John and James Like Fire

Illustration Part 1

There’s a new comedy series on Netflix called Mr. Iglesias. It places the well-known comedian, Gabriel Iglesias, in the role of the “cool history teacher” at his alma mater high school. In the first episode, we find Mr. Iglesias, (dressed in shorts a red button up shirt and a red golf hat to match), teaching the last 5 minutes of his class on the last day of school and having fun connecting with the students when the principal comes in and informs the teenagers that she looks forward to seeing “some of them” the next year.

Throughout the day, many of his students come to him and reveal letters that they have received informing them that they have been “counseled out of school.” While a few of them are hopeful that this means that they have graduated or, at the very least, that they no longer must worry about coming to class the following year, Gabriel Iglesias recognizes that many of these unique kids who he had been connecting with are being expelled. The question that he has for the principal is, why.

What he learns is that it is all about school performance—school metrics. You see, these kids are, quote, “underperformers.” Either they aren’t making the grade, they’re having disciple issues, or their attendance is not up to par. The school’s funding is dependent on having high performance levels amongst the students, and the administration has decided that the easiest path toward stronger numbers is to cut those who are failing to meet the mark rather than trying to reach those hard cases.

While the show is a comedy, I think it hits us with a hard truth. There can be a temptation in society to cut someone or something that feels like it is more trouble than it is worth. We have a desire to be in control… to decide who is in and who is out.

Our Text Today

Our Gospel reading today is about the call to discipleship. The second half of the text in particular we feel that being lifted up. As Jesus and the disciples are travelling along the road they have three individuals who run up to them and declare their desire to follow Jesus. And, generally, those are the verses that we focus on as we try to glean what wisdom we might for our lives today.

We hear this message from Jesus that being his follower does not make for an easy life. Rather, to truly be a follower of Christ means that we put ourselves and our desires second to God’s calling. And at least, if I’m honest, that’s what I would prefer to preach about. There is that nice morale lesson for us there that is neatly wrapped and that we’re accustomed to hearing. But here’s the thing… there’s a bit more to the story.

Prior to this scene of three people running up to Jesus declaring their interest in being his followers, Jesus and his disciples look to enter a village… a village of the Samaritans. Jesus even sends messengers on ahead of him to let the village know that he is on the way so that they might be ready for him. But instead, the villagers refuse to receive Jesus because he has his face set on Jerusalem.

Here’s the part that I wish we could have just skipped over. James and John’s response to the villagers’ refusal to receive Jesus. What do they want to do? They ask Jesus if he wants them to command fire to come out of the heavens and teach those villagers a lesson. These two disciples can’t wait to punish those knuckleheaded villagers. They are so confident in themselves and so eager to show not just Christ’s power but, perhaps more importantly, their own authority.

James and John likely remembered the stories of the great Prophet Elijah from 2 Kings who called down fire from the heavens on soldiers not once but twice. Now, James and John are ready and willing to be the ones who ask for those flames come down. They want to know what it is like to wield the fury of God against someone else. They want to wipe away those who were bogging them down and disrupting their path. They believed a line had been drawn in the sand and now they could righteously condemn those on the other side of it.

Politics Today

As we hear this story, I can’t help but draw similarities to what we see in society today. If we disagree with someone or find ourselves on opposing sides, especially of the political divide, there seems to be a great desire to call down fire against our opponents.

There is an eagerness to focus on what makes us ideologically different from one another rather than remembering what it is that unites us. We have leaders of our government calling those on the other side of the political isle traitors. The rallying cry becomes less about what policies will be enacted for the good of the people, but instead the cries become choose us, not them. We are good, they are evil. More lines are drawn in the sand and you are either with them or against them. Middle ground seems to be more and more scarce.

What deeply vexes me about the current political climate is that it gives permission that we can seemingly dismiss our neighbors as inconsequential. Instead of seeing fellow Americans with different ideas for what success might look like in our country, that neighbor becomes a stumbling block that needs to be removed.

Letter to the Senator

In Oklahoma we have the divisive issue of children who had crossed into the United States unaccompanied. As many of you may know, Fort Sill is scheduled to receive as many as 1,400 children soon and could end up holding them through at least the end of September.

One side of the coin is upset that we have allowed them to reside within the United States at all. The other side is upset that they are being held at Fort Sill because of its history—a history of interning the Japanese-Americans during World War II as well as being the final holding place and eventual burial site for Geronimo.

This last week I wrote a letter to our Senators and local representatives to beseech that rather than deal with these children as a problem, that we instead seek to understand them as guests that we might care for in our state. I encouraged transparency of their living conditions for the state as well as the request that if the children have any unmet needs that those needs be made public so that we Oklahomans could show hospitality and care for these children while they are with us. Rather than treating these children as an “issue” I encouraged that we treat them as children who need help—because that is what they are.

Rather than trying to decide who is worthy of our care and who is not… who is standing on our side of the line and who is on the other side… we are instead called to care for those we are entrusted with no matter which side we would prefer to be on. That goes from the federal level all the way down to what you and I do each and every day.

Illustration Part 2

Now, getting back to the story about Mr. Iglesias: The cool comedian history teacher sat down and had a conversation with one of his former teachers who reminded him how he had been mentored as a teenager. Mr. Iglesias becomes inspired to try to take the hard road and try to help those kids who were being cast away. And the end of the show reveals Mr. Iglesias giving up his dream road trip for the summer and chooses to teach a special summer school program for the misfits of the school who were being expelled

He goes to bat for those kids and sacrifices his own time so that they could have another chance at high school. While the kids do not all seem particularly grateful that they have summer school, the episode ends beautifully as we see Mr. Iglesias investing himself into these kids that others were ready to just give up on.

Christ Investing In Us

What we are reminded of in our scripture today is that despite our inclinations to draw lines in the sand when people frustrate us, Christ does not call for the hellfire and brimstone. Christ does not draw lines nor does he seem to even recognize when we try to draw lines. Christ does not condemn… but rather Christ continues with urgency with his face toward Jerusalem.

He travels with haste and reminds those who wish to follow him that discipleship with him means taking a road that is not easy—one that means sacrificing our judgements of others, leaving our old lives behind, and travelling with the express purpose of caring for the world.

Christ travels with that urgency all the way to the cross, so suffer and die… to invest himself mind, body, and spirit into us that you and I might be made free from lines that divide.

This week and in upcoming weeks, I encourage you to consider what lines in the sand you draw—and I say that because we all do it, including me. Consider what lines in the sand you draw of who you include and who you leave out. Consider how you might bridge over the lines and love even those who do not love you back. Let us consider what this call to discipleship means as we are called out of our comfort zones to invest ourselves in those around us just as Christ first invested in the world.