On the Gifts in Life’s Challenges
June 29, 2025
Rev. Traceymay Kalvaitis
Psalm 16: 7-9
I bless the LORD, who gives me counsel; in the night also my heart instructs me. I keep the LORD always before me; because he is at my right hand, I shall not be moved. Therefore my heart is glad, and my soul rejoices; my body also rests secure.
Luke 9: 51-62
When the days drew near for Jesus to be taken up, he set his face to go to Jerusalem. And he sent messengers ahead of him. On their way they entered a village of the Samaritans to prepare for his arrival, but they did not receive him because his face was set toward Jerusalem. When his disciples James and John saw this, they said, “Lord, do you want us to command fire to come down from heaven and consume them?” But he turned and rebuked them. Then they went on to another village.
As they were going along the road, someone said to Jesus, “I will follow you wherever you go.” 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.”
To another he said, “Follow me.” But he said, “Lord, first let me go and bury my father.” And Jesus said to him, “Let the dead bury their own dead, but as for you, go and proclaim the kingdom of God.”
Another said, “I will follow you, Lord, but let me first say farewell to those at my home.” And Jesus said to him, “No one who puts a hand to the plow and looks back is fit for the kingdom of God.”
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Today’s sermon is titled On the Gifts in Life’s Challenges.
When I was far too young to hear a grandparent swear, my Grandfather leaned over to me and said, pointedly, “Nothing worth a damn ever comes easy.” I can not remember the context, or why he would have said such a thing to a five year old, but I have never forgotten it, and I have come to know the truth of it.
We can probably all remember our first grade teacher’s name. After that, for me, it is all a blur up until the day I started 7th grade. All 7th graders at St. Mary’s Country Day School learned typing from Mrs. Sanders. Her classroom was a standalone modular building that sat on the edge of the campus and I soon learned why. The air was thick with the smells of cigarette smoke and greased metal. There were at least 25 manual typewriters in that small classroom (do you remember how loud it was to type on one? Imagine the sound of 25. They were Royal typewriters, the black ones made of cast iron. We were instructed to find the desk with our name on it. I sat down with the black behemoth in front of me and noticed right away that there were no letters, no numbers, no punctuation signs on the typewriter keys. They were all blank. All 44 of them. Mrs. Sanders, known and feared for her strict nature, looked at us over the top rim of her glasses and said, “Students, this year you will learn to type. You will curse my name, you will probably be brought to tears in frustration, you will dread this class for the next 6 months and you will thank me for the rest of your life.”
She was correct, on every count. Rarely a week goes by that I don’t think of Patricia Sanders with gratitude and admiration when I am typing, fingers flying, not needing to look at the keys. She was a teacher of a difficult method and she was transparent on day one about what would be required of her students. She basically told us that nothing worth a damn ever comes easy, and this is the same message we hear from Jesus in our reading today from Luke chapter 9.
When we meet Jesus in the scriptures today, he already has a reputation as a teacher and a healer and on his travels we hear the accounts of him being approached by three different people who wish to follow him. These encounters come just after Jesus leaves the region of Samaria where he was not warmly received, so it’s not a stretch to imagine that perhaps he is feeling a little weary because he soundly discourages those who are interested in following him. We should be careful about what we take away from Jesus’s warnings, lest we mistake what is expected of us now as his students. Rather, if we look carefully, Jesus’s words seem to be a rare insight into the demands made upon him by the role he fulfilled on the earth. So listen again to his replies, but listen with the intent to empathize with the speaker and we will hear Jesus talking about his own life, which is a very rare occurrence.
“Foxes have holes, and birds of the air have nests, but the Son of Man has nowhere to lay his head…Let the dead bury their own dead, but as for you, you must go and proclaim the kingdom of God…No one who puts a hand to the plow and looks back is fit for the kingdom of God.” Here Jesus is describing his own sacrifices. Here, as theologian Matthew Myers Bolton writes, Jesus is describing his life of an itinerant preacher with no place to lay his head. Jesus is describing how his mission has superseded his social obligations, including his obligations and to bury the dead. Jesus is describing how his mission absolutely demands that he keeps his hands on the plow and looks forward, never back.
Friend, in my opinion, Jesus is not talking about the requirements of discipleship, as this passage is often preached. This is a rare moment when Jesus shows us what he has sacrificed in his life as the anointed one, in his life as the Messiah. There are undertones of sadness, undertones of stress and loneliness. The words of the psalmist we heard today would offer a suitable prayer in such times, at the end of a difficult day: “I bless the Lord, who gives me counsel; in the night also my heart instructs me. I keep the Lord always before me; because he is at my right hand, I shall not be moved. Therefore my heart is glad, and my soul rejoices; my body also rests secure.”
Can we empathize with the sacrifices our teacher, Jesus of Nazareth, made for the benefit of all humankind? Can we imagine what it was like to always be on the move, to sometimes be welcomed but other times to be scorned and threatened? Can we imagine the pressure to carry on, always looking forward, with the weight of the knowledge that he would be put to death by the hand of Empire?
As followers of Christ, we are not asked to give up our homes, our security, and our obligations to family and to society. We are not asked to always look forward and never back. This is not a message to us today as followers of Christ. There are however two parts of Jesus’s message that we would be served to remember. The first is Jesus’s rebuke of the disciples who want to “command fire to come down from heaven” to punish the Samaritans for being unwelcoming. You see, the Samaritans were predominantly Jewish, but they did not travel the distance to Jerusalem to the temple to worship; they worshipped at a temple on Mr. Gerizim. When we read that Jesus had his “face set toward Jerusalem” we infer that the Samaritans did not welcome him because of that fundamental difference. Even when faced with the religious intolerance of the Samaritans, Jesus rebuked the disciples for wanting to punish the Samaritans Biblical scholar David J. Lose writes, “Vengeance and violence are not part of Jesus’s vision.” In a couple of weeks, we will revisit the parable of the Good Samaritan where Jesus drives home the truth that goodness, that God-ness, can be found in unexpected places.
The other part of the message that resonates is Jesus’s analogy of putting a hand to the plow. As followers of Christ today, we are called to put our hand to the plow. Let’s consider this for a few moments. The plow is being pulled, the ground is being opened for planting, but the plow requires a guiding hand to steer it. And to properly steer, we must keep our attention on what is ahead.
What is ahead for us? What is ahead for us as individuals, as a community, as a nation, as a wide and beautifully diverse family of humankind? What is ahead, Friends, is determined by what we do, or do not do, right now.
In closing, I offer the following suggestions as intentions: as individuals, may we see to the health of our relationships that they be based in truth, honesty, and sincerity; may we seek forgiveness and offer forgiveness with grace. As a community, may we commit to reflecting Christ, withholding judgement, and extending an extravagant welcome. As a nation, may we participate in this experiment of democracy before it is too late; may we speak up while we still can, speak for our rights, the rights of others and the rule of law. As a member of the beautifully diverse family of humankind may we look for that of God in one another, seeing no one above another, but seeing each one, with all our trauma and all our flaws, as being expressions of our unique life experience. May we see all of humankind not as separate, but as part of us. This is difficult work, Friends, but like my Grandfather said, “Nothing worth a damn ever comes easy.” Let’s put our hand to he plow. So be it. Amen.
Pastoral Prayer
God of chaos and God of calm, we pray your blessings over our beautiful world and all the life forms living here. Help us to receive the many ways that you nurture us, ways tender and subtle and also in the ways that shake our foundations. Give us courage to overcome our fears, Lord, so that we may be a clearer reflection of your love and grace to all we meet along our way. May those that are ailing in body or mind feel your soothing presence. May those that are facing death feel your reassurance and your peace. In the face of all uncertainty, may we remember to reach for the hem of the garment of Christ, for in reaching we act in faith and by holding we receive unimagined blessings. This we pray in Christ’s name. Amen.
Benediction
Now, I leave you with the words of the prophet Isaiah, chapter 55, verse 12: “You shall go out with joy and be led forth in peace: the mountains and hills will burst into song before you, and all the trees of the field will clap their hands.” Amen.