Galatians 5:1, 13-25; Luke 9:51-62
“When the days drew near for him to be taken up, he set his face to go to Jerusalem.” Luke 9:51
One third of Luke's gospel takes place while Jesus is traveling, and the first step of his journey begins with verse 9:51, when “he set his face to go to Jerusalem.” The road Jesus traveled was not planned out ahead of time. He didn't get a Trip Tick from AAA. He didn't use a GPS; he didn't even have a map; but then, he didn't need one.
It's not the one-foot-in-front-of-the-other road Jesus takes to Jerusalem that we contemplate today but the firm focus he follows that brings him to arrive “successfully” at his destination, Jerusalem, and to reach his ultimate destiny, the cross.
Jesus wants us to reach our own destinies as well. We do not have to go to the cross, because Jesus in his great love for us has covered that path for us. Something else is necessary. Today, through the urging of the Holy Spirit, my prayer is that as Christians and as Congregation, we can “set our faces,” not just on Jerusalem, but expressly on Jesus.
To “set one's face” means to focus intensely on a purpose, a goal, an achievement, an accomplishment, an intentional destination, and nothing can persuade you to veer off course, nothing can make you change your focus or make you turn your face away from your destination.
I invite you to contemplate your own paths as we spend our summer Sunday mornings exploring what author and pastor Andy Stanley defines as the Principle of the Path, which states simply, “Direction, not intention, determines destination.”1
I was talking about the Principle of the Path with Frank Thomas earlier this week. He looked it over (it's posted on my door) and then looked back at me and said, “To put it another way, 'the road to hell is paved with good intentions.'” Yeah; something like that!
The Path, you might have guessed, is more than a physical, geographical route. The path is our intention; that is, we set out intending to arrive at certain destinations: successful, wealthy, well educated, happy, Christ-like. However, sometimes we get distracted and make decisions that seem like
they shouldn't affect our intended destination, yet we so often find ourselves in places very different from where we intended to be.
And that's how the principle of intention works. “What's true geographically is equally true relationally, financially, physically, and academically.”2 It takes deep determination, as Luke would say, to “set our faces” and arrive where we said we were going to arrive – happily married, financially stable, physically fit, or academically accomplished.
In Luke's gospel, Christ is a walking, talking example of how to keep moving in the right direction despite the distractions that always seem to crop up.
When the Samaritans would not receive Jesus, the disciples wanted to incinerate the townspeople, but Jesus rebuked them. Why? Because such action would not get him to the Cross. Instead the moved on to the next village.
On the road, one man said, “I will follow you wherever you go.” And Jesus replied in such a way that the man needed to think about the hardship and homelessness the new disciple would encounter if he truly followed him.
Another man wanted to follow Jesus, but he was distracted, “First let me go and bury my father.” This man wanted to go in another direction first, before he followed Jesus; I wonder if the man wanted Jesus to wait for him while he took care of his father's remains. “Let the dead bury their dead.” If you're going with me, you have to go now — the direction is NOW.
Still another said, “I will follow you Lord; but let me first say farewell to those at my home.” And Jesus' answer is the same. The direction is now, not later, not after certain things happen.
There are so many temptations, so many distractions, in our personal lives that if we are not disciplined and focused, we end up traveling in a direction that does not lead to the destination we desire. When we go back, look back, put our hand to a different plow, the path we end up taking probably looks something like Interstate 710 in Los Angeles, which I think must be an example of California's “You can't get thyuh from hyuh.”
The same dangers arise in our Congregational life. I truly believe that if we do not set our faces on Jesus, our wonderful church will be plow-pressed to reach its God-given destiny. When we go downstairs into the fellowship hall for our annual meeting, we will have tremendous opportunities to set our faces on Jesus. What we must be mindful of deciding on directions that will not lead us to our hoped-for destination.
This church, like all true churches, belongs to the Lord Jesus Christ, and not to us, and so FPFC's destination must be Jesus. Annual Meeting is the place to make a conscious choice to set our faces on the people and places that need Jesus as much as we do. “For freedom, Christ has set us free. Stand firm, therefore, and do not submit to a yoke of slavery” Paul writes to the Galatians but his words are so appropriate for us as well. We have to watch out for yokes that want to enslave us:
Zero percent financing and no money down...
but he's rich...
She makes me feel like I used to feel...
That's how business is done here...
No payments for 12 months...
Yokes like these turn us in directions that we shouldn't be going, unless of course our intended destination is bankruptcy, divorce court or prison, to name a few. If we want to go with Christ, as Christian and as Congregation, we have to keep going in the same direction Jesus is going.
Plowing through life in directions that do not lead to the destination that Jesus bought for us with his own blood – everlasting life with God in the new Jerusalem — sets us up into works of the flesh instead of life in the Spirit. Paul writes that the desires of the flesh and the desires of the Spirit are opposed to each other “to prevent you from doing what you want” (Gal 5:18).
Doing what we want in the moment (the desires of the flesh) may feel good at the time, yet almost always leads us in a direction (behavior) that is not going to get us where we desire to go. And then we are shocked, dismayed or bewildered about what happened – it's kind of like seeing a moose at Long Sands: that's not supposed to happen!
If we want to be Christian, and Congregation, we've got to stay on the right path. We have to keep our faces “set on” on Jesus. We have to be careful about our choices and decisions. We have to choose the right path. “Simply put, you and I will win or lose in life by the paths we choose.”3
So, let's ask ourselves, Am I winning or losing in life by the paths I have chosen?
Then during the week, let's contemplate our answers to questions such as:
If I think I may be losing in life, how can I change the paths I have chosen?
Does my intention for my life line up with my current direction? [Can I get thyuh from hyuh?]
Is the path I'm on likely to take me where I want to go? Where Jesus wants me to go?
Next week, we apply the Principle of the Path to our daily lives and explore the puzzling phenomenon of why bad things happen to smart people.
We will look at what is causing the “disconnect” in our lives, in our relationships, and in our faith.
We will even discover ways to connect the dots between the choices we make and the outcomes we experience.
The principle of the path may not be as quantum as the theory of relativity, but it sure is a powerful way to put Christ's energy in our motion to get each of us – and our church -- going in his direction. This is how we get from where we are now to where we want to be: We set our faces, and our hearts, on the path to salvation. Amen.
First Parish Federated Church, South Berwick. June 27, 2010. The Reverend Donna Lee Muise, Pastor.
