Mr. Knowitall, Ms. Promise & Uncle Hangon

Ordinary 13/Proper 8/Pentecost 6
Readings: Psalm 77: 1-2,11-20, 2 Kings 2:1-14, Galatians 5:1, 13-25, Luke 9:51-62
Preached at First Presbyterian Church, Baldwin, NY on June 27th 2010

Whilst I’m always ready to welcome all people to our church there are three particular characters I don’t encourage to show up. . The troublesome trio are known as Mr. Knowitall, Ms. Promise & Uncle Hangon. These characters showed up when Jesus was around. They turned up in our reading for this morning. Sad thing is, we sometimes find ourselves acting like them.

Let me tell you first of all about .....Mr. Knowitall.
You've met him I'm sure. There you were with the hammer in hand, waiting to hammer the nail in. You had worked it out. That was where the nail should go. He comes around the corner. "You don't want to be doing it like that. Here let me show you the proper way".

You were explaining something to a friend. It's a delicate matter so you're trying to be diplomatic. He comes round the corner, "Nah… that’s not how it was. This is what really happened”.

You were talking about where to go for your holidays, what you were going to name your first child, where you were going to invest some cash, where you were going to get the groceries, here he comes.. "No you don't want to be doing it like that".

Mr. Knowitall is a particular expert in religious matters. He is quite convinced that whatever your religious beliefs are they are incompatible with true belief in God. Ask him a question like.. "Well how come there's so much suffering in the world?" and he'll shake his head. "Nah, nah, nah, You don't want to be asking that sort of question. That's not for you to know".

And he's convinced he knows exactly who is going to burn in the pits of eternal damnation and who is going to be greatly rewarded in heaven. I don't have to tell you which group he thinks he's in with!

Maybe you didn't notice it, but he was... or at least his attitude was.... there with the disciples in our gospel reading. They had been with Jesus for quite a while, but though they'd heard a lot of His teaching it hadn't really sunk into their hearts. They still operated on the idea that they knew who the holy ones were and who the bad guys were.

Samaritans... definitely bad guys. Particularly ones that didn't welcome Jesus. So when they find out that Jesus went to a Samaritan town and didn't find much of a welcome... read what Mr. Knowitall has to say... "Do you want us to command fire to come down from heaven and consume them?" (Luke 9:54).

The reason Jesus hadn't stayed in the village in Samaria had nothing to do with the bad Samaritan. It just wasn't the place or the time. Jesus had set His face to Jerusalem and wasn't slowing up for anybody. He had told the disciples all about the urgency of His mission, His impending betrayal, death and resurrection. Did those knowitalls have a clue?

Seems not. We read, "He turned and rebuked them; "You do not know what kind of spirit you are of: the Son of Man did not come to destroy men's lives, but to save them" (verse 55-56).

In the name of religion bad things take place at the hands of Knowitalls. Before you rush into a situation thinking you know the facts... before you say a word or take an action you may regret, before you point an accusing finger at anyone or anything... think about Mr. Knowitall. We need to realize how little we know and how much less we actually are capable of.

Salvation, Christian discipleship is an exercise not in certainty but of grace. I don't believe that there is one of us here deserving of heaven. Not one child, or adult or 'somewhere in between' of us has successfully loved in the way God requires us to. Not one of us has come near the holiness, the truth and the wisdom that was the mark of the life of Jesus. It's a matter of grace. We need to read and apply the words of Jesus to our lives.

Abandon any pretension to knowing it all. Instead open your heart, your mind, your soul to the love that is God. Mr. Knowitall has a sister.

Ms. Promise.
"Leave it to me.. I'll do it" she says.
It's three weeks later and you're still waiting.

"Yes, I'll be there" she said. But she never turned up.

"Don't worry, I'll get it sorted" And it's still a mess.

She means well enough. When she says," Leave it to me, I'll be there, I'll do it", she really means to be there and get things done. It's just that somewhere between the promise and action things haven't connected.

Don't be too hard on her though. There is a bit of Ms. Promise in all of us. Her spirit was there with the disciples. Read verse 57. "And as they were going along the road, someone said to Jesus, "I will follow You wherever You go!" I'm sure they really, really, really meant it when they said those words. Just as we really, really, really mean the promises at the time we say them.

Promises we make when we become members of a church, marriage vows, commitments we make after a sermon that's touched us and we say, "Yes Lord, let's go for it, I promise I'm going to stick with it this time".

I've worked with youth for more years now than I care to count, and the amount of times on retreats one will say, "I've fallen out of going to church, but now believe me, I'm going to get back into it". Then you see them the next year. ""I've fallen out of going to church, but now believe me I'm going to get back into it". And the next year. And it's not just the young ones who will say that either.

There was a saying in Britain. "Promises are PieCrust". They look good. But they are easily broken. The meat of the pie lies below the crust. It's the meat that gives the flavor. Pure pastry pies have never caught on. The promise is the PieCrust. The meat is seeing it through.

Knowing the fallibility of promises could be why, in the sermon on the mount, Jesus tells the people, "Let your statement be, 'Yes, yes' or 'No, no'; and anything beyond these is of evil.” (Matthew 5:37) It could be that God recognizes the problem we have with keeping promises better than we do.

There is something very final and decisive about the words "Yes" and "No". They don't mean "maybe, possibly, plausibly, presumably or probably". They mean "YES" and "NO". How much simpler life could be if we could let our 'yes' mean 'yes' and our 'no' mean 'no'. (Do you know what I'm talking about - Yes or no?)

Jesus said, when His disciples spoke about following Him what ever may happen, "Foxes have holes, and the birds of the air have nests, but the Son of man has nowhere to lay His head." Again the disciples weren't sure what they were asking. For Jesus the time for promises had past. He had set His face to go to Jerusalem and suffer an agonizing death. "Yes" He was going ahead with it. He knew that was more than He could ask of His disciples . "No", it wasn't there mission right then. Their time would come later.

So look out for Ms. Promise. Don't let her words rest too easily on your lips. Be sure what you are committing yourself to. And if you have any hesitancy or doubt, don't say the words; just get on with the actions. In that way your 'yes' will be a 'yes' or your 'no' will be a 'no' without you having said a word.

Thirdly, let me introduce… Uncle Hangon.
Uncle Hangon never got to be a disciple. Jesus asked him too, but he never made it.

"Hang on" he said, "I've got to bury my father first". One presumes that his father had died, but even that's not clear from the text. He is a symbol of all those who hear the call of Jesus but always feel they have something to lay to rest before they can whole heartedly commit themselves.

Here he is again. "Follow me" says Jesus. "Hang on... I just want to say good-bye to a few people… y'know I've got a lot of commitments, it will take a while to unravel myself. Just hang on... you don't know what you’re asking".

Don't be fooled. Jesus knows exactly what He is asking of us. Hear His Word. "No one, after putting his hand to the plow and looking back, is fit for the kingdom of God" (verse 62).

When it comes to discipleship of Jesus, you can't hang on. Every moment you hang on is a moment that is lost to all eternity, a moment when you place yourself beyond the fullness of Jesus love, a moment in time when your life is not being what God wants it to be.

Jesus was moving on. God is moving on. What about us? Where are we going? Moving on with Him or holding back saying "Hang on... don't go so fast.. I've got other things to do".

Don't be taken in by Mr. Knowitall. He'll throw all kinds of doubts, and "You don't want to be doing that" sorts of questions in your direction.

Don't be fooled into imitating the actions of Ms. Promise. Let your promises become actions and your actions bring glory to God. Be real before God… no pretense or false humility... no play acting Christianity or fooling around with that holy, precious, beautiful thing God believes that your life is.

Don't even waste your time with Uncle Hangon. He'll lead you nowhere but into frustration, disillusionment and cynicism. He'll keep you hanging on and holding back till it's too late to reach where God wants you to be.

As we travel through the week ahead
May the awareness of God's presence
flow through all we do and say.
That Glory may be given to God's Holy Name.
AMEN.