|
First
Reading
|
Psalm |
Epistle |
Gospel |
| 1 Kings 19:15–16,19–21
|
Psalm 16 |
Galatians 5:1, 13–25
|
Luke
9:51–63
|
We all know people who cannot let go of a particular part of their past: parents who hang on to their adult children, those who carry hurts to perpetuate their pain again and again, people who remain trapped reliving a bygone reality.
Some of you may recall the classic move “Groundhog Day” starring Bill Murray. Murray plays a self-centered egotistical television news reporter who is totally inconsiderate of his crew and abuses everyone he meets. He is sent to the small Pennsylvania town of Punxsutanney to cover Groundhog Day and meets a girl he likes, but like everyone else, he treats her with total disregard of her feelings. However, the next morning when he wakes up, it seems to be Groundhog Day again in Punxsutanney and he discovers that he is forced to replay the same day over and over again. He starts to appreciate the feelings of others and begins not to be his old boorish self, but finding old habits hard to break, still reverts to the same old selfish character by the day’s end. Part of the magic of the movie is that we first laugh at the antics of Murray trying to get it right, but then they begin to be just repetitious and tedious, and we yearn for Murray to get on with it and learn his lesson. He is a slow learner, but finally he is able to make a complete break from his past behavior, the girl and he fall in love, he learns to be genuinely decent to his crew, and the next morning he is liberated from an endlessly repeat of Groundhog Day.
Over the past two weeks, Kluane and I have met the future fathers and mothers-in-law of our two sons. I am happy to say that we were welcomed and warmly embraced. It will be a big big change for us, but we also have learned that it’s not about losing our two sons to bright and pretty young ladies, but about being incorporated into a much larger family than we have ever known. Our sons are now considered members of their family. There is no ambivalence about it. The weddings will not only be about the celebration of the joining together of a son and a daughter-in-law, it was also clear that they will be an initiation of new relationships that will affect us for the rest of our lives. A future bride’s grandfather enthusiastically told us of his family history, about where past generations came from, where they settled, and what they did. Such details were held important, not trivial small talk, because it was expected that soon they would be a part of our history, too.
The theme of both the first lesson and the Gospel is that we cannot move on in life until we acknowledge the significant changes in our lives and recognize that in some way we grow into different people. In the first lesson it is made clear that Elisha is no longer going spend most of his time plowing the fields. Being groomed to be Elijah’s successor will completely transform his life. The destruction of the wooden yokes for the plow and the giant ox roast for all his neighbors are all about the recognition that he will never be able to return to the past and that it is right to celebrate his future. It was a symbolic ritual. Everyone knew that you would not plow with a team of twelve oxen. The twelve oxen are likely symbolic of a complete nation, the twelve tribes of Israel. Elisha will follow in Elijah’s footsteps and be a prophet to all of Israel. We might say that he symbolically burned his bridges behind him. His life’s journey now lay ahead of him. No, he did not forget or disparage his past. Rather he knew that it was his past that had brought him to this point and was releasing him to go on his future way.
In the Gospel, Jesus talks about being “fit” for the kingdom of God. It doesn’t mean rejecting family any more than our two sons are rejecting their parents by becoming engaged, connecting to the families of their future spouses, and leaving the home of their childhood. Being fit means being prepared; being willing to accept the responsibility of moving forward into a further journey of discovery, and being prepared to acknowledge the adventure God invites us to take. Martin Luther King, Jr. would say that if a man did not discover something he would die for, he was not fit to live.1 He did not mean that someone did not deserve to live, but that if one had no principles to live by, if one was never aware of the cost and great dignity of life, one would neither appreciate nor defend the grand gift that life truly is.
The scriptures, over many centuries and in many varied ways, tell us not to fear, but embrace the dynamic changes of life. The gift of abundant life always goes hand in hand with the recognition and the acceptance of such evolving responsibilities. Come to think of it, the Fourth of July commemorates a commitment taken in 1776 to accept a tremendous challenge to expand the concept of freedom to others. The publishing of the Declaration of Independence was a seminal moment and there was no turning back. We are still enlarging and broadening concepts of freedom, justice, and liberty. We still have much, much to learn and progress seems to be distressingly slow. Yet that is why the ancient story of the call of Elisha and Jesus’ warning us to be prepared for the road ahead are quite appropriate lessons for the coming week.
1 Detroit, MI, June 1963
And
I offer this to you in the name of the Living God, Amen.
