaching is to proclaim. This means to announce broadly. As we follow Jesus, as we leave the ways of the world behind us we should boldly proclaim in all that we do where our hope is found.
St. Francis is credited with this statement. “Preach the gospel at all times and when necessary use words.” This is what Jesus is teaching us. Live the life and lifestyle of Jesus wherever we are. Take the discrimination and inhospitably of the world and move forward. Let go of the accomplishments and recognition that give us position within our world’s societies, and instead move straight ahead toward Jesus. Showing those people around us what life with Jesus is, not just with our words but in our actions. How we interact with those around us, and how we love.
We live in a society that likes to proclaim liberty. Yet we so often hinder. We like to proclaim freedom, yet we bind. We have liberty and freedom because we live it, not for ourselves but for those around us. We have religious freedom, because Mary Dyer died so others could have it. We have labor laws because people opposed exploitive practices not only for themselves but for others. We have these things because people in the past sacrificed themselves for us. And that is what Jesus is calling us to do. We are to proclaim the kingdom, give hospitality, feed the poor, welcome immigrant, and help those in need in our lives here and now. We are to sacrifice ourselves for others as we walk straight ahead to Jesus. Are we willing?
Previous Messages:
Broken Dreams Restored
By Jared Warner Willow Creek Friends Church April 05, 2026 Click here to join our Meeting for Worship Click to read in Swahili Bofya kusoma kwa Kiswahili John 20:1–18 (ESV) 1 Now on the first day of the week Mary Magdalene came to the tomb early, while it was still dark, and saw that the…
The Mind of Christ
By Jared Warner Willow Creek Friends Church March 29, 2026 Click here to Join our Meeting for Worship Click to read in Swahili Bofya kusoma kwa Kiswahili Query 3: Do you attend regularly the services of your church and participate in them actively? Do you prayerfully endeavor to minister, under the guidance of the Holy…
Walk as Children of Light
By Jared Warner Willow Creek Friends Church March 15, 2026 Click here to join our Meeting for Worship Click to read in Swahili Bofya kusoma kwa Kiswahili Ephesians 5:8–14 (ESV) 8 for at one time you were darkness, but now you are light in the Lord. Walk as children of light 9 (for the fruit…
To Donate to Willow Creek Friends Church Click here:
To donate directly to Pastor Warner click here:
Discover more from Jwquaker's Blog
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.
Discussion
No comments yet.