What Spirit do you have? - Part 3.

Intro

Greetings, dear spectators. Welcome to another episode of the series “Isusov život.” My name is João Relić Macedo and, this weekend, I have been studying with you the passage from the Gospel of Luke, chapter nine (9), from verse fifty-one (51) to verse fifty-six (52). On the first I talked about how there is a Jesus before and a Jesus after this passage. And yesterday I talked about how the start of this new phase of Jesus’s ministry had immediate implications for the way others reacted to Jesus. If you haven’t seen those two first sermons, I recommend you stop this video, go back and watch those two sermons, and then come back here for this last part. Today we are going to focus on the last part of the passage. More specifically, we are going to study verses fifty-four (54), fifty-five (55) and fifty-six (56). I would like to invite you to follow the reading of the text. I will be reading, once again, from my own translation, which will probably be different than the text you might have at home. My translation says the following:

54 Having seen this, James and John said: “Lord, do you wish us to command fire to come down from heaven and destroy them?” 55 But he turned around and rebuked them, 56 and they went into another village.

Body

Bio sam presretan jednog poslijepodneva nakon nastave, u mojoj osnovnoj školi u Portugalu. Fabio, moj néprijateljski prijatelj, konačno mi je dozvólio da igram nogomet s njim i njegovim prijateljima. Sada, znam da dopuštanje igranja nogometa nije nešto što je ósobito znáčajno u životu djéteta. Pogotovo za portugalsko dijete, koje bi trebalo igrati nogomet svaki dan. No, tada je to za mene bio vrlo važan događaj. Bilo je važno jer su pravila osnovnoškolskog nógometa jasno propisivala da jedino vlasnik lopte ima moć da odluči tko će igrati, a tko ne. A budući da nisam rođen ni s brzinom Mbáppea ni s tehnikom Neymara, bilo je vrlo neuobičajeno da bilo koji vlasnik lopte dopusti meni da igram. A kamoli Fabio. Ali tog poslijepodneva, iz nekog neobjašnjivog razloga, on je odabrao mene. I ljudi, bio sam željan dokazivanja?

Dakle, kada sam zakoráčio na improvizirani teren, bio sam ponosan, što je bilo dobro. A onda mi je netko dodao loptu. Što je bilo loše, jer nisam znao što dalje. Ali, kad sam podigao pogled, shvatio sam da sam potpuno slobodan. Imao sam jasnu liniju do cilja. Tako sam počeo trčati prema cilju. Moj najbliži prótivnik trčao je pet, deset métara iza mene. A onda sam puknuo i lopta je otišla ravno u gol. I dok sam podizao ruke da proslavim ono što je vjerojatno bio prvi gol u mojoj karijeri, shvatio sam da su svi ostali stali. Svi su me gledali, sa zbunjenim ízrazima lica. Uslijédio je trenutak tišíne. A onde se Fabio počeo smijati, a svi za njim. 'O čovječe, ti si glup', rekao je Fabio. 'Četvorooki, idi provjeri svoj vid', dodao je drugi. Prvih nekoliko trenutaka nisam razumio što se dogodilo. Ali nakon još nekoliko podrúgljivih komentára, konačno sam shvatio da sam zabio autogol. I ajoj… Kako me je bilo sram.

Taj ponos koje sam isprva pokazao, ubrzo je nestao, jer su mi se Fabio i njegovi prijatelji nastavili rugati. Radost koju sam doživio kad su me izábrali da igram nógomet ubrzo se pretvorila u ljutnju. I vjerujte mi da sam bio u stanju udariti tog tipa upravo tamo, upravo tada. Ali jako sam dobro naučio ono što su me moji roditelji i moji učitelji u subotnoj školi naučili. Kršćani se ne bore. A budući da sam želio biti dobar kršćanin, nisam se svađao. Umjesto toga, otrčao sam do svoje mame, koja je bila učiteljica u školi, plačući i žaleći se na Fabia i njegove prijatelje. I, dok je mama mene tjéšila, čuli smo vrísku izvána. Pogledali smo kroz prozor i vidjeli Fabia koji je protrčao pored prozora, a odmah za njim i svi prijatelji koji su mi se rugali. I nekoliko metara za njima, jurio je moj mali brat, dvije godine mlađi od mene. Držao je lopatu iznad glave, s jasnom namjerom da im náudi. Moj brat, mislio sam tada, nije bio pravi kršćanin. On očito nije slušao kad su nam učitelji subotnje škole rekli da se kršćani ne bore. I, naravno, kasnije te večeri moji su mu roditelji držali lékciju upravo o tome.

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When I read these three verses we read a few moments ago, I wonder what kind of lecture would my parents give to James and John, if they belonged to our family? Because, to be honest, commanding fire to come down from heaven to punish the people in the village that rejected Jesus does not really seem to be the most Christian thing to do. And, in a way, Jesus’s reaction to their question kind proves that point. But, if that is the case, then where was this reaction coming from?

In order to answer this question, we must go to the Old Testament, more specifically to the Second (II) Book of Kings. There, at the beginning of the chapter, we find a story involving Ahaziah, the king of Israel, and the famous prophet Elijah. In that story, Ahaziah sends messengers to consult a foreign god about an injury the king had sustained in his palace in Samaria. Elijah, knowing the task the messengers had been given, intercepts them and sends a message back to the king. And when Ahaziah responds to Elijah’s message by sending him fifty (50) soldiers, Elijah asks for fire to come down from heaven and consume the soldiers, which ends up happening.

I don’t want to go too much into that story, but I just wanted to highlight that the number of intertextual links between Elijah’s story of commanding fire to come down from heaven to consume the soldiers, and the passage we are studying this weekend, from Luke, chapter nine (9) is quite remarkable. First, Samaria is designated as the location of both stories. Then, we have the link between the messengers that are send by Jesus and the disciples, and the messengers that are send back and forth between the king and prophet Elijah. Thirdly, we can’t forget that the prophet Elijah, the second biggest figure of Judaism at the time, also appears in the Gospel of Luke, next to Jesus, in the episode of the transfiguration, just a few paragraphs before this passage. And finally, in both stories we have the allusions to fire being sent down from heaven as punishment for the rejection of a divine message.

Having this in mind, there are two aspects that I want to mention, before we move any further. The first is that, from a literary point of view, it seems pretty clear to me that Luke is trying to establish a connection between his story and the story from Second (2nd) Kings. And, if that is the case, then we, as readers of the Bible, must pay attention not only to its similarities but also to its differences, and what those differences actually mean. In this case, the obvious difference is the ending of the two stories. In Second (2nd) Kings, there is Samaria, there is Elijah, there are messengers, and the story finishes with fire coming down from heaven. In Luke, there is Samaria, there is Elijah, there are messengers, but the story does not finish with fire coming down from heaven. This is the first aspect I want to mention.

The second is more connected to the actions of the characters of James and John in this story. As we said yesterday, they were probably not ready for this new stage of Jesus’s ministry. Clearly, the unexpected rejection that they started facing immediately after Jesus had decided to start his final journey to Jerusalem, got translated into frustration and anger. But…having in mind the story from Second (2nd) Kings, I can understand why they thought that it would be a good idea to send fire from heaven. And, just to be clear, I don’t agree it was a good idea, I simply understand why they thought it was a good idea. After all, they were both Jewish men. They probably knew the Old Testament relatively well. And, even if they didn’t know it very well, they for sure had heard of the story of Elijah commanding fire from heaven to destroy the soldiers sent to arrest and possibly kill him. And now, probably recognising the similarities between that story from the Bible and the situation they were living at that moment, they must have simply thought: “We know how the Bible tells us to solve this. Elijah, whom we were with just a couple of days ago, would have sent fire from heaven to consume the people that rejected their message. So, why shouldn’t we?”

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In most contemporary Bibles, there is a considerable portion of Jesus’s response, in verses fifty-five (55) and fifty-six (56) that is missing. A portion that is missing even from my own translation, because I do agree that we don’t have enough evidence to argue that this portion of the text was present in the original text composed by Luke. This being said, I think this longer version of Jesus’s response makes perfect sense in the context of what we are talking about here. Let me read verses fifty-five (55) and fifty-six (56) with the longer response from Jesus. The text says the following:

55 But he turned around and rebuked them, saying: “You do not know what spirit you are of, 56 for the Son of Man has not come to destroy the lives of humans but to save them.” And they went into another village.

In other words: guys, you’re missing the point. We’re not doing things the way you learned anymore, we’re doing things in a different way now. As I already mentioned on Friday evening, Jesus’s mission in the second part of Luke was to go to Jerusalem, regardless of whatever suffering, pain or rejection he had to face, and to die for our sins. Yes, maybe other characters from the Bible had responded to rejection with force. But Jesus was not about that. Jesus was about saving people, not killing people. As we can see from the last part of verse fifty-six (56) Jesus’s response to rejection was simply to move on and find some other people who might better respond to what he was doing.

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My friends, let me ask you: what spirit do you have? How do you respond when your expectations are not fulfilled? How do you respond when you are faced with rejection? Quite often, when we have to deal with those obstacles in our lives, the tendency we have, just like James and John, is to put the blame onto someone else. It’s to get frustrated or angry about it. It’s to look at all of those examples in the Bible in which God has sent fire from heaven to destroy a certain group of evil people and to ask ourselves: “when will God do the same thing with the evil people around me?”

But what I think this passage teaches us is that this is not the Christian way of dealing with rejection. Christians are not supposed to put the blame on someone else. Christians are not supposed to be looking forward to the next opportunity in which God will punish those people we don’t like or don’t agree with. We are not called to have the spirit of James and John. Instead, we are called to have the spirit of Jesus. We are called to save others. We are called to respond to rejection by moving on to the next group of people who might be more receptive to the Good News.

So, as I conclude my sermon today, I would like to ask you once again: what spirit do you have? Do you have the spirit of James and John? Or do you have the spirit of Jesus? How will you, from now onwards, try to respond to rejection and unfulfilled expectations?

Let me pray for you

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Dear God,

We want to thank you again for your willing sacrifice on the Cross

Which give us the ability to be saved.

We want to thank you because you have shared with us the responsibility to work for the salvation of others.

But today we come to you aware that sometimes we don’t react to rejection and unfulfilled expectations in the best possible way...

Just like James and John, we sometimes get frustrated and disappointed, and we don’t respond to that frustration and disappointment in the best way.

So, we would like to ask you to give us your Spirit.

Guides us to the people who are in need of your Good News

And teach us how to love them

Even when they reject us or reject you.

Open our eyes to your ways

So that we may never again fall in our own ways.

We pray for this

In the name of Jesus

Amen

Conclusion

Dear spectators, thank you for being with us this weekend. This is the end of our study on the passage of Luke, chapter nine (9), verses fifty-one (51) to fifty-six (56). But the series Isusov život does not end here. Next weekend we will have three more Bible studies on yet another important chapter of Jesus’s life. Have a good night, and see you next week.