15 Then the LORD said to him, “Go, return on your way to the wilderness of Damascus; when you arrive, you shall anoint Hazael as king over Aram. 16 Also you shall anoint Jehu son of Nimshi as king over Israel; and you shall anoint Elisha son of Shaphat of Abel-meholah as prophet in your place.
19 So he set out from there, and found Elisha son of Shaphat, who was plowing. There were twelve yoke of oxen ahead of him, and he was with the twelfth. Elijah passed by him and threw his mantle over him. 20 He left the oxen, ran after Elijah, and said, “Let me kiss my father and my mother, and then I will follow you.” Then Elijah said to him, “Go back again; for what have I done to you?” 21 He returned from following him, took the yoke of oxen, and slaughtered them; using the equipment from the oxen, he boiled their flesh, and gave it to the people, and they ate. Then he set out and followed Elijah, and became his servant.
(NRSV)
The parallels between this text and Monday’s text from Luke are hard to miss. Elisha seemed willing to follow, but first wants to go back and say his good-byes. Elijah’s response is somewhat puzzling. It’s hard to tell if he is giving permission to Elisha to return and kiss his father and mother, or if his answer is more like saying a sarcastic, “whatever.” There does seem to be something acidulous in Elijah’s words. “What have I done to you?” seems to have a bite to it. Almost like, “Well, if you think kissing daddy and mommy goodbye is more important than following God, go ahead. It’s your choice. It’s not like I’m not forcing you to do anything.” It seems Elisha understood. The text doesn’t say he ever returned to say goodbye to his parents. Instead, he shows his utter devotion by killing the oxen, and using the plow and the yoke to build a fire and cook it.
Following unconditionally into the future seems to involve more than a half-hearted devotion and sacrifice. I think of the Jerusalem church in the book of Acts, and how “they would sell their possession and goods” (Acts 2.44, see also4.32-34, and 5.1-11) for the sake of realizing the kingdom of God. There was a greater vision and mission that stretched out before them that made sacrifice easy. To follow unconditionally into the future is a call to live sacrificial lives. I just read a paper entitled, “’Crucified to the World’: Suffering, Itinerancy, and Transitions in American Methodist Ecclesiology” (Wesleyan Theological Journal: Volume 43, Number 1, Spring 2008) The main thesis of the paper was that in the early days of American Methodism there was a prevailing understanding that, in the words of Thomas Coke and Francis Asbury, “Our aim, in all our economy and ministerial labors, is to raise a holy people, crucified to the world and alive to God.” But as time went on, and numbers grew, and there was a general accretion in the economic base of the Methodists, being ‘crucified to the world’ started to be less about real sacrifice and more about a spiritual disposition.
It was out of this tempering of the early zeal that holiness movement like the Church of the Nazarene grew. They sought to recapture holiness as being crucified to the world (a caveat: being crucified to the world meant (1) a very different economy than society’s emphasis on goods and possessions, and (2) a missionary orientation toward the world rather than a withdrawal from it). It seems to me that today we stand at—or very nearly at—the same place as Methodism did nearly a century ago. I don’t say this to be overly critical, or to insinuate we need to sacrifice more. My concern is somewhat deeper. Do we today have the same passion, vision, and conviction to the mission of the church as the early Methodist, or the early Holiness movement did? The problem (as I see it) is not one of greater sacrifice, but one in which we no longer see the hope that tomorrow holds for the gospel. We have lost the vision of hope. And without that vision sacrifice for the sake of sacrifice holds little appeal. My hope and my prayer and my goal is to rekindle that vision in the life of the Shelton Church of the Nazarene. There is hope for the future. It’s called Jesus. And Jesus calls us to follow him into the hope-filled future.
Jesus, all for Jesus,
All I am and have and ever hope to be…
3 comments:
Come out of her, my people, that ye be not partakers of her sins, and that ye receive not of her plagues. For her sins have reached unto heaven, and God hath remembered her iniquities.
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