Voices of Faith: Jesus Christ, Charles Dickens and a new imagination

There is a wild story in the ninth chapter of the Gospel of Luke that all takes place while Jesus is looking for a place to rest. On their way to Jerusalem, Jesus and his disciples approach a village of the Samaritans.

Now, it is not news to anyone within or reading the story that there is an animosity between Jews and Samaritans at this time. Scholars imagine that the hostility may have been due to social matters dealing with intermarriage during exile or theological matters concerning holy landscapes, or it may have been something else or any combination.

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What is known is that the two communities have been at odds for a substantial amount of time, perhaps since the Babylonian exile of 587 BCE. We are invited to imagine what Jesus and his disciples were hoping or expecting as they approached this village, and we soon find out.

A pair of disciples head up the road ahead of everyone else to check in with the village and make the arrangements for the traveling caravan, but they are not welcomed. When they return to inform the group, Jesus is not offended (it’s not the first time struggling to find a place to stay), but two of the disciples — James and John — are enraged. They actually said to Jesus, “Lord, do you want us to command fire to come down from heaven and consume them?” (Luke 9.54). It is clear that while Jesus had hoped that this request to enter the community and abide with them might be an opening to relationship, at least two of the disciples expected a red carpet and the Presidential Suite.

Jesus is not pleased with their reaction and rebukes them for the very thought of violence in his name, and they continue on the road. Soon, they are visited by three guests along the way — each with a request, each with a response from Jesus. Each of these guests appears out of nowhere then mysteriously disappears. It is reminiscent of Ebenezer Scrooge’s encounter with the three ghosts in Charles Dickens’ "A Christmas Carol:" each guest comes bearing a revelation. Each visit and exchange is a scene for the disciples to watch and learn.

The first asks to follow Jesus and Jesus responds, “Foxes have holes, and birds of the air have nests; but the Son of Man has nowhere to lay his head.” This is not the rebuke of the villagers who denied him, but a message to the disciples that God does not need to impose but will gladly proceed where welcome is offered. The disciples had mistaken a choice of the Samaritans as an affront to God. There is encouragement that the disciples must be able to discern what is in opposition to all that is sacred from what is merely a difference of desires. The visitor disappears.

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A second visitor appears. Jesus asks them to follow him and the visitor agrees but asks to first bury a deceased parent. “Let the dead bury their own dead; but as for you, go and proclaim the empire of God” Jesus replies. This may not be the callous indifference we may imagine, but instead another message to the disciples for they have been carrying the grief and animosity of their fathers and their father’s fathers. These disciples have no problem with these Samaritans; every sense of enmity has been inherited and kept. They are continuing arguments and hostilities that have long been dead. It is a word of encouragement to allow the grief and pain of their ancestors to be buried with their ancestors, and approach others with a renewed vision.

Jesus does not imagine that we can simply forget the past, but Jesus does believe we can distinguish between the arguments and animosity of past generations from present. The second visitor disappears.

And the final guest arrives and requests to follow Jesus, but wishes to return home to say goodbye to the family. Jesus replies, “No one who puts a hand to the plow and looks back is fit for the empire of God.” This, too, seems harsh to the visitor, but as a message to the disciples it conveys a word of distinction once more: wanting to follow a way of holiness may require that we leave patterns of seeing and being we have learned within the home. Where families have embraced tribalism, binary worldviews, and mentalities of scarcity, the way of holiness and love will be a departure. The third visitor disappears.

This is a season of change. Power has been moving to seize and abuse the institutions that have been created and (re)purposed to uphold justice within our nation. The hearings within the House select committee investigating the Jan. 6 attack and the Supreme Court rulings removing a constitutional right from women and transforming understandings of the establishment clause are only a few revelations of this shift. What will be required to repair such damage will request much from all who — by responsibilities of faith and/or citizenship — wish to see a more just nation. Such a coalition will inevitably encounter difference and approach subjects of distance and division. This particular text may offer some wisdom for such work: to be able to discern what is a matter of difference from an action that opposes all that is good and holy, to free ourselves from the hostilities of the past and approach one another with a renewed grace, to be prepared to learn a new way of being together.

As this good work of sustaining a community worthy of all of its members continues, may we carry the wisdom and grace from our traditions and experiences, and may it support our co-creation of a more just society and perfect union.

Rev. Chris McCreight is ordained in the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) and currently serves as minister of the Hiram Christian Church and chaplain of Hiram College. He is on Twitter @revmccreight.

This article originally appeared on Record-Courier: Voices of Faith: Jesus Christ, Charles Dickens and a new imagination