The daily office gospel readings for yesterday and today (Luke 9:51-10:16, cumulatively) offer some guidance, albeit very stark and disturbing guidance. At the end of Chapter 9, Jesus is met by several aspiring disciples who are all asked to “follow me” in one form or another. In each case, however, there’s something the disciple must do first before being free to join Jesus’ band. One has had a death in the family and must go bury his father, another wants to bid farewell to his family before leaving. In both cases, Jesus demands that they drop everything and immediately follow him. “Let the dead bury their own dead,” he says, and, “No one who puts a hand to the plough and looks back is fit for the kingdom of God.”
Then, as Chapter 10 begins, Jesus commissions pairs of disciples to go out as advance men, preparing the way for Jesus and proclaiming his message. His instructions are quite austere (this is where the 12th Century Cathars get their extreme vision of the “perfected” Christian life) but in particular his condemnation of those towns that will not listen to his disciples is particularly harsh—so unlike Luke’s “gentle Jesus” portrayal that it truly stands out in my mind.
What to make of all this? It’s possible to attribute some of the harshness to the bitterness early Christians felt about being rejected by their contemporary Jewish neighbors, but Luke’s gospel is more oriented towards Hellenized Jews (the “Greeks” in scriptural terminology), a group that was already culturally apart from more orthodox Hebraic Jews; anger over rejection is not a thread in Luke’s writings the way it is in John, for instance.
No, there’s something deeper going on. Although I still struggle with what these passages really mean, I take away a lesson in committment: there are no half-measures in being a follower of Christ. I’m either in or out, and to be in means to give my whole self over to God’s will, even when that will takes me to places that are uncomfortable, disturbing. This is a hard concept, and I temper it with the knowledge that God’s essential message is one of love, both of and for God and of and for my neighbors. If God takes me to places that are uncomfortable and disturbing, it is for the sake of love—it is up to me to discern where love comes into play and what my role is in manifesting it.
