Pastor's Sermon - June 29th, 2025 - The Third Sunday after Pentecost
Luke 9:51-62
Distractions and mis-oriented priorities plague us all. How many of us have in some way or another tried to place the carriage before the horse? How many of us are decorating the house before we’ve even closed the deal? How many of us have worried about masking the symptoms and neglected to seek the root problem and cure? Maybe more modern day points toward being distracted from what really matters would be an example like this: you see a family enjoying a meal together at the restaurant, except, each one of them is too busy staring at their phone, their thumbs moving rapidly, to even bother looking or talking to one another. Or, you’re trying to talk to your friend or your sibling, but you can tell they’re not really listening because they’re too engrossed with what’s going on on the television. Or, you’re trying to enjoy some time with your husband or your wife, but they seem distant because they’re too busy fretting over what’s happening at work.
These are all external distractions and it’s easy to see how these examples show priorities out of their proper place and attention focused on the wrong thing. And when we’re on the wrong side of that, we know how frustrating it can be when someone isn’t prioritizing what they ought to. But distractions are not just an external thing. There are spiritual and internal distractions too!
In our text today, we find the disciples distracted from the Gospel and its merciful message. “Lord, do you want us to tell fire to come down from Heaven and consume them?”
They were following the Christ, Jesus Himself, and He had sent messengers ahead of Himself to prepare a Samaritan village that He was arriving and would be preaching the Gospel there, but they would not receive Him. Christ was rejected by this particular village. And so the disciples came back with this news. And their human response is, “Should be burn them all to death for this?”
This is a distraction! They have been distracted from the Gospel! Christ and His Gospel came to show mercy and to save! Not to destroy and condemn! The message that the disciples are called to preach and what they are suggesting Christ allow them to do are incapable of being reconciled. They have been distracted by pride, anger, and a desire for revenge. The Samaritans offended them and so they want to get even and show them what’s what. Burn them all! Yes, they are distracted from the Gospel. And it is plainly evident.
Spiritual distraction, that is, having our hearts pulled away from the Gospel and its loving message is something that is commonplace to all followers of Christ. There is only one individual who remained wholly focused on the Gospel and its intent to save, and that is the very embodiment of the Gospel itself- Jesus the Christ.
We can compare ourselves to the disciples at this particular Samaritan village. Have we not had thoughts like this in the depths of our sinful hearts? When we see groups of people disregarding the message of Christ, don’t we want to scoff at them and have nothing to do with them? When we see the abortion clinics, is it not a murmur in our hearts to say to the Lord, even silently, that the people in their killing babies ought to have fire rained down from the heavens to destroy them? When we hear the culture around us mock Jesus and make a joke of the faithful Church, don’t we just want to fill ourselves with revenge and tell them, just wait until the Last Day and then we’ll see who’s mocking who. Isn’t it our fallen nature to want to punish and to judge others for their faithless deeds, and then to justify ourselves in whatever we say or do. Not on account of the Gospel. But in accordance with our sinful will and heart? We are the ones who would say, ““Lord, do you want us to tell fire to come down from Heaven and consume them?” Of course, not including ourselves amongst those who deserve destruction. It is easy to hate those who hate you. But we are not called to do so. We are called to love our enemies.
But the distractions come in others forms too. Forms that are less hateful, but still a distraction. We see it in the Gospel. “Let me first bury my father…” one says when he is called by Christ to follow Him and proclaim the Gospel. Another says, “Let me first say farewell to my family…” These things, of course, are not innately wrong, but when they are taking priority over the Gospel, then there is a sin problem. Pride, family, work, and comfort all find a way to be placed above the Gospel of Christ in our hearts, whether knowingly or unknowingly.
The honest truth is that we cannot reorder our hearts. They are disordered by sin. And so what comes out of them is often not the love of the Gospel, but the bad fruits of pride, greed, vengeance, hate, and sin. And Christ’s Words are convicting even to us, “No one who puts his hand to the plow and looks back is fit for the Kingdom of God.” This is Christ telling us, we must follow the Gospel, have our faces set upon it and nothing else. Don’t look back. Don’t look from side to side. Look at one thing and one thing alone. The Gospel of Christ. This is devastating if left as Law alone- we all look back.
But Walther rightly divided the two. There is Law. And it convicts us. But there is also Gospel. And the Gospel is ours in Christ. Because He wasn’t distracted. He is the only one not distracted. He “set His face to go to Jerusalem.” He knew full-well what His purpose in this world was and He went with determination to suffer and to die for the distracted, the divided, and the disloyal. He didn’t come to rain fire upon the unfaithful. He didn’t come to condemn the sinful. And He didn’t come to raise Himself up in glory, pride, and celebration. He came to be lifted up- lifted up to death upon the cross. He did not look back. He did not turn aside. He was not distracted. But hyper-focused. And determined. And by this atoning deed, He has saved the distracted. “Father, forgive them.” He spoke. He would not consume the Samaritans with fire- He instead took upon that judgment for us all.
And He does not leave us distracted. He knew we needed help in looking to the right place- in setting our hearts on the things of God. And so He gave us the Helper. He gave us the Fire from Heaven that would not consume us to death, but direct us to life. Through the Holy Spirit, given in His Word and in Baptism, Christ daily works in us to refocus and reprioritize our hearts, so that we are hyper-focused upon the Gospel and nothing else. As Paul and Luther both teach us abundantly, this is not instant perfection. This is a daily struggle. A daily growing. We call it sanctification.
Is it pride? Is it hate? Is it sin? Repent and receive forgiveness. There is your refocusing. Is it the distractions of this world- family, work, other matters? The Holy Spirit calls you by the Gospel and renews you, causing you, in faith, to look at Christ and His Gospel. Everything is now, is secondary to this- not discarded. Family is important. So is work and earthly life. But they are now in their proper place- second only to the Gospel of Christ- our great God.
We are now called, like His disciples of old to follow Him. And by His grace, the grace granted in the Gospel itself, we do. Those whom we are tempted to hate? The Gospel shines forth in love toward them instead. Those whom we are tempted to call our enemies? The Gospel shines forth in love toward them. The things we are tempted to allow take place in our hearts over the Gospel? They are demoted to their proper place, allowing the Gospel to be the first matter set upon our hearts and minds.
The Church does not hurl fire upon those who are lost apart from Christ, but instead, she showers them with the love of Christ and the mercy of the Gospel.
Yes, we may be tempted to look back. We may stumbled and be distracted. But Christ isn’t. And He never will be. The mission He had back at the cross is the same mission He still has today, and He has not taken His face away from it. He remains focused on saving us. Sanctifying us. And calling us unto Himself.
In Christ’s Name,
Amen.