Luke 9:51-62

This passage begins, “When the days drew near for him to be taken up, he set his face to go to Jerusalem.” The phrase “set his face” is unique to Luke and signals Jesus’ single-minded intention to face what is waiting for him in Jerusalem. This passage is peculiar to Luke, describing first an encounter with hostile Samaritans, and then interactions with three potential disciples whom Jesus dismisses as insufficiently committed to costly discipleship. Together, they focus on what it means to live a Christian life, to live as a follower of Jesus.

Messengers have gone ahead of Jesus and the disciples to arrange for lodging and food, but this Samaritan village does not welcome them. Luke explains this is “because his face was set toward Jerusalem” (verse 53). Although Jews and Samaritans worshiped the same God and claimed the same ancestors, they were divided over other aspects of their religion. While Jerusalem was the only proper location for Jewish worship, Samaritans worshiped at Mount Gerizim. The fact that Jesus was headed to Jerusalem for Passover meant he was planning to keep the feast in the wrong place.

His disciples suggest taking revenge on the inhospitable Samaritans by raining fire down on them. Whether or not they believed they had the power to do this, Jesus rebukes them. Vengeance is not the way of discipleship; restoration is. He moves on to another village, which may also be Samaritan, but perhaps more hospitable. Certainly, this is not Jesus’ last word about Samaritans.

In the three interactions with wannabe disciples that follow, it sure sounds as though Jesus is saying, “If you can’t be all in right now, don’t bother.” With Jerusalem on his mind and in his future, undoubtedly he knows discipleship will become more dangerous, if not deadly. Part of what’s going on might be that he needs those who follow him to know that they may face the same danger, or even the same death.

But he also wants to convey the urgency of the Kingdom of God and the total commitment required by the revolution of hope that he’s leading. This passage is about the Kingdom of God. Jesus mentions it twice in these verses. The Kingdom of God is the metaphor Jesus used to describe what our world would look like if God were the ruler of all of our hearts and minds, rather than the current rulers of this world. In Jesus’ context, the current rulers included Caesar and his lackeys, men like Herod, who had colonized the whole Mediterranean world through force and domination. They were motivated by greed and power over others, and did whatever it took – corruption, violence, exploitation – to stay in power. It also included the religious elite who had created a caste system from the law. There were the privileged few who had the time and means, not to mention the right gender and ethnicity, to follow the law meticulously so they could be insiders, and there was everybody else, who ended up “less than.” These kingdoms or systems kept people poor and powerless. People were not free to determine their own lives or their own future. And they were stuck in that way of looking at the world.

There is an alternative: the Kingdom of God, and Jesus says again and again that the Kingdom of God is here, now, among us. The prophet Micah describes the Kingdom of God this way: “[T]hey shall beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruning hooks; nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war any more; but they shall all sit under their own vines and under their own fig trees, and no one shall make them afraid.” Brian McLaren puts it like this: “At the center of the beloved community is good news – a framing story that calls humanity to creativity, harmony, reconciliation, justice, virtue, integrity, and peace, because these values reflect the character of the Creator whose world is our home and in whose presence we live and move and have our being. In short: we are all part of one kingdom, one beautiful whole, with one caring Creator, who is faithful to us even in our stupidity and sin. God calls us to reconcile with God, one another, and creation, to defect from the false stories that divide and destroy us, and to join God in the healing of the world through love and the pursuit of justice and the common good.”

The framing story that currently dominates the world has no power over the Kingdom of God framing story except the power people give it by believing it. Believing an alternative and transforming framing story may turn out to be the most radical thing any of us can ever do. But believing takes commitment. It takes keeping your hands on the plow. So Jesus tells the would-be disciples to drop everything and get on board with the Kingdom of God. Does he really mean we shouldn’t take care of our beloved family members’ funeral arrangements, or even say goodbye? I don’t believe he does. I think he’s reacting to his own disciples’ cluelessness in seeking revenge against the Samaritans. They are showing him they still don’t get it.

I hardly need to list the ways humankind is self-destructive and world-destructive; I hardly need to catalogue what we’re doing to ourselves by buying into, believing in, clinging to the old way: We’ve threatened the very survival of creation with an economy that doesn’t respect the limits of the planet; there’s a growing gap between rich and poor, triggering resentment, blaming, and hatred; people continue to solve these and other problems with violence and retribution; and the world’s religions, including our own, not only fail to address all this this but often make it worse, and to a large degree would rather focus on what happens to us after we die.

Broken, broken, and broken. The only way out is believing with all your heart – all our hearts – that God wants something better for us and offers it to us – now. Of course we need to care for our families – bury our loved ones, say goodbye when we leave – but the disciples’ reaction to the Samaritans reminds Jesus how our preoccupation with our own families, our own tribe, can get in the way of seeing ourselves as citizens of the kingdom of God. This is the same Jesus who welcomed little children and healed lepers, who included outcasts and spoke with women and Gentiles. He’s not opposed to caring for families. There are times when dealing lovingly with our families is the kindest, most compassionate, most faithful thing to do; the problem is when we get stuck in thinking only about “me and mine.”

Jesus leads us away from the fanatic extremism that elevates one tribe, one belief system, one country over all others. Jesus is saying, “Drop everything” – drop the tribal, me-and-mine, us-versus-them way of seeing the world. Fanaticism – ethnic, religious, national, whatever – is the old way, the old framing story that gets us in trouble.

© Joanne Whitt 2025 all rights reserved.

Resources:
Brian D. McLaren, Everything Must Change: Jesus, Global Crisis and a Revolution of Hope (Nashville, TN: Thomas Nelson, 2007)
Jeannine K. Brown, https://www.workingpreacher.org/commentaries/revised-common-lectionary/ordinary-13-3/commentary-on-luke-951-62-8