June 30, 2019
Luke 9:51-56
by Mike Sluder
Clergy / Director of Connectional Ministries
Holston Conference

In these days of polarization in our society, as well as within our church, how we respond to people who disagree with us is important. It speaks, I believe, to how closely we are walking with Jesus on this journey of life. I grew up hearing my dad talk about the political spectrum and the extremes at both ends. He would say the political spectrum, whether in Washington, D.C. or in the church, is not a straight line. It’s a circle that doesn’t quite meet at the bottom, down in the muck and the mud. There at the extreme ends you find folk from the far right and the far left standing at the gap screaming across at those on the other end thinking they are accomplishing something. If you step back and look, folk on both ends are behaving exactly the same, spewing anger assuming that will change the other. They refuse to do the hard work of climbing out of the muck and the mud making their way to meet the other and have conversation.

So what does this have to do with this text from Luke? Well, in this short story we see how Jesus responded to disagreement as opposed to how the disciples responded. Jesus has “set his face to go to Jerusalem” and along the way he continues to preach the Kingdom of God is near. As he enters into Samaria he is not well received at a particular village. As a people, the Samaritans were not allowed to worship in the temple at Jerusalem because they had been deemed impure and unworthy. So, they set up their own center of worship at Mt. Gerizim and when Jesus was set to go to Jerusalem the folk in that village sent him on his way. James and John were apparently incensed at this and wanted to call in an airstrike to take out the village. They were standing at the end screaming. Jesus, however, did not let the reaction of this one village deter him from his mission. His rebuke was for James and John, not the village. He simply moved on to another village in the same area, Samaria, and kept on with his preaching that the Kingdom of God is near. If we destroy the people, with whom we disagree, how will we ever be able to be in a relationship with them having the hope for an opportunity to share the love Jesus?  Firstly, do no harm. Secondly, do good. Thirdly, attend to the ordinances of God, or as Bishop Job paraphrased it, stay in love with God. It is hard to live by these General Rules standing at the ends screaming.