Trinity Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.)

Sermons 

implies something that I find a little disturbing.

I bet you will, too.

When Jesus says that

"no one who puts a hand to the plow and looks back

is fit for the kingdom of God" …

doesn’t it seem to follow that, the older we get,

the less likely we are to be fit for the kingdom of God?

Think about it …

When you were graduating from high school …

did you spend very much time "looking back"

to all the years of your life up to that time?

Weren’t you mostly looking forward?

When you were a newlywed,

did you spend a lot of time reminiscing about the good old days,

or were you mostly looking ahead to creating a life together?

When your first child arrived –

or perhaps a niece or nephew, if you don’t have kids of your own –

did you spend most of your time

fondly remembering the days B.C. – before children –

or were you thinking ahead, planning ahead,

for that child’s life and future?

The younger we are,

the easier it is to look ahead, to look forward.

After all, when you’re 18, when you’re 25, even when you’re 30 …

there’s a lot more "ahead" to look at

than "back" to pine for.

But some time around mid-life, perhaps …

when we cross that fuzzy line where, one day,

it occurs to us that there is now probably

more "back" to our life than "forward";

that is, more years in our past than in our future,

at least on this planet …

doesn’t "looking back" seem to have an almost gravitational pull?

Maybe "back" is a time when our children lived nearer to us;

maybe "back" is a time before our spouse died;

maybe "back" is a time before we had to count out

half a dozen pills each morning for various ailments;

maybe "back" is a time when all of our neighbors spoke English,

or a time when everyone went to church on Sunday …

Now, we’re not completely sentimental about the past;

we know that the "good old days" weren’t always so good,

and they were assuredly better for some people than for others.

But familiar feels good.

And change is hard, no matter what your age …

but perhaps even harder when you’ve already lived through

several decades of changes and challenges.

And yet …

"No one who puts a hand to the plow and looks back

is fit for the kingdom of God."

Ouch.

What’s a Christian with a long memory to do?

And not only that,

but Jesus seems to have a penchant for saying outrageous

and maybe even offensive things like,

"Let the dead bury their own dead."

And to imply that even making a quick stop

to wave goodbye to the family

makes you unfit for the kingdom.

Those are the kind of thing that sometimes leads us to think,

it is so impossible to follow Jesus,

maybe we shouldn’t even try!

But remember the context.

Luke sets this scene up for us

by giving us the chronology:

the days are drawing near for Jesus to be taken up.

We’re getting close to the final chapter.

And those around him may not have figured it out yet,

but Jesus definitely knows what is happening and what is about to happen.

He has set his face to go to Jerusalem.

This is where he will have what he suspects will be the final showdown

between himself and the authorities.

Both the religious and the political authorities, that is.

He’s pretty sure how that is going to end up.

In modern terminology, we might say,

he is operating on autopilot.

He has set the course,

and there is no longer anything that can stand in his way

or be allowed to slow him down.

Not his own knowledge or fears about what’s likely to happen when he gets there,

and certainly not the delays of would-be disciples

who haven’t yet grasped his sense of urgency.

Does Jesus mean that henceforth,

all his followers should cease from mourning their dead, or honoring them?

Of course not.

Remember, please, that in John’s gospel

he interrupted a journey of his own

when his friend Lazarus died.

(Although, recall that he didn’t hurry to get there, either!)

When Jesus tells us that

no one who puts a hand to the plow and looks back

is fit for the kingdom of God,

what he wants us to understand is that the choice to follow him

means a radical reorganizing of our priorities.

"Looking back" – or not –

is just one piece of that.

Jesus didn’t ignore the past, did he?

He read from the Hebrew scriptures,

he seems to have known them very well,

and to have taken their demands seriously.

He did not at any time

try to create a new religion out of nothing.

He learned the past,

he honored it,

and he built on it.

I suppose that’s one way to look at the differences and disputes

between Jesus and some of the religious leaders of his day.

For them, especially for the Pharisees,

the past is to serve as an anchor in a world of chaos and change.

You have to know the past in order to stay there,

because it’s the time when God gave the law to the people,

and any straying from that must be seen as decline, as degradation.

For Jesus, the past is more like

a foundation on which you build.

It’s always there, it gives us strength;

but our goal is the kingdom of God which lies ahead,

and we’ll never get there if we are anchored to the way things were.

God’s kingdom will never get built

if we insist that the foundation is all there is,

or that everything else must also look just like the foundation.

The reign of God cannot be fulfilled among us,

if we put our hand to the plow and look back.

Think how much sense that metaphor makes …

even for us city kids,

many of whom have probably never plowed anything at all.

Imagine yourself in Jesus’ day,

plowing your field behind a team of oxen …

they’re doing the heavy work of pulling the plow,

but you’re doing the "steering," as it were, guiding it into straight rows.

Now, how do you make the rows straight?

I’ve read enough that I know this, okay?

please don’t think I’m implying that I’ve ever done it!

You keep your rows straight by choosing a point somewhere ahead of you,

and always aiming at it.

Maybe it’s a tree on the horizon,

maybe the barn or the farm house.

You point yourself and the oxen ahead,

and you head straight for that landmark.

Imagine how your rows would look

if you thought that the way to plow a straight line

was by walking backward to see where you’d already been.

Your field would look like it was laid out by a drunk!

The past is a foundation for the future,

but not a blueprint for the future.

Well, as of our congregational vote last week,

we’re now looking into a future

that is going to be noticeably different from our past.

We’ve chosen a particular path;

we’ve put our hand to a particular plow,

and it’s inevitable that we are going to spend some time looking back.

So how do we make that a "foundation" thing

instead of an "anchor" thing?

How can our past be used to shape

the future that is coming?

What is there in our story

that can be a foundation for the legacy we will leave

in this community, in Grace Presbytery,

in the Presbyterian Church as a whole,

and in our own individual lives?
How will we proclaim the kingdom of God

while at the same time mourning our dead?

How will we celebrate and honor the past

while staying aimed at the horizon, at the future?

You’ll have an early chance at this – and more, later –

when you receive a letter from the session later this month

that invites your input and ideas as we take care of details.

What do you want to be sure is not forgotten?

What ideas do you have about our legacy?

What are your suggestions about the proper giving or disposition

of some of Trinity’s assets?

What do you hope you can take with you

in a new church setting?

We’ll ask you to put some things in writing

and send it back to us,

so that we can look back and look ahead together.

We will say farewell,

we will bury our dead,

but always with an eye to the future,

to the path we are plowing.

Are we fit for the kingdom of God?

I think so …

and I think that vision will sustain us through the year ahead

even when we are sad,

and even in times when we wish we could recreate the past

instead of letting it go.

God is not finished with us yet,

although our future with God and one another is not yet clear.

May we trust God’s grace in this time of uncertainty,

and keep our eyes on the horizon ahead,

and, surely, whatever it looks like,

we will be fit for the kingdom of God.

Amen.

© 2007 Julie Adkins (e-mail: DrJAdkins@trinitypresdallas.org)