Sermon Tone Analysis

From now on, right until he arrives in Jerusalem Jesus and His disciples are on the road.

In fact, Jesus is steadfastly set on getting to Jerusalem and its crescendo will be the triumphant entrance through the Mount of Olives and the Eastern Gate.

For those of you at the Ladies Guild on Thursday you will know that this will be the fulfilment of Daniel’s prophecy as well as many others.

Luke mentions the fact they are on the road ten times in the next ten chapters.

What is looming large in the mind of our Saviour is the work that He had come to do.

The work of the cross was THE reason Jesus had come and why He was in a hurry to get it done.

The disciples were amazed though at Jesus for the words of Jesus had not sunk in:

As they were on the way they stopped at a particular village of people who were antagonistic to the Jews, who worshipped in their place rather than at the Temple in Jerusalem.

And it was obvious to all that Jesus was not in the mood for staying but for getting to Jerusalem, so much so that the people of this village wanted nothing to do with Him.

They rejected Him openly.

And this is not at all surprising for I said the Samaritans were antagonistic to the Jews but it was also vice versa:

W. O. E. Oesterley, The Gospel Parables in the Light of Their Jewish Background (New York: Macmillan, 1936), p. 162, writes:

To the Jews the Samaritans were “strangers,” and were regarded with supreme contempt; the scribes had an especial dislike for them.

The Samaritans were publicly cursed in the synagogues; and a petition was daily offered up praying God that the Samaritans might not be partakers.

The testimony of a Samaritan was inadmissible in Jewish courts.

Did you hear that?

The Jews actively prayed when they met together that the Samaritans would not receive eternal life.

Well then, it is no wonder that James and John, after being indoctrinated in such a way would say the crazy things they did: Do you want us to call down fire from Heaven upon them?! Well, I think that they have exceeded the bounds of their authority!

They, of course, had no such power.

And they used the illustration of Elijah who was used to truly bring fire down from Heaven.

On two occasions this happened: 1) to demonstrate that Lord God of Israel truly is God in contradistinction to the gods other people were worshipping and 2) to demonstrate God’s power over those who were rebelling against Him.

The Samaritans did not reject Jesus because He is God but because He is a Jew and this because the Jews rejected had them.

No sooner had these words come from the mouths of these two sons of thunder, as Jesus called them, that He rebuked them and their attitude.

God does not revel in the death of the wicked or those who reject Him.

He desires instead that they would come to Him and realise the error of their ways.

And here we have another of those ‘for this purpose’ statements from the lips of Jesus: I did not come to destroy but to save.

And so they moved on to another place.

Hear the compassion of the Lord.

He does not want to see people’s lives ruined but repaired, reconciled again to God.

There was no anger, no disappointment, no discouragement, just pity that they chose to reject Him and so they went to find people who would receive the message of eternal life found in Christ alone.

For those who would travel with Jesus there is ‘no turn or burn in hell and I hope you do burn’ attitude.

We, also, are to have compassion and not retaliate when we are rejected.

Now we come to some hard things in relation to following Jesus.

We have to be careful not to tone down the demands that Jesus makes.

We all know the song:

“I have decided to follow Jesus.

I have decided to follow Jesus.

I have decided to follow Jesus.

No turning back.

No turning back.”

Well, if this is the case then what do we make of these next verses:

The first man said: I’ll follow You! Look! We’d say: ‘He’s decided!’

I think that we’d say: ‘Great, glad to have you along for the journey.’

But Jesus sees the heart.

There was something that was going to keep him from keeping on further up the road.

You see, we are told by Matthew that this man is a Scribe.

Wow!

To have a scribe on your side we would jump at the chance seeing as most were antagonistic to Jesus.

The scribe said that he would follow wherever you will go.

There were quite a number of travelling rabbis in these days each with their own little following.

We know that Jesus had quite an entourage with Him already for we know of the 12 Disciples and the 70 that He sent out - that’s 83 of them on the road along with many others, some who loved Him, some who hated Him, some hangers-on seeing where all this will lead.

No doubt because of the many miracles Jesus had performed people knew He was a man of God, maybe the One who will topple the Roman Occupation and Herod.

And the Scribe has got caught up in the moment thinking, perhaps, for we can only use conjecture, that he was looking for his place among the Palace dignities once all this has played out.

He wanted to attach his apron strings to Jesus.

But had no idea what was really in store.

So Jesus explains : Foxes have places to sleep, so do birds but on this journey I have nowhere to sleep or rest.

And the man replied: OK, that’s alright.

I’m still here for the journey.

Erm.

No! You’d think you would hear that - he said I will follow you wherever you go.

But we hear no more at all, he slunk away into the crowds.

Jesus doesn’t want followers for the moment.

No one had told the Scribe that there were to be no Palace to sleep in.

What is the relevance of this today?

Following Jesus may mean being literally homeless or having situations that are intensively uncomfortable.

Being a Christian will, at some point, make us feel discomforted.

If not, then we are truly not following Jesus.

We, as Christians, are not aligned with present-day culture.

Today’s culture is the antithesis of knowing Jesus - this has always been the case.

We are to be a unique people called out from the world.

Of course, we all like to fit in and not be one against the tide.

Israel felt the same way when they looked around at the nations around them and saw that they had kings.

So they wanted one too.

This was a rejection of God who was supposed to be their Supreme King.

In fact we are told by Jesus:

Well, despite the Scribes words, it was a shallow commitment, it was more about what he was going to get out of it.

But the Gospel is not this.

The Gospel is self-denial.

And this Scribe, and by extension us, need to get to a place where we are in sheer desperation for forgiveness, for Heaven, not to go to Hell and for not putting any conditions upon how we are going to get it.

It is not the people who say: “Lord, lord” who will get into Heaven but those who do the will of the Father, the will of God, and not be in it for some fancy life in the here and now.

Yes, there is a crown in the end but it has to travel first through trouble and through the cross.

Now in the second instance it is Jesus inviting someone to follow Him.

With Peter and Andrew, James and John, with Matthew and Philip they all immediately followed Jesus when called.

When Jesus says ‘follow me’ it is one word in the Greek and it is a command.

But here is a man who says: Wait a mo…I need to go bury my father.

Well, by all means, Jesus says, go.

Well, no, that’s not what happened.

Why?

Because his father was still alive!

If he had died he would have been dealing with the 30 day mourning period that comes with that and would not have been on the road.

It was a saying: I will but once my father has passed on.

We are not given an indication of how long this wait may be but was not going to be soon.

He probably thought, hey, I’ve just listened to your conversation with the Scribe and how lacking you are in funds, with my inheritance, whenever I get that, could come in handy for the mission and there will be no need to sleep on the road at all but at the finest hotels.

This man turned down the command of Jesus for an ease of life.

We can surmise that the man thought: I’ve waited this long for my inheritance and now I am to simply give it up?

And he knew that Jesus would say, that’s right.

Jesus told him; But you go preach the gospel, the good news and the way of salvation which is of infinitely more worth than any worldly goods.

But no, he wants what is coming to him.

We cannot be too harsh on such a man can we?

Who here would have given up their inheritance?