June 26, 2010
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A double portion
I am very fond of the Elisha and Elijah. The story tells so much about how we are mentored and how we mentor as people called to share God’s prophetic word. The portion for today included Elijah’s warning that Elisha’s request for a double portion of spirit was a difficult thing. It is possible he meant it would be difficult to give Elisha a double portion of his spirit and I think it is possible that he was saying that having a double portion of spirit could result in a difficult ministry. I believe many who are called to ministry begin with this desire for God to use them to do great things. We don’t realize how much our lives will change when God uses us to do even small things. We want to transform the world without changing ourselves at all.
Many of us were taught to be ashamed of our behaviors, our passions, and our desires. We were taught the changes we were to make and to require of others was not to enjoy ourselves and to make sure no one else was having a good time either. Through my involvement in the Metropolitan Community Church and my education at Chicago Theological Seminary, I have abandoned shame based theology. I believe God gave us our behaviors, our passions, and our desires as part of God’s gifts to us. We should not be ashamed of our sexual expression and our enjoyment of it and we should stop talking about it and teaching about it as if it were evil and something to be denied. I believe when Paul teaches, “The acts of the sinful nature are obvious: sexual immorality, impurity, and debauchery; …drunkenness, orgies, and the like.” He was not speaking against sexual expression or drinking. He was, as in the other items listed, speaking against an attitude of exploitation and abuse of others, of wanting our own way over the welfare and good of others. This is supported when we read what he says the fruits of the Spirit are, “love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self control.” When we pray for a double portion of the spirit, we are praying to double our love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self control. While this sounds good on the surface, we should be warned like Elijah warned Elisha that such a thing will be very difficult.
We have no trouble asking God to give us love for others, give us joy, peace,, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self control until we consider what it will require for us to possess these things even in a single portion. Possessing the fruits of the spirit require us to put the needs of others ahead of our own. Loving another means wanting more for them than for ourselves, having joy requires us to rejoice even when circumstances are hard, peace requires us to give up what we want so that all may have what they need, patience means delaying what we want now, kindness means caring for the other more than ourselves, goodness mean living justice even when it is to our disadvantage, faithfulness means trusting God even when it appears there is no reason to trust, gentleness comes with tempering our strength to protect another, and self control comes only when we are willing to deny self. Asking for a double portion of these things is to subject ourselves to a very difficult way of living, I believe an impossible way of living unless we truly surrender ourselves to God’s Spirit.
This brings me to our Gospel lesson for today. Jesus has the universe at his disposal and yet he has no home; no place to lay his head. Imagine you have the power to provide yourself with the finest living arrangement and you choose to live without a place to lay your head because this is what God asks of you. Jesus has the power to destroy those who disrespect him but he chooses to rebuke the disciples who suggest this and moves on with his message of God’s love to another community. Jesus is clear the price of discipleship is very high. If we ask God to use us, we must be prepared to surrender all else that we hold dear. Jesus says to let the dead bury the dead and those who look back to family and friends when God has given them a task are not worthy of God’s dominion. These seem harsh words and I suppose they are. Who would not want to be allowed to bury someone they loved or to say good-bye to family and friends. We must read this with minds and hearts open to understanding. There is some clarification of the original when we understand the meaning of the person’s request to bury his or her parent. This did not mean the parent had just died and the person was asking to make funeral arrangements. Most likely the parent was very much alive and the person was asking to wait to follow Jesus until he or she had his or her inheritance. They wanted to have something other than God to depend on while following Jesus. If we choose to follow God, we must do so in faithfulness and not depending on our own planning to see us through. The second person who wishes to say good-bye to family first is not unworthy because of his or her desire to say good-bye, they are unworthy because they want to delay what God has given them to do until a more convenient time. If we are to serve God, we must be prepared to act when God tells us to act. God is a loving God and God will give us opportunity to say our good-byes when the time is right so we must not decide for ourselves when is a good time to serve God.
I know in my own call to ministry I find handling a single portion of God’s Spirit to be challenge enough, I will learn from Elijah’s warning and be content with a single portion. Amen.
