NOTES for Luk 9:62

The Bible offers many examples of this “looking back”: Lot's wife, Israel during the Exodus... We look for ideals in the past, without realizing that the Kingdom of God is always here and ahead of us. Here it is worth recalling a thought from the contemporary author Richard Rohr:

“The Good News always points to the future, toward some new place, toward a promised land. It never points backward. Yet the irony of Christian history lies in our habit of turning backward and saying: ‘Miracles happened in the old days. It was back then that God was God, back then that the great prophets lived. It was in the Middle Ages that the great saints lived...’ Through this irony, the Word of God has changed from a liberating force into a defensive force. Because we did not truly listen to the Word of God, we began performing religious gymnastics and lost touch with the power of God's Word.”

How close the apostles' reaction is to us. On the one hand, there is nothing surprising in this, since we are all human, and besides, being like a future apostle is a very good thing. On the other hand, in what way are we like them? Precisely in the fact that we are human, and in our "common human" reactions. The disciples, burning with zeal for the Teacher, are offended that people did not want to receive Him. Someone treated their Teacher the same way any other people would be treated: a traveler was refused shelter. And now "righteous anger" is raging before us, since these simple fishermen surely did not calmly speak the words about calling down punishing heavenly fire, however unemotionally this is set out in the Gospel (see Luke 9:54). And these simple people consider themselves entitled to avenge such inhospitable treatment of their Lord. They may be moved by the words of Christ when He sent them out to preach: "And if any place will not receive you and will not listen to you, when you leave there, shake off the dust from your feet as a testimony against them. Truly I tell you, it will be more tolerable for Sodom and Gomorrah on the day of judgment than for that town" (Mark 6:11). And then it was about them, while here it is about their Teacher. So the punishment must be corresponding!..

And if we imagine Joseph behaving this way when no one wanted to admit him and Mary, who was about to give birth? How many people and houses would have been burned with fire?

It is astonishing that in this case the disciples have faith that fire will come at their request. And the question does not sound like this: "Will fire come down from heaven if we ask?" but "Do You want us to say that fire should come down from heaven and destroy them?" (Luke 9:54).

And how wonderful it is that faith in God and in the truth that "whatever they ask will be given them by My Father in heaven" is accompanied by dialogue with the Lord. Because He rejects the disciples' proposal and rebukes them (Luke 9:55), directing their paths along the right way.

Today we read a small selection of short accounts about Jesus, assembled by the evangelist to show how extraordinary His Message is and how incompatible it is with normal human ideas. In the coming Kingdom of God, everything will be different from what is customary on earth: the most important and respected will be those who are least valued in human eyes (for children had no rights before reaching adulthood and were regarded as their parents' property, like slaves, yet Jesus holds them up as an example to the disciples). Jesus forbids His disciples to divide people into “ours” and “not ours,” although this is a fundamental principle of human society (for comparison, watch the news on television). His Kingdom lies outside our system of values and proves more important even than the sacred duty to bury one's father, more important than a comfortable home and family. It takes hold of a person entirely—the one who asked Jesus about His Kingdom has already “put his hand to the plow,” already begun the paradoxical path toward God...

Today's reading is entirely devoted to the theme of the Kingdom and to how the people around Jesus understood it, including His closest disciples. And once again we encounter a complete failure, even on the apostles' part, to understand what the Kingdom is and what its laws are. The very question of primacy, of who is greatest in the Kingdom (v. 46), loses all meaning there. Jesus was able to explain this by pointing the disciples to a child, whom the problem of primacy, because of age, does not yet concern at all (vv. 47-48).

According to the laws of our world, still not transformed, the great person is the one who is great by his own greatness; in the Kingdom, as it appears, one's own greatness means nothing, and the less a person relies on it, the more the greatness of the Kingdom shines through him. That is why there is no need to impose this Kingdom by force, as the apostles thought of doing in one Samaritan village where Jews, as usual, were not welcome (vv. 51-54): in that way one can only demonstrate one's own force and prove one's own importance, but it is impossible to bring people closer to the Kingdom by such a method. It is no accident that Jesus tells the disciples that they are not acting in the spirit of the Kingdom: for the Kingdom, any violence is unacceptable; no one can be driven there by force, because to enter it one needs above all a relationship with God and with the One whom He sends, and that relationship must not be imposed but freely accepted.

A Kingdom imposed by force is not the Kingdom, but only its phantom, which can destroy a person but cannot save him. And since the Kingdom is not a place but a relationship, it is not limited by any structure. Even the apostolic community does not limit it, if one looks at that community not as a fellowship of people living in the Kingdom, but as a kind of organization for promoting the idea of the Kingdom of God. That is why everyone who bears witness to it in Christ's name, revealing to those around him its power and effectiveness, finds his own place in it, even if formally he has no relation to the apostolic community (vv. 49-50). Thus, dispelling the myths of mass religious consciousness that were so widespread in those days, Jesus strengthens in the hearts of His disciples those ideas about the Kingdom that must help them live through His death on the cross and receive His resurrection.

As can be seen, Jesus keeps explaining to His disciples, through different examples, what the life of the Kingdom is and what it is like. And the Evangelist gathers these examples together, making a kind of digest that contains short descriptions of them. Here are the disciples arguing over who is the greatest in the Kingdom. Well, after the Teacher, of course. Here are the same disciples eager to call thunder down on a Samaritan village where they are not received. Not for their own sake, of course, but for the Teacher's sake. And for the truth, naturally.

And here are people they meet along the road. One is ready to go, but Jesus tells him: I have nowhere to invite you. To another Jesus Himself says: Follow Me, and that man asks permission to bury his father, and receives an answer that sounds merciless. As does another one: the answer is softer outwardly, but in substance it says: leave it, forget everyone, or else you will have to forget the Kingdom.

What is this: a particular kind of selectiveness? Yes, of course: Jesus sees every person's heart; it is as transparent to Him as it is to His heavenly Father. But there is also something common here. The Kingdom is open to everyone. But on one condition: it must be first in the life of the one who wants to reach it. In the Kingdom people do not live out their remaining days; they live. And those who refuse to go, in one way or another, want to live out what remains. To stay with those who are living out what remains. They do not understand that one can go on living out what remains, alone or with others, endlessly. In the fallen world there is no real life; here there are only its remnants. And one has to choose: either gather up these remnants and try to squeeze the last out of them, or go where there is life in abundance. Without trying to drag along the remains of that imitation of life that can be found in the fallen world.

But there, in the Kingdom, the laws are different. There are no bosses and subordinates there; there are ministries that must be carried, and whoever knows how to do this better is the greatest. The one who is greatest in the Kingdom does not receive the best places, but the more responsible ministries. And there is no need there to prove anything to anyone. In this world too, the Kingdom does not need to be proved to anyone.

It can be shown, of course. But proving it is pointless. For proof, especially with heavenly thunder involved, always presupposes a desire to persuade by force. To make someone accept, to make someone believe. And then it no longer matters what the irresistible arguments will be: in any case they presuppose that a person yields before the inevitable, whether it is a force from which there is no escape or an obviousness that cannot be evaded. The Kingdom, of course, is both force and obviousness. But it is a force one can walk away from, and an obviousness one can choose not to notice. God does not impose Himself, and the person is free. To the free, freedom; to the saved, paradise.

These words are addressed not only to those who are just setting out to follow Jesus, but also to the disciples themselves—and to us. Does the thought never “occur” to us as to which of us is the greatest? Or do we never feel the urge to “forbid” someone who thinks differently? Or to ask God to send fire from heaven upon our enemies, “as Elijah did”? Do we always know what spirit we are of? Many of us have not only “put a hand to the plough,” but have already ploughed half the field. And yet are we looking back again?