SUNDAY, JUNE 29, 2025 | AFTER PENTECOST PROPER 8 (C)

Good morning,

We’ve had a rather hot week, wouldn’t you agree? Sizzling hot. Perhaps to bring us more in tune with the weather that Jesus must have been having before his last journey to Jerusalem. And no cars or buildings with AC! It’s wonder they just keep moving as much as they did.

So they travel quite a bit - Luke is not big on geography, but we can infer that they started in Capernaum by the Sea of Galilee, past Nain, and then they reached Ginae, the Samaritan village where they were rejected and then walked down Samaria to Perea and then through Jericho and then finally to Jerusalem.

Some 125 miles and about one week of travel if not more. The Samaritan village is about 1/3 of the way, so it might be understandable that the disciples started being a little bit grouchy. Luckily, Jesus was more reasonable as he understood that the Samaritans were not all about him as he headed to Jerusalem, their rival holy site.

On the road from there, they meet wannabe followers and Jesus challenges them to a radical break with their way of life to follow him - to abandon their homes, not bury their dead, and not to say goodbye to those left behind.

In a world, where the extended family represented so much, not only as a source of their status, but also functioned as the primary economic, religious, educational, and social network, that is a biiiig ask for sure. I can understand if they weren’t too keen on that. Luke likely reflects a reality that many Christians in his time faced as joining the early Christian movement could mean disenfranchisement from their family of origin.

They would join what we call a surrogate family, A group of believers, which quickly transcended the normal categories of birth, social status, education, wealth, and power, although it did not as readily dismiss categories of gender and race.

For those already disconnected from their biological family, such as noninheriting sons, orphans, or refugees, such a group can be a genuine refuge, a physical and social representation of the good news and a foretaste of the Kingdom of God. For those with a strong connection to their family, it may have posed a challenge and required some risk taking. The twelve disciples did that, but take note that not everybody they met along the way did.

The formerly possessed man from our text last week was ready as he surely did not have much family to connect with after the time spent possessed. The readers of Luke and this passage especially may have either felt comforted that they did that or perhaps challenged as they have not fully committed themselves to the cause.

And it may be similarly with us! Most likely not as much disenfranchisement from our families (even though it still happens), but more so from our peer groups or society. It is mostly easy to be a self-proclaimed Christian in inertly Christian environment, but to be an active follower and disciple of Jesus? That is bound to ruffle at least a few feathers every now and then.

To act as citizens of Kingdom of God is perspective changing. At my turn to Christ was an important video by Brian McLaren that I still like to revisit every now and then, quote:

“What does the Kingdom of God means? Well, it changes the way you look at people who are different - you stop, rich look at the poor in a different way; the poor look at the rich in a different way; people look at people of other races and other religions in a different way; you can’t look at someone of a different political party the same way and be faithful to the kingdom of God. The Kingdom of God makes you look at creation in a different way - you look at the trees, and the sky, and the air and the water in a different way; this is now my Father’s world, my Father’s beautiful artwork that it’s not just natural resource for me to make a buck off of. If you are taking the Kingdom of God seriously, you look at peace and reconciliation and conflict and war in a very different way. It’s easy if you are in the kingdom of this world to bomb people and kill people and throw them in prison and throw away the key...[but] if you are a part of the kingdom of God, you can’t treat other people that way you have to look at it from a new perspective.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zMY2-ksZ68A&list=FL9Z50CmDzTf5fKuzrkQFQtg&index=7&ab_channel=H%C3%A9ctorDavid

Families establish values and I would say that for the Christian surrogate family, it is the principles of the Kingdom of God that sum up well what Jesus cares about and thus God cares about:

The thirsty, the hungry, the imprisoned, the poor, the displaced...and more than that, Jesus calls on us to love our enemies!

That is a radical break with our zeitgeist, where perceived enemies and “undesirables” such as Muslims, undocumented immigrants, queer people, trans youth, or women seeking reproductive healthcare are routinely dehumanized, humiliated, vilified, or worse for some of these, taken by masked armed men into unmarked vans, detained for days, weeks, or more, and even deported without proper access to due process. That is not in line with the values of the Kingdom of God!

What is Jesus calling on you to divest, reject, and refuse? We no longer have to do a radical break with our families for the most part, but we are still called to a break with society’s norms where they do not line up with that of our new surrogate family. It is not an easy path to follow, but it is one that leads to the loving arms of God and the peace of Christ. Amen.

1Kings:

Elisha becomes prophet

Galatians:

By contrast, the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, 23 gentleness, and self-control. There is no law against such things. 24 And those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires. 25 If we live by the Spirit, let us also be guided by the Spirit.

Revised Common Lectionary (Bellingham, WA: Faithlife, 2009).

Luke:

Just because someone does not receive you is not an excuse to punish them

On following: Jesus is on the move; it’s important to look forward and not to linger

Reversal of Expected Status Rules Still Not Understood 9:51–56

Textual Notes: Luke 9:51–56

9:51–56: Many interpreters of Luke consider these verses to be the pivotal passage signaling the beginning of Jesus’ final trip to Jerusalem. From here on Luke suppresses place-names known from the other Synoptics in order to focus on Jerusalem. In this passage, the Samaritans do not show Jesus hospitality because Jesus intended only to pass through Samaria and not hold up there: “his face was set toward Jerusalem.” Of course, the Samaritans perceive this as a slight, while James and John view such a refusal to provide hospitality as insulting; hence their desire to get satisfaction by “commanding fire from the sky” as Elijah did (see 2 Kgs 1:9–16). The reaction of these disciples provokes a rebuke from Jesus. Moreover, the rejection of Jesus by a Samaritan village underscores the break between the Jesus group and a normal, settled way of life.

Bruce J. Malina and Richard L. Rohrbaugh, Social-Science Commentary on the Synoptic Gospels, Second Edition (Minneapolis, MN: Fortress Press, 2003), 267.

Precedence of Jesus’ Surrogate Family over Biological Family 9:57–62

Textual Notes: Luke 9:57–62

9:57–62: As previously noted, the rejection of Jesus by a Samaritan village underscores the break between the Jesus group and a normal, settled way of life. In all three of the subsequent exchanges about following Jesus (see the Note at Luke 5:11), the issue of breaking with one’s biological kin group and the social network in which it is embedded is sharply raised.

9:58: In the first instance, it is clarified that followers will adopt a socially deviant lifestyle away from home. The figure here consists of two concrete, imaginable scenes (foxes and birds) followed by an abstract, moral conclusion. The conclusion does not mean Jesus “has nowhere to lay his head.”

9:59: In the second instance, obligations of high importance to biological family are rejected. Proper burial of relatives was considered one’s highest moral duty.

9:61: In the third, the opportunity to ease the break with family is denied. There can now be no doubt about the radical quality of the break that following Jesus requires, nor about Luke’s understanding of its cost. Surrogate Family.

Bruce J. Malina and Richard L. Rohrbaugh, Social-Science Commentary on the Synoptic Gospels, Second Edition (Minneapolis, MN: Fortress Press, 2003), 268.

In the Mediterranean world of antiquity the extended family meant everything. It was not only the source of one’s status in the community, but also functioned as the primary economic, religious, educational, and social network. Loss of connection to the family meant the loss of these vital networks as well as any connection to the land. Loss of family was the most serious loss one could sustain.

Yet a surrogate family, what anthropologists call a fictive kin group, could serve the same functions as a family of biological origin. Jesus groups, acting as surrogate families, are the locus of the good news for all the Gospel writers. It quickly transcended the normal categories of birth, social status, education, wealth, and power, although it did not as readily dismiss categories of gender and race. Followers of Jesus are “brothers.” For those already detached from their families of origin (for example, noninheriting sons who go to the city), a surrogate family could become a place of genuine refuge.

Bruce J. Malina and Richard L. Rohrbaugh, Social-Science Commentary on the Synoptic Gospels, Second Edition (Minneapolis, MN: Fortress Press, 2003), 414.