The Sánchez Archives THIRTEENTH SUNDAY IN ORDINARY TIME Year C

By
Patricia Datchuck Sánchez

A continuing Ministry

1 KINGS 19:16, 19-21
GALATIANS 5:1, 13-18
LUKE 9:51-62

In today’s scripture reading, the church gathers the attention of the assembly to focus on some of those ministers who have served in varying capacities throughout its history. In considering the efforts and attitudes of these ministers, “warts and all,” the community may also be drawn into a moment of grateful wonder; despite the faults and foibles of those who have served it, the ministry of the church has survived and has continued unabated for centuries.

In today’s gospel, Luke features the often feisty and, at times, ambitious brothers, James and John. Perturbed that they had not been treated hospitably, their first inclination was toward anger and vengeance. With Jesus’ guidance, and by his example, they lived to become exemplary ministers of the gospel. Along with the brothers Zebedee, Luke introduces his readers to some other potential ministers who offered a variety of reasons as to why Jesus’ call to ministry was inconvenient. In examining their excuses and Jesus’ responses to them, each of us is given cause to consider whether the alibis we offer to escape responsible ministry have any merit.

Paul in his letter to the Christians in Galatia (second reading) reminds all ministers of the good news that the criterion by which they are to measure themselves is the very spirit of God. By embracing that criterion, authentic ministers are strengthened against the rivalries and back-biting that can only lead to mutual destruction.

In his description of Elijah’s passing on of his prophetic work to Elisha, the ancient chronicler (first reading, 1 Kings) reminds his readers that the ministry to which each of us is called will continue after we are gone. Lest we be lost in our own self-importance, the experience of Elijah grounds us in reality. All of us are necessary to the ministry but none of us is irreplaceable.

Ministry could be thought of as a natural and necessary expression of the faith of the church, which is a graced being constituted of a divine head (Christ) and clay feet (humankind). For this reason, ministry is a melding of human and divine energies; a cooperative effort between God who never fails and human hands and hearts which often falter.

Buoyed up and driven by grace, the ministry of the church has been able to withstand: (1) the threats of human prejudice that would have distinguished between Jewish and gentile Christians; (2) persecutions; (3) heresies and other misrepresentation of the truth; (4) the theological and political animosity which resulted in the breach between the Eastern and Western churches; (5) the military excesses of the Crusades; (6) the unbridled ruthlessness of the Inquisition; (7) the corruption of power and authority known ad the “Babylonian Captivity” (1309-1376); (8) the loss of ecclesial integrity and credibility that resulted in the great Schism of the 16th century C.E.; (9) the secular rationalism of the age of Enlightenment; (10) the decimation of the clergy during the twentieth century; and (11) the moral turpitude of contemporary society.

Through it all, the ministry of the church continues; through it all, God’s grace and goodness further the church’s work of salvation and strengthen all who are called to its service.

1 KINGS 19:16, 19-21

Near the conclusion of the Jewish Seder or Passover meal, the prophet Elijah is invoked. A highly legendized figure, Elijah is celebrated as the bearer of good news, whose mystical appearances in times of trouble bring relief and hope to the downtrodden. According to Jewish tradition, Elijah’s greatest mission is yet to come; as herald, he shall precede the Messiah to announce his arrival, and with it, freedom and peace for all peoples. At each Seder meal the hopeful anticipation of Elijah’s reappearance on earth is renewed. To that end, and with all the Seder participants standing around the table, the front door of the house is opened and those assembled pray to God: “May the Spirit of Elijah, who enters our home at this hour, enter the hearts of all people. May he inspire them to love you and may he fill them with a desire to build a good world, one in which justice and freedom shall be the inheritance of all.”

Elijah’s reputation as a proponent of justice and fidelity to God is rooted in the first book of Kings. Therein he is featured as the most important of the preliterary prophets who ministered in Israel during the reigns of Ahab and Ahaziah (869-849 B.C.E.). Elijah’s ministry also represents a departure from the guilds or sons of the prophets who camped on the outskirts of villages and who, for a fee, would deliver a frenzied, ecstatic message to their clients. Unlike these questionable “diviners”, Elijah, Elisha (and Samuel) were regarded as authentic prophets of God. In no fewer than 45 prophecy-fulfillment narratives, the author of Kings assured his contemporaries that the words and promises of God’s chosen ministers were effective.

In this excerpted text, Elijah’s contemporaries were assured that God’s plan of salvation would continue to be revealed among them. Elisha would become the apprentice and then the successor of Elijah. The ’addereth or hairy mantle that Elijah threw over Elisha was regarded as the distinguishing attire of the prophet (2 Kings 1:8; Zechariah 13:4; Matthew 3:4). In the gesture of casting the cloak over another, the owner of the garment signaled either ownership and responsibility (as in Ruth 3:9) or the investiture and approval of a successor. Through the interchange between the two men, the necessity of wholehearted dedication to the ministry is affirmed. Judging from the twelve yoke of oxen, Elisha must have been a man of some means. Nevertheless, he willingly put aside his family and former livelihood to answer the call to ministry. Elijah’s seemingly harsh response to Elisha’s request to kiss his parents goodbye might simply have meant, “Go ahead! Have I done anything to stop you?” The fact that Elisha used the tools and animals from his former way of life to prepare a feast for his people underscored his willingness to “burn his bridges” behind him. In his wholehearted resolve to enter into God’s service, Elisha prefigures the quality of commitment Jesus would later ask of his followers.

GALATIANS 5:1, 13-18

Whereas Elisha relinquished his several yoke of oxen for the sake of his prophetic ministry, the Galatians were challenged by Paul to put off their yoke of slavery for the sake of Christ (v. 1). And, whereas Elisha’s yoke signified his obligation to his farm, family and former way of life, Paul regarded the Galatians’ yoke of slavery as their willingness to backslide, away from the freedom they had found in Christ toward the practices being thrust upon them by the Judaizers, viz., circumcision and observance of the law. Paul described this backsliding as taking on the yoke of slavery a second time. Their first yoke would have been the burden of their life before Christ, when they had been enslaved to sin. Having been freed from that yoke by their faith in Christ’s saving death, the Galatians were warned by Paul against exchanging one yoke for another.

A predominantly gentile community, the Christians in Galatia had received Paul and his message of good news in faith. However, after Paul left their territory to minister elsewhere, certain right-wing Jewish Christians, also known as Judaizers, threatened both Paul’s authority and his message by telling the Galatians that faith was not sufficient for salvation. Allowing their centuries-old prejudice against gentiles to cloud their thinking and obscure the authentic gospel of grace, the Judaizers tried to impose the law of Moses, the rite of circumcision and other Jewish observances (feast, dietary rules), upon Paul’s converts. Paul responded swiftly and angrily to undercut their efforts, not because he was personally attacked but because the integrity of the gospel was in jeopardy. In the verses omitted from this excerpted pericope, Paul warned the Galatians, “It is I Paul, who am telling you that if you have yourselves circumcised, Christ will be of no benefit to you! ... You are separated from Christ, you who are trying to be justified by law” (5:2, 4).

Rather than allow themselves to be yoked into slavery under the law, Paul reminded the Galatians that they had been called by Christ to live in freedom and to be guided in their efforts by the Spirit. As Raymond E. Brown (An Introduction to the New Testament, Doubleday, New York: 1997) has pointed out, the Galatian believers may have been attracted to the Judaizers’ preaching because of their stress on the clear, ethical, directives in the law. Freedom, on the other hand, has its own attraction, but it can also be frightening, in that it brings with it a burden of responsibility for using it wisely. Because of this, freedom requires definition; accordingly, Paul reminds his readers that the freedom which they enjoy in Christ is not for license (“free rein to the flesh”, v. 13) but for mutual love and service.

To further define the freedom they knew in Christ, Paul juxtaposed life according to the flesh with life according to the spirit. By flesh and spirit, Paul does not mean body and soul or corporeal versus spiritual. Rather, and as Paul Wrightman (Paul’s Early Letters, Alba House, New York: 1983) has so succinctly explained, by “flesh”, Paul describes both the attitudes and actions in which people see themselves as their own creators. Flesh is that prideful self-sufficiency which spills over into selfish words and works (see 5:19-21). “Spirit”, on the other hand, describes both the attitudes and actions in which people acknowledge their dependence on God for their being and fulfillment. The term spirit points to a relationship with God which overflows and is expressed in virtue (see 5:22-23).

Contemporary ministers for Christ and the church are challenged by Paul’s message, today, to evaluate the authenticity of their freedom and to determine whether their attitudes and actions are yoked to the flesh or are consonant with the spirit.

LUKE 9:51-62

At first glance, James and John, as featured in today’s gospel, seem like children on a playground threatening to take home their bat and ball when the game does not go their way. When the Samaritans refused them hospitality, they wanted to call down fire from heaven on their town. Jesus reprimanded them for their desire to misuse and misdirect their ministry and set out with them for the next town en route to their final destination, Jerusalem. However, Luke had a more profound reason for portraying James and John in such an unbecoming light.

At this point in his gospel, the Lucan Jesus resolves to head to Jerusalem where the exodus or departure that he had discussed with Moses and Elijah (9:31) was to take place. In 9:51, Luke refers to Jesus’ departure as being taken from this world. The Greek term analempis did not only refer to Jesus’ death but to the whole series of saving events that would climax in his ascension. Luke Timothy Johnson (The Gospel of Luke, The Liturgical Press, Collegeville, MN: 1991) points out the similarity between Jesus’ being taken up and the reference to Elijah’s being taken up to heaven by God in a whirlwind (2 Kings 2:1). The association between Jesus and Elijah is further illustrated in the apostles’ request for a destroying fire from heaven to fall on the Samaritans (v. 54). In 2 Kings, when King Ahaziah of Samaria sent soldiers to force Elijah into compliance, the prophet called down a fire from heaven which consumed them. A third similarity between Jesus and Elijah is reflected in the offer of some of Jesus’ potential disciples, “I will follow you” (vv. 57, 61). Elijah had received similar pledges of discipleship from his successor Elisha who said, “I will not leave you” (2 Kings 2:2, 4, 6). Through these allusions to Elijah, Luke makes it clear that it is as God’s Prophet par excellence that Jesus will proceed to Jerusalem to effect the salvation of humankind. As he travels, Jesus speaks the saving word of God to all who will listen. Those who listen and attend become his disciples; those who refuse cut themselves off from the good news Jesus has come to proclaim.

In verses 57-62, Luke offers a sampling of responses to Jesus’ call to discipleship. To the first offer, “I will be your follower wherever you go” (v. 57), Jesus explained that his was an itinerant life. With “nowhere to lay his head”, Jesus did not organize an institutional ministry with a fixed horarium wherein his services were dispersed from a central base of operations. The mobility of Jesus’ ministry was dictated by the needs of the people; he sought them out, the poor, the hungry, the sick, the sinful and the lost. Jesus indicated that those who would go wherever he did should exercise a similarly flexible ministry.

Jesus’ other statements to his would-be disciples warrant some clarification. To the man who requested that he first bury his father before following Jesus, the response, “Let the dead bury their dead” seems harsh. However, George M. Lamsa (Idioms in the Bible Explained, Harper and Row Publishers, San Francisco: 1985) has shed some much needed light on the matter. “Let me bury my father” is more properly understood as an indication that the man’s father was not dead or even sick but elderly; therefore, his son was asking to delay his participation in Jesus’ ministry until such time as his father did pass from this world. But the demands of discipleship are more important than convenient. To that end, Jesus invited the man to come away to proclaim the kingdom. In Aramaic, the word for dead is metta; the word for town is matta. Lamsa suggests that in many of the mutilated manuscripts the small Aramaic character which determines the difference between these two words may have been lost or destroyed. Therefore, this saying of Jesus is more reasonably rendered as “Let the town bury their dead.”

Jesus’ saying about the plough indicated that those who would share his ministry must make it their top priority, over every other concern. If someone were to keep looking back at what he had left behind (family, friends, etc.) or even at the work he/she had already accomplished, he/she would not be fit for the singlehearted dedication required of a disciple. Unattached and undeterred, Jesus set the example; today his sayings challenge us to follow him with similar determination.

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