Verses 1-62
Chapter 9
9:1-9 Jesus called the
Twelve together and gave them power and authority over all demons, and
to cure diseases. He sent them out to proclaim the kingdom of God, and
to cure those who were ill. He said to them, "Take nothing for the road,
neither a staff nor a wallet, nor bread nor money, nor two tunics.
Whatever house you go into, stay there, and leave from there. As for
whoever do not receive you--when you leave that town shake off the dust
from your feet as evidence against them." So they went out, and they
went through the villages, preaching and healing everywhere.
Herod, the tetrarch,
heard about the things which were going on. He did not know what to make
of them, because it was said by some, "John is risen from the dead";
and by some, "Elijah has appeared"; and by others, "One of the prophets
of the ancient days has risen again." But Herod said, "John I myself
beheaded. Who is this about whom I hear such reports?" And he tried to
see him.
In the ancient days there was in effect only one way of
spreading a message abroad and that was by word of mouth. Newspapers did
not exist; books had to be hand-written, and a book the size of
Luke--Acts would have cost over 40 British pounds per copy to produce!
Radio and television had not even been dreamed of. That is why Jesus
sent out the Twelve on this mission. He was under the limitations of
time and space; his helpers had to be mouths to speak for him.
They were to travel light. That was simply because the man who
travels light travels far and fast. The more a man is cluttered up with
material things the more he is shackled to one place. God needs a
settled ministry; but he also needs those who will abandon earthly
things to adventure for him.
If they were not received they were to shake off the dust from
their feet when they left the town. When Rabbis entered Palestine after
some journey in a gentile land, they shook off the last particle of
heathen dust from their feet. A village or town which would not receive
them was to be treated as a strict Jew would treat a heathen country. It
had refused its opportunity and had condemned itself.
That this ministry was mightily effective is plain from Herod's
reaction. Things were happening. Perhaps Elijah, the forerunner, had at
last come. Perhaps even the great promised prophet had arrived (Deuteronomy 18:15).
But "Conscience doth make cowards of us all," and there was a lingering
fear in Herod's mind that John the Baptiser, whom he thought he had
eliminated, had come back to haunt him.
One thing which stands out about the ministry which Jesus laid
upon the Twelve is this--sever and over again in this short passage it
joins preaching and healing. It joins concern for men's bodies and men's
souls. It was something which was not to deal only in words, however
comforting; but also in deeds. It was a message which was not confined
to news of eternity; it proposed to change conditions on earth. It was
the reverse of a religion of "pie in the sky." It insisted that health
to men's bodies was as integral a part of God's purpose as health to
their souls.
Nothing has done the church more harm than the repeated
statement that the things of this world do not matter. In the middle
thirties of this century unemployment invaded many respectable and
decent homes. The father's skill was rusting in idleness; the mother was
trying to make a shilling do what a pound ought to do; children could
not understand what was going on except that they were hungry. Men grew
bitter or broken. To go and tell such people that material things make
no difference was unforgivable, especially if the teller was in
reasonable comfort himself. General Booth was once blamed for offering
food and meals to poor people instead of the simple gospel. The old
warrior flashed back, "It is impossible to comfort men's hearts with the
love of God when their feet are perishing with cold."
Of course, it is possible to overstress material things. But it
is equally possible to neglect them. The church will forget only at her
peril that Jesus first sent out his men to preach the kingdom and to
heal, to save men in body and in soul.
9:10-17 When the
apostles returned they told Jesus all that they had done. So he took
them and withdrew privately to a place called Bethsaida. When the crowds
found out where he was they followed him; and he welcomed them, and
talked to them about the kingdom of God, and healed those who had need
of healing. The day began to draw to a close. The Twelve came to him.
"Send the crowd away," they said, "that they may go to the surrounding
villages and countryside and find some place to stay and get food
because here we are in a desert place." He said to them, "Do you give
them food to eat." They said, "All we have is five loaves and two
fishes--unless we go and buy food for all this people." For there were
about five thousand men. He said to his disciples. "Make them sit down
in companies of fifty." They did so, and they got them all seated. He
took the five loaves and the two fishes and looked up into heaven and
blessed them and broke them and gave them to his disciples to set before
the crowd. And all of them ate and were satisfied; and what they had
left over was taken up and there were twelve baskets of the fragments.
This is the only miracle of Jesus related in all the four gospels (compare Matthew 14:13; Mark 6:30; John 6:1).
It begins with a lovely thing. The Twelve had come back from their
tour. Never was a Lime when Jesus needed more to be alone with them, so
he took them to the neighbourhood of Bethsaida, a village on the far
side of the Jordan to the north of the Sea of Galilee. When the people
discovered where he had gone they followed him in hordes--and he
welcomed them.
There is all the divine compassion here. Most people would have
resented the invasion of their hard-won privacy. How would we feel if we
had sought out some lonely place to be with our most intimate friends
and suddenly a clamorous mob of people turned up with their insistent
demands? Sometimes we are too busy to be disturbed, but to Jesus human
need took precedence over everything.
The evening came; home was far away; and the people were tired
and hungry. Jesus, astonishingly, ordered his disciples to give them a
meal. There are two ways in which a man can quite honestly look at this
miracle. First, he can see in it simply a miracle in which Jesus created
food for this vast multitude. Second, some people think that this is
what happened. The people were hungry--and they were utterly selfish.
They all had something with them, but they would not even produce it for
themselves in case they had to share it with others. The Twelve laid
before the multitude their little store and thereupon others were moved
to produce theirs; and in the end there was more than enough for
everyone. So it may be regarded as a miracle which turned selfish,
suspicious folk into generous people, a miracle of Christ's changing
determined self interest into a willingness to share.
Before Jesus distributed the food he blessed it; he said grace.
There was a Jewish saying that "he who enjoys anything without
thanksgiving is as though he robbed God." The blessing said in every
home in Palestine before every meal ran, "Blessed art thou, Jehovah, our
God, King of the world, who causest bread to come forth from the
earth." Jesus would not eat without giving thanks to the giver of an
good gifts.
This is a story which tells us many things.
(i) Jesus was concerned that men were hungry. It would be most
interesting to work out how much time Jesus spent, not talking, but
easing men's pain and satisfying their hunger. He still needs the
service of men's hands. The mother who has spent a lifetime cooking
meals for a hungry family; the nurse, the doctor, the friend, relation
or parent, who has sacrificed life and time to ease another's pain; the
social reformer who has burned himself out to seek better conditions for
men and women--they have all preached far more effective sermons than
the eloquent orator.
(ii) Jesus' help was generous. There was enough, and more than
enough. In love there is no nice calculation of the less and more. God
is like that. When we sow a packet of seeds we usually have to thin the
plants out and throw away far more than we can keep. God has created a
world where there is more than enough for all if men will share it.
(iii) As always there is permanent truth in an action in time.
In Jesus all men's needs are supplied. There is a hunger of the soul;
there is in every man, sometimes at least, a longing to find something
in which he may invest his life. Our hearts are restless until they rest
in him. "My God will supply every need of yours," said Paul (Philippians 4:19) --even in the desert places of this life.
9:18-22 It happened
that when Jesus was praying alone his disciples were with him. He asked
them, "Who do the crowds say that I am?" They answered, "Some say that
you are John the Baptiser; others that you are Elijah; others that one
of the prophets of the ancient days has risen again." He said to them,
"But you--who do you say that I am?" Peter answered, "The anointed one
of God." Jesus warned and enjoined them to tell this to no one. "The Son
of Man," he said, "must suffer many things, and must be rejected by the
elders and chief priests and scribes, and must be killed, and must be
raised again on the third day."
This is one of the most crucial moments in the life of Jesus.
He asked this question when he was already turning his face to go to
Jerusalem (Luke 9:51).
He well knew what awaited him there, and the answer to his question was
of supreme importance. He knew that he was going to a Cross to die; he
wanted to know before he went, if there was anyone who had really
discovered who he was. The right answer would make all the difference.
If instead there was dull incomprehension, all his work would have gone
for nothing. If there was any realization, however incomplete, it meant
that he had lit such a torch in the hearts of men as time would never
put out. How Jesus' heart must have lifted when Peter's sudden discovery
rushed to his lips--"You are the anointed one of God!" When Jesus heard
that, he knew he had not failed.
Not only had the Twelve to discover the fact; they had also to
discover what the fact meant. They had grown up against a background of
thought which expected from God a conquering king who would lead them to
world dominion. Peter's eyes would blaze with excitement when he said
this. But Jesus had to teach them that God's anointed one had come to
die upon a Cross. He had to take their ideas of God and of God's
purposes and turn them upside down; and from this time that is what he
set himself to do. They had discovered who he was; now they had to learn
what that discovery meant.
There are two great general truths in this passage.
(i) Jesus began by asking what men were saying about him; and
then, suddenly, he flashes the question at the Twelve, "Who do you say
that I am?" It is never enough to know what other people have said about
Jesus. A man might be able to pass any examination on what has been
said and thought about Jesus; he might have read every book about
Christology written in every language upon earth and still not be a
Christian. Jesus must always be our own personal discovery. Our religion
can never be a carried tale. To every man Jesus comes asking, not, "Can
you tell me what others have said and written about me?" but, "Who do
you say that I am?" Paul did not say, "I know what I have believed"; he
said, "I know whom I have believed" (2 Timothy 1:12). Christianity does not mean reciting a creed; it means knowing a person.
(ii) Jesus said, "I must go to Jerusalem and die." It is of the
greatest interest to look at the times in Luke's gospel when Jesus said
must. "I must be in my Father's house," (Luke 2:49). "I must preach the kingdom," (Luke 4:43). "I must go on my way today and tomorrow," (Luke 13:33). Over and over again he told his disciples he must go to his Cross (Luke 9:22; Luke 17:25; Luke 24:7).
Jesus knew he had a destiny to fulfil. God's will was his will. He had
no other object but to do upon earth what God had sent him to do. The
Christian, like his Lord, is a man under orders.
9:23-27 Jesus said to
them all, "If any man wishes to come after me, let him deny himself, and
day by day let him take up his cross and follow me. Whoever wishes to
save his life will lose it. Whoever loses his life for my sake will save
it. What profit is it to a man if he gains the whole world and loses
himself or has himself confiscated? Whoever is ashamed of me and of my
words, of him shall the Son of Man be ashamed when he shall come in his
own glory, and in the glory of his Father and of the holy angels. I tell
you truly that there are some of these who are standing here who will
not taste death until they see the kingdom of God."
Here Jesus lays down the conditions of service for those who would follow him.
(i) A man must deny himself. What does that mean? A great
scholar comes at the meaning in this way. Peter once denied his Lord.
That is to say, he said of Jesus, "I do not know the man." To deny
ourselves is to say, "I do not know myself." It is to ignore the very
existence of oneself. It is to treat the self as if it did not exist.
Usually we treat ourselves as if our self was far and away the most
important thing in the world. If we are to follow Jesus, we must forget
that self exists.
(ii) A man must take up his cross. Jesus well knew what
crucifixion meant. When he was a lad of about eleven years of age, Judas
the Galilaean had led a rebellion against Rome. He had raided the royal
armoury at Sepphoris, which was only four miles from Nazareth. The
Roman vengeance was swift and sudden. Sepphoris was burned to the
ground; its inhabitants were sold into slavery; and two thousand of the
rebels were crucified on crosses which were set in lines along the
roadside that they might be a dreadful warning to others tempted to
rebel. To take up our cross means to be prepared to face things like
that for loyalty to Jesus; it means to be ready to endure the worst that
man can do to us for the sake of being true to him.
(iii) A man must spend his life, not hoard it. The whole gamut
of the world's standards must be changed. The questions are not, "How
much can I get?" but, "How much can I give?" Not, "What is the safe
thing to do?" but, "What is the right thing to do?" Not, "What is the
minimum permissible in the way of work?" but, "What is the maximum
possible?" The Christian must realize that he is given life, not to keep
for himself but to spend for others; not to husband its flame but to
burn it out for Christ and for men.
(iv) Loyalty to Jesus will have its reward, and disloyalty its
punishment. If we are true to him in time, he will be true to us in
eternity. If we seek to follow him in this world, in the next he will
point to us as one of his people. But if by our lives we disown him,
even though with our lips we confess him, the day must come when he
cannot do other than disown us.
(v) In the last verse of this passage Jesus says that some
standing there will see the kingdom of God before they die. Some people
maintain that Jesus was looking forward to his return in glory, that he
was declaring that this would happen within the lifetime of some of
those present; and that therefore he was completely mistaken. That is
not so.
What Jesus was saying is this, "Before this generation has
passed away you will see signs that the kingdom of God is on the way."
Beyond a doubt that came to pass. Something came into the world which,
like leaven in dough, began to change it. It would be well if,
sometimes, we turned from our pessimism and thought rather of the light
that has been slowly breaking on the world.
As A. H. Clough wrote,
"Say not the struggle naught availeth,
The labour and the wounds are vain,
The enemy faints not, nor faileth,
And as things have been they remain.
If hopes were dupes, fears may be liars;
It may be, in yon smoke conceal'd,
Your comrades chase e'en now the fliers,
And, but for you, possess the field.
For while the tired waves, vainly breaking,
Seem here no painful inch to gain,
Far back, through creeks and inlets making,
Comes silent, flooding in, the main.
And not by eastern windows only,
When daylight comes, comes in the light.
In front the sun climbs slow, how slowly!
But westward, look, the land is bright!"
Be of good cheer--the kingdom is on the way--and we do well to thank God for every sign of its dawning.
9:28-36 About eight
days after these words, Jesus took Peter and John and James and went up
into a mountain to pray. While he was praying the appearance of his face
became different and his clothing became white as the lightning's
flash. And--look you--two men were talking with him, who were Moses and
Elijah. They appeared in glory, and they talked about the departure
which he was going to accomplish in Jerusalem. Peter and his friends
were heavy with sleep. When they were fully awake they saw his glory,
and the two men standing with him. And when they were going to leave
him, Peter said, "Master, it is good for us to be here. So let us make
three booths, one for you and one for Moses and one for Elijah," for he
did not know what he was saying. As he was saying this a cloud came and
overshadowed them and they feared as they entered into the cloud. A
voice came from the cloud saying, "This is my beloved Son, my chosen
one! Hear him!" And when the voice had passed, Jesus was found alone.
They kept silent in those days and did not tell anyone anything about
what they had seen.
Here we have another of the great hinges in Jesus' life upon
earth. We must remember that he was just about to set out to Jerusalem
and to the cross. We have already looked at one great moment when he
asked his disciples who they believed him to be, in order that he might
discover if anyone had realized who he was. But there was one thing
Jesus would never do--he would never take any step without the approval
of God. In this scene that is what we see him seeking and receiving.
What happened on the Mount of Transfiguration we can never know,
but we do know that something tremendous did happen. Jesus had gone
there to seek the approval of God for the decisive step he was about to
take. There Moses and Elijah appeared to him. Moses was the great
law-giver of the people of Israel; Elijah was the greatest of the
prophets. It was as if the princes of Israel's life and thought and
religion told Jesus to go on.
Jesus could set out to Jerusalem now, certain that at least one
little group of men knew who he was, certain that what he was doing was
the consummation of all the life and thought and work of his nation, and
certain that God approved of the step that he was taking.
There is a vivid sentence here. It says of the three apostles, "When they were fully awake they saw his glory."
(i) In life we miss so much because our minds are asleep. There
are certain things which are liable to keep our minds asleep.
(a) There is prejudice. We may be so set in our ideas that our
minds are shut. A new idea knocks at the door but we are like sleepers
who will not awake.
(b) There is mental lethargy. There are so many who refuse the
strenuous struggle of thought. "The unexamined life," said Plato, "is
the life not worth living. "How many of us have really thought things
out and thought them through? It was said of someone that he had skirted
the howling deserts of infidelity and a wiser man said that he would
have been better to have fought his way through them. Sometimes we are
so lethargic that we will not even face our questions and our doubts.
(c) There is the love of ease. There is a kind of defence
mechanism in us that makes us automatically shut the door against any
disturbing thought.
A man can drug himself mentally until his mind is sound asleep.
(ii) But life is full of things designed to waken us.
(a) There is sorrow. Once Elgar said of a young singer, who was
technically perfect, but quite without feeling and expression, "She will
be great when something breaks her heart." Often sorrow can rudely
awaken a man, but in that moment, through the tears, he will see the
glory.
(b) There is love. Somewhere Browning tells of two people who
fell in love. She looked at him; he looked at her--"and suddenly life
awoke." Real love is an awakening to horizons we never dreamed were
there.
(c) There is the sense of need. For long enough a man may live
the routine of life half asleep; then all of a sudden there comes some
completely insoluble problem, some quite unanswerable question, some
overmastering temptation, some summons to an effort which he feels is
beyond his strength. In that day there is nothing left to do but to
"cry, clinging heaven by the hems." And that sense of need awakens him
to God.
We would do well to pray, "Lord, keep me always awake to you."
9:37-45 On the next
day, when they had come down from the mountain, a great crowd of people
met him. And--look you--a man shouted from the crowd, "Teacher, I beg
you to look with pity upon my son, because he is my only child.
And--look you--a spirit seizes him and he suddenly shouts out; he
convulses him until he foams at the mouth; he shatters him and will
hardly leave him. I begged your disciples to cast out the spirit but
they could not do it." Jesus answered, "O faithless and twisted
generation! How long will I be with you? How long will I bear you? Bring
your son here." While he was coming the demon dashed him down and
convulsed him. Jesus rebuked the unclean spirit and healed the boy, and
gave him back to his father; and everyone was astonished at the majesty
of God.
While they were all
wondering at the things which he kept doing, he said to his disciples,
"Let these words sink into your ears--the Son of Man is going to be
delivered into the hands of men." They did not know what this word
meant; and its meaning was concealed from them so that they did not
perceive it; and they were afraid to ask him about this word.
No sooner had Jesus descended from the mountain top than the
demands and disappointments of life were upon him. A man had come to the
disciples seeking their help, for his only son was an epileptic. Of
course his epilepsy was attributed to the malign activity of a demon.
The word used in Luke 9:42
is very vivid. As he was coming to Jesus, the demon dashed him down. It
is the word used of a boxer dealing a knock-out blow to his opponent or
of a wrestler throwing someone. It must have been a pitiful sight to
see the lad convulsed; and the disciples were quite helpless to cure
him. But when Jesus came he dealt with the situation with calm mastery
and gave the boy back to his father cured.
Two things stand out.
(i) The moment on the mount was absolutely necessary, but it
could not be prolonged beyond its own time. Peter, not really knowing
what he was saying, would have liked to linger on the mountain top. He
wished to build three tabernacles so that they might stay there in all
the glory; but they had to descend again. Often there come to us moments
that we would like to prolong indefinitely. But after the time on the
mountain top we must come back to the battle and the routine of life;
that time is meant to give us strength for life's everyday.
After the great struggle at Mount Carmel with the prophets of
Baal, Elijah, in reaction, ran away. Out into the desert he went and
there, as he lay under a juniper tree asleep, an angel twice prepared a
meal for him. Then comes the sentence, "And he arose and ate and drank,
and went in the strength of that food forty days and forty nights" (1 Kings 19:1-8).
To the mountain top of the presence of God we must go, not to remain
there but to go in the strength of that time for many days. It was said
of Captain Scott, the great explorer, that he was "a strange mixture of
the dreamy and the practical, and never more practical than immediately
after he had been dreamy." We cannot live forever in the moment on the
mountain but we cannot live at all without it.
(ii) In no incident is the sheer competence of Jesus so clearly
shown. When he came down from the mountain the situation was out of
hand. The whole impression is that of people running about not knowing
what to do. The disciples were helplessly baffled; the boy's father was
bitterly disappointed and upset. Into this scene of disorder came Jesus.
He gripped the situation in a flash and in his mastery the disorder
became a calm. So often we feel that life is out of control; that we
have lost our grip on things. Only the Master of life can deal with life
with the calm competence that brings everything under control.
(iii) Once again the incident finished with Jesus pointing at
the cross. Here was triumph; here Jesus had mastered the demons and
astonished the people. And in that very moment when they were ready to
acclaim him, Jesus told them he was on the way to die. It would have
been so easy to take the way of popular success; it was Jesus' greatness
that he rejected it and chose the cross. He would not himself shirk
that cross to which he called others.
9:46-48 There arose an
argument amongst them as to which of them should be the greatest. But
when Jesus knew the thoughts of their hearts he took a child and set him
beside him. "Whoever," he said to them, "receives this child in my
name, receives me; and whoever receives me, receives him that sent me.
He who is least among you, he it is who is the greatest."
So long as the Twelve thought of Jesus' kingdom as an earthly
kingdom it was inevitable that they should be in competition for the
highest places in it. Long ago the Venerable Bede suggested that this
particular quaff el arose because Jesus had taken Peter, John and James
up into the mountain top with him and the others were jealous.
Jesus knew what was going on in their hearts. He took a child
and placed him beside himself; that would be the seat of highest honour.
He went on to say that whoever received a little child, received him;
and whoever received him, received God. What did he mean? The Twelve
were the chosen lieutenants of Jesus; but this child occupied no place
of honour and held no official position. Jesus was saying, "If you are
prepared to spend your lives serving, helping, loving people who, in the
eyes of the world, do not matter at all, you are serving me and serving
God. If you are prepared to spend your life doing these apparently
unimportant things and never trying to be what the world calls great,
you will be great in the eyes of God."
There are so many wrong motives for service.
(i) There is the desire for prestige. A. J. Cronin tells of a
district nurse he knew when he was in practice as a doctor. For twenty
years, single-handed, she had served a ten-mile district. "I marvelled,"
he says, "at her patience, her fortitude and her cheerfulness. She was
never too tired at night to rise for an urgent call. Her salary was most
inadequate, and late one night, after a particularly strenuous day, I
ventured to protest to her, 'Nurse, why don't you make them pay you
more? God knows you are worth it.' 'If God knows I'm worth it,' she
answered, 'that's all that matters to me.'" She was working, not for
men, but for God. And when we work for God, prestige will be the last
thing that enters into our mind, for we will know that even our best is
not good enough for him.
(ii) There is the desire for place. If a man is given a task or a
position or an office in the church, he should regard it not as an
honour but as a responsibility. There are those who serve within the
church, not thinking really of those they serve, but thinking of
themselves. A certain English Prime Minister was offered congratulations
on attaining to that office. "I do not want your congratulations," he
said, "but I do want your prayers." To be chosen for office is to be set
apart for service, not elevated to honour.
(iii) There is the desire for prominence. Many a person will
serve or give so long as his service and his generosity are known and he
is thanked and praised. It is Jesus' own instruction that we should not
let our left hand know what our right hand is doing. If we give only to
gain something out of the giving for ourselves, we have undone much of
its good.
9:49-56 John said to
Jesus, "Master, we saw a man casting out demons in your name; and we
stopped him because he does not follow with us." Jesus said to him,
"Don't try to stop him, for he who is not against us is for us."
When the days that he
should be received up were on their way to being completed he fixed his
face firmly to go to Jerusalem. He sent messengers on ahead. When they
had gone on they went into a village of the Samaritans to make ready for
him; and they refused to receive them because his face was set in the
direction of Jerusalem. When his disciples, James and John, learned of
this they said, "Lord, would you like us to order fire to come down from
heaven and destroy them?" He turned to them and rebuked them; and they
went on to another village.
Here we have two lessons in tolerance.
There were many exorcists in Palestine, all claiming to be able
to cast out demons; and no doubt John regarded this man as a competitor
and wished to eliminate him. But Jesus would not permit him.
The direct way from Galilee to Jerusalem led through Samaria;
but most Jews avoided it. There was a centuries' old quarrel between the
Jews and the Samaritans (John 4:9).
The Samaritans in fact did everything they could to hinder and even to
injure any bands of pilgrims who attempted to pass through their
territory. For Jesus to take that way to Jerusalem was unusual; and to
attempt to find hospitality in a Samaritan village was still more
unusual. When he did this he was extending a hand of friendship to a
people who were enemies. In this case not only was hospitality refused
but the offer of friendship was spurned. No doubt, therefore, James and
John believed they were doing a praiseworthy thing when they offered to
call in divine aid to blot out the village. But Jesus would not permit
them.
There is no passage in which Jesus so directly teaches the duty
of tolerance as in this. In many ways tolerance is a lost virtue, and
often, where it does exist, it exists from the wrong cause. Of all the
greatest religious leaders none was such a pattern of tolerance as John
Wesley. "I have no more right," he said, "to object to a man for holding
a different opinion from mine than I have to differ with a man because
he wears a wig and I wear my own hair; but if he takes his wig off and
shakes the powder in my face, I shall consider it my duty to get quit of
him as soon as possible. . . . The thing which I resolved to use every
possible method of preventing was a narrowness of spirit, a party zeal, a
being straitened in our own bowels--that miserable bigotry which makes
many so unready to believe that there is any work of God but among
themselves. . .. We think and let think." When his nephew, Samuel, the
son of his brother Charles, entered the Roman Catholic Church, he wrote
to him, "Whether in this Church or that I care not. You may be saved in
either or damned in either; but I fear you are not born again." The
Methodist invitation to the sacrament is simply, "Let all who love the
Lord come here."
The conviction that our beliefs and our methods alone are
correct has been the cause of more tragedy and distress in the church
than almost any other thing. Oliver Cromwell wrote once to the
intransigent Scots, "I beseech you by the bowels of Christ, think it
possible that you may be mistaken." T. R. Glover somewhere quotes a
saying, "Remember that whatever your hand finds to do, someone thinks
differently!"
There are many ways to God. He has his own secret stairway into
every heart. He fulfils himself in many ways; and no man or church has a
monopoly of his truth.
But--and this is intensely important--our tolerance must be
based not on indifference but on love. We ought to be tolerant not
because we could not care less; but because we look at the other person
with eyes of love. When Abraham Lincoln was criticized for being too
courteous to his enemies and reminded that it was his duty to destroy
them, he gave the great answer, "Do I not destroy my enemies when I make
them my friends?" Even if a man be utterly mistaken, we must never
regard him as an enemy to be destroyed but as a strayed friend to be
recovered by love.
9:57-62 As they were
journeying along the road, a man said to Jesus, "I will follow you
wherever you go." Jesus said to him, "The foxes have dens; the birds of
the air have places to roost; but the Son of Man has nowhere to lay his
head."
He said to another
man, "Follow Me! Lord," he said, "let me go first and bury my father."
He said to him, "Let the dead bury their dead; but do you go and tell
abroad the news of the kingdom of God."
Another man said to
him, "Lord, I will follow you; but let me first say good-bye to the folk
at home." Jesus said to him, "No man who puts his hand to the plough
and looks back is the right kind of man for the kingdom of God."
Here we have the words of Jesus to three would-be followers.
(i) To the first man, his advice was, "Before you follow me,
count the cost." No one can ever say that he was induced to follow Jesus
under false pretenses. Jesus paid men the compliment of pitching his
demands so high that they cannot be higher. It may well be that we have
done great hurt to the church by letting people think that church
membership need not make so very much difference. We ought to tell them
that it should make all the difference in the world. We might have fewer
people; but those we had would be really pledged to Christ.
(ii) Jesus' words to the second man sound harsh, but they need
not be so. In all probability the man's father was not dead, and not
even nearly dead. His saying most likely meant, "I will follow you after
my father has died." An English official in the East tells of a very
brilliant young Arab who was offered a scholarship to Oxford or
Cambridge. His answer was, "I will take it after I have buried my
father." At the time his father was not much more than forty years of
age.
The point Jesus was making is that in everything there is a
crucial moment; if that moment is missed the thing most likely will
never be done at all. The man in the story had stirrings in his heart to
get out of his spiritually dead surroundings; if he missed that moment
he would never get out.
The psychologists tell us that every time we have a fine
feeling, and do not act on it, the less likely we are to act on it at
all. The emotion becomes a substitute for the action. Take one
example--sometimes we feel that we would like to write a letter, perhaps
of sympathy, perhaps of thanks, perhaps of congratulations. If we put
it off until to-morrow, it will in all likelihood never be written.
Jesus urges us to act at once when our hearts are stirred.
(iii) His words to the third man state a truth which no one can
deny. No ploughman ever ploughed a straight furrow looking back over his
shoulder. There are some whose hearts are in the past. They walk
forever looking backwards and thinking wistfully of the good old days.
Watkinson, the great preacher, tells how once at the seaside, when he
was with his little grandson, he met an old minister. The old man was
very disgruntled and, to add to all his troubles, he had a slight touch
of sunstroke. The little boy had been listening but had not picked it up
quite correctly; and when they left the grumbling complaints of the old
man, he turned to Watkinson and said, "Granddad, I hope you never
suffer from a sunset!"
The Christian marches on, not to the sunset, but to the dawn.
The watchword of the kingdom is not, "Backwards!" but, "Forwards!" To
this man Jesus did not say either, "Follow!" or, "Return!" he said, "I
accept no lukewarm service," and left the man to make his own decision.
-Barclay's Daily Study Bible (NT)