Year C Proper 8 2 Kings 2:1-2, 6-14 Galatians 5:1,13-25 Luke 9:51-62

When the Lord was about to take Elijah up to heaven by a whirlwind, Elijah and Elisha were on their way from Gilgal. Elijah said to Elisha, "Stay here; for the Lord has sent me as far as Bethel." But Elisha said, "As the Lord lives, and as you yourself live, I will not leave you." So they went down to Bethel.

In last week’s reading, Elijah went beyond God’s command to him and exercised his human will in destroying the prophets of Baal. So God told him to call a successor, and Elijah obeyed.

In today’s reading, Elijah is travelling with that successor, Elisha. Elijah knows that his time has come, and that he will be leaving this world. So he asks Elisha “what I may do for you, before I am taken from you." Elisha said, "Please let me inherit a double share of your spirit.”

This is no small request, and Elijah makes it clear that to receive what he asks for, Elisha must be at Elijah’s side, must witness his end. When the end comes, Elisha stands awestruck and terrified as Elijah ascends in the whirlwind. But - Elisha has fulfilled Elijah’s mandate – he has been there, and he has seen.

After expressing his considerable grief, Elisha picks up the Elijah’s mantle. That is, he lifts the older man’s cloak and in so doing symbolically takes the burden of responsibility onto his own shoulders. He has been faithful, following his mentor to the end, and now he will carry the responsibility of being the new prophet in Elijah’s stead. Such is the cost of discipleship.

For freedom Christ has set us free. Stand firm, therefore, and do not submit again to a yoke of slavery.

In today’s epistle, Paul is writing to the Galatians in what is modern day Türkiye, formerly known by us as Turkey. Paul says that Christ has set us free – but then he follows this proclamation with the caution not to submit again to the yoke of slavery. Why would anyone freed from slavery ever wish to return?

To answer this question, we need to first ask ourselves, what is freedom? We like to think it means doing whatever we want. But freedom is far more complicated than that. Daily, we hear about freedom of speech, freedom to bear arms, freedom to live as we wish. We define freedom according to our personal standards, and thus, we sometimes find ourselves in difficult situations, where one person’s idea of freedom and what ought to be free, conflicts strongly with another person’s. We tend to think of such conflicts occurring over major issues on a national level, but they also happen over lesser issues right close to home.

For example: My sister complains annually about her across-the -street neighbors in Butte, MT, where privately owning fireworks is legal. Every July 4th, and for days preceding it, the across the street family sets off fireworks, something they see as a personal freedom. This, of course, happens after dark, and yet, by nightfall, my sister is often more than ready for bed.

Thus arises a conflict of personal freedoms. The neighbor believes they should be free to set off fireworks whenever they want to, while my sister believes she ought to have the freedom to fall asleep without continual explosions going on across the street. It seems that freedom doesn’t really mean doing whatever we want.

And what of slavery? Again, we have our own personal ideas and definitions of this word, but Paul defines this as gratifying the desires of the flesh, and he provides a long list of such desires. We tend to let this list roll over us because, for heaven’s sake, none of that applies to us – or does it?

The truth is, we are a society addicted to desires of the flesh, food, drink, sometimes sex, consumerism, materialism – and all of this makes us salves, slaves in a way we might not have even considered, slaves to the world. We want the freedom of Christ – but – we don’t want to give up our “little sins and foibles”, because to us they represent personal freedom. But Paul has defined them as slavery, and made it clear that as Jesus’ followers, we must learn a new kind of freedom. Such is the cost of discipleship.

So - what does it mean to be truly free in Christ?

When the days drew near for Jesus to be taken up, He set His face to go to Jerusalem.

We have to make a choice, to decide we are going to do the work of discipleship. We must choose to set our faces forward and to step onto the path, the way of the cross. This is not a choice lightly made, but a lifetime commitment. Sponsors made this commitment for us at our Baptism and we affirmed it at our confirmation, but it really is something to which we must daily recommit ourselves. Why? Because we are human, and staying on the path isn’t an easy way to live.

On their way they entered a village of the Samaritans to make ready for him; but they did not receive him, because his face was set toward Jerusalem. When his disciples James and John saw it, they said, "Lord, do you want us to command fire to come down from heaven and consume them?" But he turned and rebuked them.

One thing is clear – we have to set aside our desire to always be “right”, because though we may feel we are justified, we are often mislead by our personal feelings and prejudices. Just think of Elijah, who gave in to his own will in destroying the prophets of Baal, and thus displeased God. Our will must be surrendered to the will of Jesus.

Jesus said …, "Foxes have holes, and birds of the air have nests; but the Son of Man has nowhere to lay his head."

Amazingly, we realize the cost of discipleship may involve being homeless. Since we gathered here have homes, and families that live in those homes, what is important for us is to not become attached to those homes. It is in heaven that the rooms in God’s house await us, and we should center our hearts and minds not on our earthly home, not our possessions, but on attaining entrance to that heavenly dwelling place I n the Kingdom of God.

Jesus said …, "Let the dead bury their own dead;

Burial of the dead was and is a strict religious obligation for any Jew. Scholars have pointed out that “the dead” to whom Jesus refers, the ones who will do the burring, may be those who, despite keeping to all Jewish Law and customs, and believe they are living a good and godly life, do not follow Jesus. What a terrifying thought, that we might be keeping all our religious obligations, and yet still be “dead” in God’s eyes.

. . . but as for you, go and proclaim the kingdom of God." That is our Lord’s command, and our calling. And we must be faithful to it.

Jesus said …, "No one who puts a hand to the plow and looks back is fit for the kingdom of God."

Good grief! Anything else we’re supposed to do?

For most of us, someone picked up the mantle of Christ and threw it on us when we were too young to agree to such an action. Later, when we were older, we confirmed that accepting this mantle, accepting the Holy Spirit, was our will and intent, but we did so long before most of us understood what that really meant. Paul has chided us for our normal, and perhaps sometimes not so normal, human desires, warning us that those who do such things will not inherit the kingdom of God.

It all sounds too difficult, a commitment we simply cannot keep because of our own human weakness. If that is how we think – we are wise.

No one can be a true disciple, no one can enter the Kingdom of God, except through Christ – and we must enter into His commitment, and allow His strength to be our strength and His love to be our love. We cannot do the work we have been given to do on our own, and knowing this, Jesus has asked us to do it with Him.

Jesus set us free on the cross, embracing us, just as we are in our sin. Our enslavement to the cycle of self- destruction is forever broken as we share communion and worship. We are free in Christ—free to do good things, and not to indulge our desires to control other people or have power over them, free to not be enchanted by and seduced by the world. Each of us is free in Christ to be for the world what He was for the world: an agent of reconciliation, acceptance, and love.

We are called to be free in Christ, for Christ has set us free.

We are called to live humbly in what T.S. Eliot described as

“A condition of complete simplicity

(Costing not less than everything)”

Such is the cost of discipleship.

in the words of Psalm 16 let us pray and thank God for our freedom:

I will bless the Lord who gives me counsel; * my heart teaches me, night after night.

I have set the Lord always before me; * because He is at my right hand I shall not fall.

My heart, therefore, is glad, and my spirit rejoices; * my body also shall rest in hope.

For You will not abandon me to the grave, * nor let Your holy one see the Pit.

You will show me the path of life; * in Your presence there is fullness of joy, and in Your right hand are pleasures for evermore. Amen.