Single-Minded in a Multi-Tasking World

I Kings 19:19-21 II Kings 2: 1-8 Luke 9:51-62 Increasingly, we are surrounded by competing priorities and pressures. Immediate Family, Work, Extended family, Mortgage debt, School loans... What must we do to get our kids through High school and College? Will Cancer treatments work? Will Marital counseling help? Throughout all human history, we each have been searching for the same thing, called by a wide variety of names, but it is all the same: Paradise, Heaven, Tranquility, Peace, Home. In response to all the other stuff of life, there is one single-minded reality, One-ness with ourselves, one-ness with God, True Communion, Spiritually Centered, Completion. This single-minded search is why we marry, why we search for our career vocation, why we have children, why we join a church, why we align with different parties, why we pray. HOWEVER, in the midst of all the competing priorities, all of the distractions and complaints, as we multi-task listening to the news, while holding a conversation with our loved ones, while texting or cooking or cleaning, that “spiritual homing mechanism” becomes one more competing goal instead of listening to our true self. The only answer to life's competing questions and pleas, is to be single-minded in faith. A week ago, as we read together, the Great Prophet Elijah as an act of faith had taken on 450 prophets of Baal, King Ahab and Queen Jezebel, Elijah had called down fire from heaven and it happened, his sacrifice, his altar, even the water it was all soaking in was utterly consumed, whereupon he killed all 450 prophets of Baal. When confronted what he had done, Elijah ran away, ran away from the Promised Land, ran away from himself, ran away from God, searching for a cave, a particular cave, the home where God had hidden Moses Moses needed assurance from God. But finding that place, meeting God on Elijah's own terms, still God was not in the fire, flood, wind, or earthquake. After listening to Elijah, God gave the prophet a list of things to do, acts of faith to follow. Anoint a king for Samaria, anoint a king for Israel, anoint a king for Judah, anoint these persons as priests and these as prophets, and anoint Elisha as a companion to continue your work of faith. Seeing a possible way out, Elijah goes looking for Elisha. Now this is a strange circumstance, because Elisha was plowing in the field working with 12 yoke of oxen, when Elijah draped his mantle over Elisha. On a crowded street corner, in an elevator, as an act of worship for a religious leader to drape their stole over another is possible, but Elisha would have been in the middle of this huge field being plowed, and he did not see Elijah coming? Immediately, Elsiha responds. Allow me to build an altar, allow me to sacrifice these 24 oxen, allow me to break the plow and use the wood to create a great fire, allow me to cook the meat and feed the poor, allow me to say goodbye to my family, and I will follow. Everything about Elisha's response emphasizes his single-minded commitment, he can have no turning back. He will have no Oxen, no plow, no field, he will have used these to make a sacrifice to Gods and to feed the community, he will even have left his parents for ever. It seems a paradox then, that when Jesus meets followers on the road who want to wait to bury a father, or dispose of a single pair of oxen, Jesus says NO. But the point is that they are distracted that these other responsibilities are just as important, even that they must be done first, where Elisha is acting in faith to make the commitment. Where Elisha had only been asked to act as a companion with Elijah, the text jumps to Elijah's final day. While Elijah and the prophets and priests of every community are distracted by this, Elisha has a single goal: “Wherever you go, I go, I will follow you to the very end and continue your calling.” Even when asked directly by Elijah what Elisha wants, he describes “Double Your Faith” which is not a quantity matter, but to know what you have done in life and continue that work to completion. Dietrich Bonhoeffer in his classic treatise The Cost of Discipleship, names that the most costly final sacrifice is giving up our own self-will, our desire for what we want in order to serve as God uses us. The Gospel of Luke is different from the other Gospels. Up until this point, Luke has pretty strictly adhered to the biography laid out by Mark, yet at this point in Mark's Gospel Jesus sets his face to Jerusalem and he goes there. In Luke, when Jesus sets his face to go to Jerusalem, it is the beginning of 10 chapters of teaching along the road to Jerusalem and he and the disciples do not arrive until Chapter 18. The Samaritans as an outgrowth of Judaism were also seeking the Messiah sent from God, and they listened and followed Jesus as a possibility. But the Samaritans were seeking a Messiah who would meet them where they were, affirm their holy places as sacred, and settle with them. When Jesus set his face on Jerusalem, when he accepted that single-minded goal, the Samaritans rejected him. In the other Gospels, these occurrences along the road are times for teaching about discipleship. But the focus of Luke's Gospel is not about Discipleship, at every occurrence the Disciples of Jesus do wrong, they fall asleep, they are incompetent. For Jesus to set his face of Jerusalem, in Luke, is naming of why the incarnation happened, what God is doing here. As stated so simply in the Gospel of John, God so loved the world, God gave God's only begotten child. Luke's entire Gospel is description of what that gift means. When the Disciples ask if like Elijah they should command fire to come down from heaven to consume the Samaritans, Jesus says NO. He does not act in retaliation or vengeance or hate or anger. Jesus acts in compassion and one-ness with those in need. Jesus single-mindedness is assurance that the fulfillment of his life as this gift of God, demonstrating God's own single-minded absolute love, is to suffer for others and die on the cross to bring us into relationship with God. As each of these followers come to Jesus, he responds with statements that have been taken out of the story: Foxes have holes, Birds have nests but the son of Man has no where.” “Let the dead bury the Dead.” “Anyone who puts their hand to the plow and looks back is not fit for the kingdom of God.” Within this story, these are demonstrations, that the single-minded nature of faith requires abandoning honor and prestige. How many people have described meeting Mother Theresa, or meeting Gandhi, yet each was doing the work of God not looking for followers. Jesus' foxes and birds metaphor is the paradox that while all of us seek that relationship, that place within ourselves and in the world where we can be at one, that place of home, the Messiah sent from God has no Home, because his whole life is about bringing us into full commitment and relationship. The point is not about abandoning the dying, abandoning responsibility, or abandoning family, but rather that at times these competitions for our attention, for our priority, mean that we continually react and respond rather than following our faith. This is not about seeking safety or security, or sanctuary from our problems. The single-mindedness of which we speak is devotion of ourselves to full commitment, to complete communion with God and the needs of others. The Great Italian Composer of Operas Puccini was working on a final opera “Turandot.” He was gravely ill and gathered his students together, telling them that this work was more important than anything he had done, and if he had not completed it when he died, their responsibility as his disciples was to complete the symphony for him. Toscanini conducted the debut performance without an ending. The following evening, the audience sat in rapture listening. When suddenly, the conductor named “This is as far as the Master got. This is our fulfillment of his calling.” The completed work is described as the greatest of all Puccini's masterpieces. What are we searching for? And How can we devote ourselves to helping one another.