Proper 8 (13) – Year C

Third Sunday after Pentecost: June 29, 2025

Gospel Lectionary Text

Luke 9:51-62
9:51 When the days drew near for him to be taken up, he set his face to go to Jerusalem.

9:52 And he sent messengers ahead of him. On their way they entered a village of the Samaritans to make ready for him;

9:53 but they did not receive him, because his face was set toward Jerusalem.

9:54 When his disciples James and John saw it, they said, "Lord, do you want us to command fire to come down from heaven and consume them?"

9:55 But he turned and rebuked them.

9:56 Then they went on to another village.

9:57 As they were going along the road, someone said to him, "I will follow you wherever you go."

9:58 And Jesus said to him, "Foxes have holes, and birds of the air have nests; but the Son of Man has nowhere to lay his head."

9:59 To another he said, "Follow me." But he said, "Lord, first let me go and bury my father."

9:60 But Jesus said to him, "Let the dead bury their own dead; but as for you, go and proclaim the kingdom of God."

9:61 Another said, "I will follow you, Lord; but let me first say farewell to those at my home."

9:62 Jesus said to him, "No one who puts a hand to the plow and looks back is fit for the kingdom of God."

Context

Welcome to the third week after Pentecost. In this week’s text, Jesus turns toward Jerusalem. On the way, he takes time to address some unresolved family matters. The rift dates back to 722 B.C., when the Assyrians invaded the northern kingdom of Israel. The Samaritans, descendants of intermarriage with the oppressor, were seen by most Jews as impure — half-breeds and infidels.

Instead of going around Samaria on his way to Jerusalem, as all good Jews would do, Jesus takes the direct route. He walks through 700 years of hurt and the very heart of humanity.

The path to peace runs through a whole lot of pain. We can deny, numb, or suppress it, but these strategies only increase its power. As the saying goes, “If we don’t transform our pain, we will transmit it.”

When the Samaritans reject Jesus, James and John are quick to violence. “Lord, do you want us to call down fire from heaven?” But Jesus shows another way. He reveals the hated other as kin. Mother Teresa diagnosed the world’s ills in this way: “we’ve just forgotten that we belong to each other.”

Jesus shows us the way through Samaria — as kin, eager to reconcile, ready to forgive. It’s a hard but liberating call, especially when the world is at each other’s throats. Perhaps that’s why Jesus says, “No one who puts a hand to the plow and looks back is fit for the kingdom of God” (v. 62). Jesus speaks with urgency, knowing what lies ahead in Jerusalem. It’s a sober ending to a difficult passage, but it’s the hope of the world and it’s our call as kin.

Question

This week Jesus "sets his face toward Jerusalem" where prophets go to die. Tensions rise and disciples want to bring down curses on the hated Samaritans. How does Jesus' use of shocking hyperbole call forth disciples who are ensnared by death?

Reflections

The Cost of Following

A few years ago I heard a friend of our community, James Alison, say Jesus becomes like us and dares us to become like him. Those words struck me and stuck with me. I haven’t heard of a more costly invitation. In this passage, Jesus seems to get things straight about what it means to...

Read More »

Let the Dead Bury their Dead

True confession, the relationship with my brother was broken. It was a love and hate relationship that hurt both of us deeply. We wounded each other in ways that we may never realize. His sickness and death, however, just brought all of the wounds to the surface.

Read More »

Family Matters

In this week’s text Jesus turns toward Jerusalem where he will confront the brutal reality of sin head on. On his way to the city that he loves, he takes time to address some unresolved family matters that had been festering for a long time. The rift dates back to 722 BC when the Assyrians…

Read More »

Praying Eucharistically - Weekly Homily by James Alison:

Understanding the Bible anew through the Mimetic Theory of René Girard.

Poetry

Enemies
by Wendell Berry

If you are not to become a monster,
you must care what they think.
If you care what they think,

how will you not hate them,
and so become a monster
of the opposite kind? From where then

is love to come—love for your enemy
that is the way of liberty?
From forgiveness. Forgiven, they go

free of you, and you of them;
they are to you as sunlight
on a green branch. You must not

think of them again, except
as monsters like yourself,
pitiable because unforgiving. 

A Blessing Called Sanctuary
by Jan Richardson

You hardly knew
how hungry you were to be gathered in,
to receive the welcome that invited you to enter entirely—
nothing of you found foreign or strange,
nothing of your life that you were asked
to leave behind or to carry in silence or in shame.

Tentative steps became settling in,
leaning into the blessing
that enfolded you, taking your place in the circle that stunned you
with its unimagined grace.

You began to breathe again,
to move without fear, to speak with abandon
the words you carried in your bones, that echoed in your being.

You learned to sing.
But the deal with this blessing is that it will not leave you alone,
will not let you linger in safety, in stasis.

The time will come when this blessing
will ask you to leave,
not because it has tired of you
but because it desires for you to become the sanctuary that you have found—
to speak your word into the world, to tell what you have heard with your own ears, seen with your own eyes, known in your own heart:
that you are beloved, precious child of God, beautiful to behold,
and you are welcome and more than welcome here.

Prayer

This week, the call to prayer comes from the Street Psalms Centering Prayer: 

Come, Holy Spirit, wild and free. Do as you please. Shine your light on me that I might see things as they are, not as I am. Free me to act in your name with courage, creativity, and compassion.

See the complete prayer >