But all careers and lives eventually come to their end – even prophetic careers and lives – and in our story this morning Elijah is about to be carried off to heaven and to be succeeded by the prophet Elisha who has been his protégé.  I’m going to read the story because the Bible tells it best.

[2 Kings 2:1-15]

Well, it is a lovely story, isn’t it?  So “human” even though we sometimes think of Elijah as super human.  We do have to admit, however, that not all people get carried away in a chariot of fire borne heavenward by the power of a whirlwind.  And yet such a dream has come to rest in the words of the spiritual, has it not?  Swing low, sweet chariot, comin’ for to carry me home . . .  Stories of super humans give hope even to those who feel far from super, but who count on the mercy of God to take them up to heaven and everlasting peace. 

But I also like the humanness of Elisha, the successor to the great prophet.  He knows he has big shoes to fill, so much to learn and soak up before his master leaves.  Therefore, he will stick with Elijah, following him all the way.  Several times Elijah tells Elisha he need not follow any farther because God has called him to go yet another mile.  But Elisha will hear nothing of stopping.  He is determined to go all the way, and it is in going all the way with his master that he receives the mantle of power that equips him to become the new prophet of God.

And that’s what Jesus is urging his disciples to do in our Gospel reading from Luke.  He knows where he’s going, and he invites his disciples to go with him all the way.  Only then will they receive the power and authority to succeed him in his work on earth.  That invitation, of course, is issued not only to the disciples of old but to us as well.  That’s why the story continues to be so relevant and so challenging.

Where is Jesus going?  To Jerusalem, he says.  He’s determined to go all the way to Jerusalem even though he knows what awaits him there – betrayal, suffering, death.  But also resurrection.  We know he’s determined to go there by the way Luke describes his determination.

“When the days drew near for him to be taken up,” Luke says of Jesus, “he set his face to go to Jerusalem.”  What a powerful image of Jesus’ humanity.  He set his face to go to Jerusalem.  His jaw is set, his whole being focused on the destiny he knows is his.  You can read it in his eyes, his mouth.  His countenance projects it.  His is human resolve and commitment almost beyond comprehension.  It is truly and fully embodied.  It is the incarnation of God’s purpose in human flesh.

And it is commitment, not stubbornness.  We all know stubborn.  We all know blockheads who have closed their minds to any ideas that will challenge the narrow reality they have formed for themselves and cemented into place.  We all know people like that.  But Jesus was different.  Jesus had his ears wide open to hear the voice of God.  He knew what he had to do, and he knew the path would not be easy.  But he would walk it anyway.  He would go all the way to Jerusalem where he knew his way of life would make some people so mad they would want to kill him.  But he would go anyway for the sake of truth and love.  He would go because of his love and compassion for people he had already met and for people he would yet meet along the way.  He would sacrifice everything for them.  For us.  And he would call us to follow him all the way.

For the disciples then – and for us now – the way would not be easy.  For Jesus and his disciples to go from Galilee to Jerusalem most directly they would have to pass through the land of the Samaritans from whom they would naturally experience resistance, even rejection, growing out of long-standing enmity.  But Jesus takes the direct route anyway and does experience the rejection he would have anticipated.  His disciples, in a heady display of confidence, ask him if they should call on God for fire to consume their enemies.  Actually, they probably remember another part of the Elijah story, the part about Elijah calling for fire from heaven to destroy his antagonists.

But Jesus opts for another way.  Temptations around the use of power have faced disciples of Jesus Christ in the past and will no doubt face the disciples of Jesus Christ in the future.  Unfortunately we know of too many now who call themselves disciples of Jesus but who are quick to use power in response to rejection.  Jesus had told his disciples to simply shake off the dust from their feet when they have been rejected and move on.  Retaliation for rejection is not an option.  The use of violence to enforce Christian faith is counter to the spirit of Christ.  That’s a message Jesus delivers as directly as he can in the story before us this morning.

And then he continues on, encountering resistance, even when denied, by would-be followers.  One person comes up to him and says, “I will follow you wherever you go.”  That sounds like most of us, I suppose.  But Jesus catches us up short with a stern warning of the risks at stake.  Foxes have holes, and birds of the air have nests, he says, but the Son of Man has nowhere to lay his head.  If you come with me, Jesus suggests, you never know what might happen.  You may lose some of your worldly security.  You may live a life on the move, perhaps feeling dislocated now and then.  But if you follow all the way – and this is the undeniable implication – you will find your way and find your home.  Jesus himself renounced worldly security when it interfered with eternal life, and he calls his disciples to do likewise.  The way of Jesus in the world is not for the faint-hearted or for those who rely too heavily on personal safety and comfort at the expense of commitment to the ways of God.

In the second encounter Jesus himself issues the invitation to “follow me,” but the man asks for time to bury his father first.  Tradition placed a strong emphasis on the obligation to bury one’s parents properly.  We would certainly understand that in our own day.  So why does Jesus respond with such apparent crassness?  Middle Eastern interpreters of this passage give us insight.  They point to the custom of remaining at home until one’s parents are respectfully buried.  That process might take years, if not decades.  The man is choosing social convention and community expectations over the call of discipleship.  Jesus suggests that this man is already spiritually dead, bound by social custom and tradition even in the face of more important considerations or when customs have grown tired and empty.  The truly living respond to the present call of God’s truth over all.  Sometimes we need a break from what has been in order to reach what ought to be.

In the final episode the person expresses commitment to Christ but needs time to say good-bye to family and friends.  Jesus compares this person to a farmer who begins plowing a field and then looks back.  I know a little about this.  My grandparents were farmers and sometimes as a child I rode the planter with them in early spring.  In my mind’s eye I can still see my grandfather keeping his eyes straight ahead, his hands gripping the reins that controlled the work horses, while my grandmother dropped the seedlings in the crevice formed by the planter.  My grandfather could not look back and expect straight furrows.  Looking back while continuing to move the plow forward would have meant losing control of the plow. 

This image and others have the cumulative effect of suggesting that disciples of Jesus must recognize that the way they choose will often be counter to the culture in which they live, which is surely true about the culture in which we live.  Jesus’ single-mindedness of purpose reflects his commitment to reject violence of retaliation; to embrace suffering for the sake of another; and to refuse comfort, privilege, and social status for the sake of fidelity to God’s vision and mission.  All these ways of living hold a strong component of the counter cultural.  But all these ways of living might be signs that we are on the path of following Jesus all the way.

In our Reformed tradition we often use the word sanctification to refer to the ways our lives laid bare before God are transformed by the indwelling of the Holy Spirit to draw us closer to Christ and his ways in the world.  We, too, are called to “set our faces toward Jerusalem,” committing our lives to the love and purposes God has for us.  Like farmers preparing the field for planting, we must look ahead with hope to future growth, keeping in mind the promised harvest, following all the way to the end of the field.  The power we need to act on Christ’s behalf in the world has been given us through his being taken up on the cross and released from the confining tomb of death to new life on Easter morning.  Thanks be to God!  Amen.