Nothing is more annoying than to be trying to transport some liquid in a leaky vessel. You think you’ve got whatever it is all secure and ready for use, and then all of a sudden you find out it has leaked and drained allover the place ... and nothing is more disturbing and frustrating.
When I drove my car to Ridgecrest last August, I took a couple of quarts of extra oil with me in the trunk of the car. Some of you remember that I had had some engine repairs done in July, and I still wasn’t completely sure of the car, so I carried extra oil. Now these were new cans, right from the auto parts store ... never had been opened. So why should I be concerned about them? I pitched them in the trunk and didn’t worry. But when I went to get my suitcase out of the trunk, lo and behold a telltale brownish-greenish ooze on the bags, on the floor of the trunk, eventually on my hands and my clothes ... everywhere but in the crankcase. I say again, nothing is more annoying and frustrating and disturbing than working with a leaky vessel.
That might help explain why the Lord Jesus shows some annoyance with his disciples in the passage of Scripture I’ve selected for today. There is a sharpness and an edge to his voice as he confronts some disciples along the road and questions them, raps them … because, as we are going to see, they are leaky vessels, leaky disciples ... and that’s disturbing to Christ. These are folks who responded to the Lord’s appeal... they said they were ready to share his journey, they claimed they were on the journey of transformation and change ... but somehow Jesus questions them. Somehow Jesus saw in them an unreadiness, a leakiness.
On the Sunday after revival services, may I suggest to you that we now need to hear the Lord’s warning about leakiness? That in view of our high resolves, in response to all that many of us have thought and felt in these days, we need to be aware of our tendencies to leak and to be less than fully prepared to follow through on what we have chosen? Listen to these three little stories at the end of Luke’s ninth chapter, and see if they do not speak to us.
In a certain small town it was the custom for the church to hold its revival in the fall of every year. And it was just as much the custom, kind of unspoken and certainly unwritten, but nevertheless very real, that a certain group of young men would make their way down the aisle during that revival meeting. Year after year it happened the same way... as the church worked its way into its annual fall revival, those fellows, who never seemed to darken the door of the church at any other time, would come to the revival and, usually on the last night, with much fanfare, many a tear and a sort of stumbling stagger down the aisle, they would come forward and get themselves gloriously wound up … only to disappear again until the same time next year.
Now of course after three or four years of this the church folks were not surprised, and they just took it all in stride. When revival time would come they would take bets on how many verses of "Just as I am" it would take to get these fellows to put on their annual performance. No big deal and certainly nothing to get excited about .. just a part of the annual show.
The only trouble was, of course, that everybody knew that except the visiting preacher. The pastor and the people of the church didn’t think this ritual was genuine, they had seen it too many times.. but the visiting preacher would generally get all excited and worked up and would think he really had a winner on his hands. And so this year, as the annual rites cranked up, and as a few nights of preaching went by, with nothing much happening, it came closing night .. and, sure enough there they were, these fellows, in the back of the church. And on the seventh go-round of "Just as I am". there they come, right down the aisle, whopping and hollering and blubbering , “Praise the Lord.” And of course the visiting preacher, not knowing any better, got right down to praying and rejoicing, and waxed eloquent in his fervent prayer: “Fill them full, 0 Lord. Fill them full of your precious Spirit. Fill them full, 0 Lord.”
But from the back of the room came the voice of another worshipper, by this time annoyed and disturbed, and she had a counter prayer, “Don’t do it, Lord, don’ t fill them full. They leak."
You and I also have seen leaky disciples. You and I have in fact experienced disturbing and annoying leakages in our own commitments. You and I have thought that- our cups were overflowing, but, sadly, it turned out to be a leak, a crack in the vessel itself. We’ve been to church, we’ve attended revival services, we’ve made new commitments, we’ve offered new promises to God ... and somehow ... it may not be as radical as the young men in my story… but somehow it’s just leaked away. Why? How did it happen? The Lord Jesus experienced this with some who also said they wanted to follow him, . some who said they wanted to share the journey of transformation .. but He who discerns the heart saw that they might leak, and warned them, admonished them. Can you and I learn about ourselves from these leaky disciples?
I
As they were going along the road ... sharing the journey ... a man said to Jesus, "I will follow you wherever you go". Sounds great, doesn’t it? "I will follow you wherever you go" I’m yours, Lord; take me, use me, whatever you ask, I’ll do. Wherever you call, I’ll follow.
I can respond to this disciple, can’t you? I imagine this one in my mind’s eye as a young person .. idealistic, joyful, resolute, ready to get out there and change the world. I see him maybe as a young adult, not yet cynical, not accepting the old man’s notion that nothing changes and if it does, it only gets worse. No, here is somebody I think I’d like .. a blank check waiting to be filled in. I will follow you wherever you go.
But Jesus does a strange thing. Jesus turns to look deep into the eyes of this disciple.. he loves him for his simplicity, he warms to his childlike faith. But as Jesus smiles at him and loves him, he thinks also about the hardships and the dangers of the road ahead.. he remembers the long nights with no rest, out there on the trail. He recalls the long days of walking with the heat of the sun on his neck. He feels in his legs the tension of many an hour on the paths of dusty Israel. And, his smile now mingled with sadness, he replies; "Foxes have holes and the birds of the air have nests, but the Son of man has nowhere to lay his head,” Think about that: I will follow you wherever you go ... but the Son of man has nowhere to lay his head.
Leaky disciples are those who have not counted the cost of sharing the journey. Leaky disciples are those who have seen only the glamour and the excitement and have not yet recognized what it will cost them to follow. And the Lord questions whether sometimes we do not jump too soon. If we cry that we are ready to be Christians, we are ready to be his traveling companions, then he looks deep inside us and wonders whether we have yet seen it.. that to be his disciple is to share his way, share his pain, and ultimately even to share his cross. And he suspects, you see, that we do not have singleness of heart, that we are not ready to will and to do only one thing. He knows that our motives are not pure, and so asks us to count the cost of discipleship. For if we do not reflect on our motives, we will be leaky disciples. And if we are all wrapped up in only what Christ can do for us, we will leak.
Too many things erode our commitments, and most of them have to do with being comfortable. We expect to be comfortable. Lord Jesus, I’ll follow you wherever you go .. but Jesus saw that this young believer, untested and untried, had nothing but stars in his eyes, and had anticipated luxury suites at the Jerusalem Hilton rather than stone pillows in the sand. Lord Jesus, I’ll follow you wherever you go ... and He sees in us some reservations ... wherever you go, as long as it’s comfortable, clean, and middle-class. Wherever you go, as long as it can be finished in an hour, turned over to the church staff, and paid for with five dollars a week dues. Wherever you go, as long as the rain don’t fall and the creek don’t rise ... but, but. Foxes have holes and birds of the air have nests, most of God’s creation is in its own little niche, but you, you, follower of the Son of man, will have no place to lay your head. If that matters to you, you will leak.
We teased Dan Paixao the other might about what it must feel like for a Brazilian to live in Syracuse, New York, where it seems always to be snowing or sleeting or some such delight. He told us that before he was asked to take the job he now has, he was visiting in that area on a sleeting, biting cold day, with nothing but his light tropical clothing, and that he went home and told his wife, “That’s the last place in the world I’d pray that the Lord would call me to serve.” Well, the rest is history. Authentic discipleship gets past the discomfort factor, the convenience factor ... but if it makes a difference to you that the Lord calls to avenues of service that are uncomfortable and inconvenient and sometimes not a whole lot of fun .. then you will be a leaky disciple.
II
Now sometimes our leakiness is not a matter of discomfort, sometimes it’s not a question of failure to count the cost. Sometimes we are leaky disciples just because we don’t really turn around, we don’t really see our lives as at a new beginning. We don’t know that we are really capable of starting fresh.
To another person Jesus said, "Follow me".. But he said, "Lord let me first go and bury my father." Now that’s reasonable enough isn’t it? Who could question that... I will come and be yours, but let me first go and bury my father .. I have a family obligation, and blood is thicker than water, you know, so hang in there, Lord, and I’ll be with you as soon as I take care of this. Let me first go and bury my father."
Does it still startle you that Jesus would say to him ... it sounds callous and cold to us … "Leave the dead to bury their own dead, but as for you go and proclaim the Kingdom of God"? Leave the dead to bury their own dead, but as for you, go and proclaim the Kingdom of God.
It will help if we know just a little about family structure in Jesus’ time. The Jewish family was quite definitely a patriarchal one. Daddy was very clearly in charge. And no matter how old you are, if your father is still alive, in that kind of family, he’s in charge of your life. Some men did not even feel free to marry as long as their fathers were alive. Some felt an obligation, if they did marry, to live in their father’s house as long as he lived. And so, in some sense, you were not an adult until your father died. You were not in charge of your own life.
But now here is someone whose father has just died... someone who for the first time in his life can make his own choices. And I believe that Jesus smells a danger zone .. Jesus sees that this is a teachable moment, a crisis moment, for this disciple. At this moment he can choose for the first time what he will be .. and the danger is that he will drop back and be what daddy wanted him to be out of sheer force of habit .. and not what he now can be. The danger is .. the teachable moment is .. that he can now just stay with what he has always known and accepted .. or he can really do something new and fresh. And so the Lord intervenes and says, You leave the dead to bury their own dead ... if you are going to do something new, do it now. Do it .. don’t start looking backward, don’t look backward to those things which you cannot change, don’t dwell on the past .. move forward. You proclaim the Kingdom of God .. you proclaim and live something new.
Oh, you know, a lot of us leak because we are still listening to dead fathers. A lot of us leak because we still worry about the past and how it hangs on to us, drags us back, slows us down. Some of us don’t feel forgiven for something we did years ago, and that’s like that dead father. It continues to control us. It ought not have any power over us any more, but it does, it does if we let it. But Jesus says, you will leak if you do not just leave that, let it go, and proclaim God’s Kingdom of forgiveness.
Some of us leak because we are mired in low expectations. Somebody told us once that we aren’t much, that we don’t have much going for us, and we still believe it. Three academic degrees and twenty years of successful professional life later, and we still think we aren’t much. Sunday after Sunday of hearing that God so loved you that He sent his own son .. and we don’t believe it was for us. We are the victims of our own nobodiness, our own low expectations .. and to us the Lord says, Quit trying to bury that dead father .. quit trying to shake off that dead past .. turn to the future .. and see the Kingdom of God and of his love and forgiveness and power. Leave the dead to bury their own dead, but as for you, go and proclaim the Kingdom of God.
III
But there is more .. there is another who would share the journey .. and who would like to think he is changed .. but whom Jesus suspects of chronic leakiness. And this one is hard to understand .. and yet easy to identify with once you get to know him. How about this leaky disciple?
Another said, "I will follow you, Lord, but let me first say farewell to those at my home". Now who could quarrel with that? Who could find fault with somebody who seems so honest and so natural .. I will follow you Lord, I will share this journey... but just one tiny, teeny-weeny thing I need to do .. I need to run home and say goodbye". Sounds all right, doesn’t it?
Then why does this strange Jesus shoot back, with a sharp edge in his voice, "No one who puts his hand to the plow and looks back is fit for the kingdom of God". Why so harsh an answer? Does not the commandment say that we must honor our fathers and our mothers? What could be wrong with this?
You know that I used to be one of those subversives called a campus minister. I used to subvert young people and summon them to strange and radical things like summer missionary work and weekend retreats and exposure to theological seminaries. And do you know that I found out that the greatest obstacle I had sometimes in working with students was their parents? I could not get the students to make up their own minds and to resolve on their own how to live out their discipleship, because for many there was mamma and daddy .. and mom and dad were always so practical, so down-to earth, so suspicious.
Now I’ve got a number of you real uncomfortable .. and I hear that. I identify with that. I am the father of two college students and I hear that. But let me tell you .. when I was chaplain at the University of Maryland, it was the early 70’s, and the memories of the 1968 riots were still very fresh. And so the first time I tried to get students together to go down and work on a missions project at Johenning Center in southeast Washington, the students said things like, "My mother won’t let me go into the District". "My father says I’m not to drive the car anywhere in DC." Here I thought I was working with young adults who could make up their own minds about who they were, and I got mama says, daddy wants.
Well, that does, I admit, look a little different now.. when mine are in their twenties .. but the principle is still the same. Sometimes we go home, not just to say farewell, but to get our cues clear. We go home to hear words of caution. And we even go home to let somebody else give us a good excuse.
Listen: I suspect that when Jesus heard this young man say, Let me first go home and say farewell, he really heard him say, Let me first go home and check it out. Let me first go home and see what the checkwriters think. Let me first go get some cues, and maybe even let somebody else take charge of me and tell me what I ought to do. Let me go and get an excuse from somebody.
Ah yes, you and I know what this is all about. You and I know why this disciple will leak. We leak too. We come here, all brave and full of commitment, and then we go home, where somebody else says, "Ah, this will pass. We’ve seen this before. And you don’t have to be a fanatic about this stuff. We go to work and somebody says, don’t get carried away with this religion bit. We go to school and our friends snicker and sniff and point out that this radical thing ain’t cool. We have gone home, ostensibly to say farewell, but instead to allow somebody else to dictate who we are going to be ... and small wonder the Lord is disappointed. Little wonder he is irritated and raps us, "No one who puts his hand to the plow and looks back is fit for the Kingdom ... no one who resolves to follow but just won’t grown up and be his own person is ready for this journey.. transformation.
The question this morning is not whether the Spirit will come to fill you full.. He is always ready and waiting to do that. The question is not whether the blessings of salvation and of discipleship are available .. they are, always, without fail. The question is whether you’d rather be full of the Spirit or full in the tummy; the question is whether you are full of the future or filled up, fed up, with the past; the question is whether you are full grown or just filled with others’ opinions. Will you hold or will you leak?
