2 Kings 2:1-2, 6-14 Luke 9:51-62 Galatians 5:1, 13-25
There is an experience of launching into the unknown that happens to members of our military that tests their confidence, training, and the trust that they have in their superiors, their support team, the U.S. military, and the United States of America all at the same time. It happens in a variety of ways to varying degrees, but one of the most extreme experiences that I have read about happened, and may still happen, in the Jungle Survival training course that was once conducted in the jungles of Panama. There, they learned how to evade pursuers, what plants and animals can be safely eaten, how to navigate, build traps, build a fire without matches, and all sorts of other similarly useful things. But for the final exam, the soldiers were taken out to a random location and parachuted or dropped by helicopter into the jungle with instructions to return to a specified location within three to five days. They had little or no food, only a canteen of water, a knife, and their wits. Their first task, of course, besides avoiding poisonous snakes and dangerous animals, was to figure out where they were and how to navigate to their assigned pickup location.
I witnessed a similar, but less extreme example in the early 1990’s while on an exercise in the California Desert on the Twenty-Nine Palms Marine Corps base. One morning we awakened to find that we had new neighbors. We learned that it was an airborne infantry unit from Alaska. The day before, they had been on a bivouac, camping in the snow, at below freezing temperatures, when they were abruptly marched to the airfield, flown to California, and dropped into new positions in the desert where the temperature hit 110 to 120 degrees (F) during the day.
Such journeys into the unknown are uncommon in civilian life except for those times when a friend or family member surprises you with and urges you to get in the car with no idea where you are going.
In the end, whenever we set out into the unknown, we need to trust our equipment, our training, our companions, and our support teams. But it is that kind of trust that we often see when we read the stories of scripture and when we choose to follow God for ourselves. We begin this morning by reading from 2 Kings 2:1-2, 6-14, as we hear the story of how the baton is passed from the prophet Elijah to his trainee Elisha:
2:1 When the Lord was about to take Elijah up to heaven in a whirlwind, Elijah and Elisha were on their way from Gilgal. 2 Elijah said to Elisha, “Stay here; the Lord has sent me to Bethel.”
But Elisha said, “As surely as the Lord lives and as you live, I will not leave you.” So, they went down to Bethel.
6 Then Elijah said to him, “Stay here; the Lord has sent me to the Jordan.”
And he replied, “As surely as the Lord lives and as you live, I will not leave you.” So, the two of them walked on.
7 Fifty men from the company of the prophets went and stood at a distance, facing the place where Elijah and Elisha had stopped at the Jordan. 8 Elijah took his cloak, rolled it up and struck the water with it. The water divided to the right and to the left, and the two of them crossed over on dry ground.
9 When they had crossed, Elijah said to Elisha, “Tell me, what can I do for you before I am taken from you?”
“Let me inherit a double portion of your spirit,” Elisha replied.
10 “You have asked a difficult thing,” Elijah said, “yet if you see me when I am taken from you, it will be yours—otherwise, it will not.”
11 As they were walking along and talking together, suddenly a chariot of fire and horses of fire appeared and separated the two of them, and Elijah went up to heaven in a whirlwind. 12 Elisha saw this and cried out, “My father! My father! The chariots and horsemen of Israel!” And Elisha saw him no more. Then he took hold of his garment and tore it in two.
13 Elisha then picked up Elijah’s cloak that had fallen from him and went back and stood on the bank of the Jordan. 14 He took the cloak that had fallen from Elijah and struck the water with it. “Where now is the Lord, the God of Elijah?” he asked. When he struck the water, it divided to the right and to the left, and he crossed over.
Elisha and, in the passage we skipped over, several companies of prophets from different cities, all knew that God was going to take Elijah from the earth on that day. But no one knew exactly when, or where, or how, they only knew that Elijah was following a calling of God, first to Bethel and then across the Jordan River. Along the way, Elisha asks for a double portion of the Spirit of God that lived in Elijah. And Elijah answers that such a gift was not his to give but could only be given by God. As such, he sets a condition and says that if God allows Elisha to see what happens when Elijah is taken up, then that is a sign that God has granted his request. And so it happens that Elisha does see the chariots and horsemen of God and he does inherit a double portion of God’s Spirit, whatever that means exactly because I have no idea how such a thing could be measured, and Elisha returns to Israel from across the Jordan. But, once again, Elisha is following God into the unknown and has no idea where God will lead him or what God has in store for him in the future.
Elisha knew what it meant to follow his master, and what it means to follow God into the unknown but, in Luke 9:51-62, Jesus meets several people who say that they want to follow him, but their lives and their actions showed that they didn’t really understand what it meant to follow Jesus into the unknown.
51 As the time approached for him to be taken up to heaven, Jesus resolutely set out for Jerusalem. 52 And he sent messengers on ahead, who went into a Samaritan village to get things ready for him; 53 but the people there did not welcome him, because he was heading for Jerusalem. 54 When the disciples James and John saw this, they asked, “Lord, do you want us to call fire down from heaven to destroy them?” 55 But Jesus turned and rebuked them. 56 Then he and his disciples went to another village.
57 As they were walking along the road, a man said to him, “I will follow you wherever you go.”
58 Jesus replied, “Foxes have dens and birds have nests, but the Son of Man has no place to lay his head.”
59 He said to another man, “Follow me.”
But he replied, “Lord, first let me go and bury my father.”
60 Jesus said to him, “Let the dead bury their own dead, but you go and proclaim the kingdom of God.”
61 Still another said, “I will follow you, Lord; but first let me go back and say goodbye to my family.”
62 Jesus replied, “No one who puts a hand to the plow and looks back is fit for service in the kingdom of God.”
Because Jesus knew the hearts of the people around him, he understood that the first man, despite is assurances that he would follow Jesus anywhere, only meant that he would follow Jesus if it wasn’t too inconvenient. The second man was willing to follow Jesus but Jesus wasn’t a priority and so he could only when he wasn’t busy with other things. And still another prioritized his family over following Jesus. And so, Jesus tells his followers that following means keeping our eyes forward toward the mission to which God is calling us and not looking backward toward whatever family, business, or even church stuff that we have left behind us. A farmer that looks back while plowing will wander from his path and make crooked rows. The only way to move toward the goal in a straight line is to keep looking forward.
But living our lives isn’t like plowing a field. It’s easy to say that we must keep looking forward and stop looking backward, but what does that look like in real life? I get it that we can’t keep wishing we had done things differently, or that we can’t keep doing things the same way that our parents did them, or how our church used to do things. I get it that we need to keep look forward and keep our eyes on the mission that God has given to us today, but how should we live our lives? What things can help us to make decisions in our everyday world? And in Galatians 5:1, 13-25, we find some good advice from Paul, when he says:
5:1 It is for freedom that Christ has set us free. Stand firm, then, and do not let yourselves be burdened again by a yoke of slavery.
13 You, my brothers and sisters, were called to be free. But do not use your freedom to indulge the flesh; rather, serve one another humbly in love. 14 For the entire law is fulfilled in keeping this one command: “Love your neighbor as yourself.” 15 If you bite and devour each other, watch out or you will be destroyed by each other.
16 So I say, walk by the Spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the flesh. 17 For the flesh desires what is contrary to the Spirit, and the Spirit what is contrary to the flesh. They are in conflict with each other, so that you are not to do whateveryou want. 18 But if you are led by the Spirit, you are not under the law.
19 The acts of the flesh are obvious: sexual immorality, impurity, and debauchery; 20 idolatry and witchcraft; hatred, discord, jealousy, fits of rage, selfish ambition, dissensions, factions 21 and envy; drunkenness, orgies, and the like. I warn you, as I did before, that those who live like this will not inherit the kingdom of God.
22 But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, 23 gentleness and self-control. Against such things there is no law. 24 Those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires. 25 Since we live by the Spirit, let us keep in step with the Spirit. 26 Let us not become conceited, provoking and envying each other.
Paul reminds us that Jesus has set us free from sin and if we want to keep our freedom, then there are some things that we should do, and some things that we should not be doing. Paul says that keeping true to the commands of God is not complicated, but it means that we must love the people around us as much as we love ourselves. At the same time, we cannot be fighting amongst ourselves and destroying the kingdom of God from the inside. We can’t be immoral or impure or allow anything to become more important than God (because that’s what idols are). We can’t live lives filled with disruptive passions like rage, jealousy, selfishness, envy, division, class warfare, polarization, segregation, and other things that divide people instead of uniting them.
What we should be doing is living lives filled with love, joy, peace, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. We may never be asked to jump out of an airplane and find our way through the jungle but, if we want to follow Jesus into the unknown, we must keep in step with the Spirit and walk like Jesus.
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*You have been reading a message presented at Christ United Methodist Church on the date noted at the top of the first page. Rev. John Partridge is the pastor at Christ UMC in Alliance, Ohio. Duplication of this message is a part of our Media ministry, if you have received a blessing in this way, we would love to hear from you. Letters and donations in support of the Media ministry or any of our other projects may be sent to Christ United Methodist Church, 470 East Broadway Street, Alliance, Ohio 44601. These messages are available to any interested persons regardless of membership. You may subscribe to these messages, in print or electronic formats, by writing to the address noted, or by contacting us at secretary@CUMCAlliance.org. These messages can also be found online at https://pastorpartridge.com . All Scripture quotations, unless otherwise indicated, are taken from the Holy Bible, New International Version®, NIV®. Copyright ©1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.™ Used by permission of Zondervan. All rights reserved worldwide. www.zondervan.comThe “NIV” and “New International Version” are trademarks registered in the United States Patent and Trademark Office by Biblica, Inc.™
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