Christ Lutheran Church
Cleveland, Ohio
June 26, 2022
by: Rev. Dean Kavouras

Pentecost 3
Follow Jesus At All Costs

So he departed from there and found Elisha the son of Shaphat, who was plowing with twelve yoke of oxen in front of him, and he was with the twelfth. Elijah passed by him and cast his cloak upon him. And he left the oxen and ran after Elijah and said, "Let me kiss my father and my mother, and then I will follow you." And he said to him, "Go back again, for what have I done to you?" And he returned from following him and took the yoke of oxen and sacrificed them and boiled their flesh with the yokes of the oxen and gave it to the people, and they ate. Then he arose and went after Elijah and assisted him. (1 Kings 19:19-21)
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The lesson God teaches man today is: to follow Jesus at all costs; and that the cost is not small. Not only not small but high because the desire to follow Jesus does not come naturally to us, and so it is an uphill battle all the way.

Consider what Lutherans confess based on Scripture: “Our churches teach that since the fall of Adam (Romans 5:12) all who are naturally born are born with sin (Ps. 51:5), that is without the fear of God without trust in God and with the inclination to sin which is called concupiscence.”

If we would give these words serious consideration we would quickly learn that spending hundreds of millions of our precious dollars to expand mental health programs will not prevent the next Uvalde Texas. It won’t because we all share the DNA of Adam, the first man, who let the djinni out of the bottle; and she is not going back in until Christ returns to “judge the living and the dead.”

But though she is an evil empress and wicked witch she can be suppressed by all who follow Jesus; who “overcome evil with good.” (Rom. 12:21)

But then the question becomes which Jesus? The sentimental Jesus of syrupy preachers? The edgy Jesus of contemporary worship? The politically correct Jesus who has been hi-jacked by the culture in order to justify its scarlet sins?

This is not the Jesus of Scripture! Not a Jesus worth following. But the real Jesus calls men to repentance. To humility. To examine their lives in light of Divine Law and to forsake their deadly ways.

He calls men to put away their sinful pride, their self-directed lives and to seek Abundant Life from the Lord we meet in today’s gospel – the real Jesus; and the only one worth following at all costs; who in the greatest display of sacrificial love ever displayed set his face like flint on Jerusalem where he would be “lifted up” on the cross for our sins, and laid low into the earth for the “life of the world.”

But we must say more because of the pandemic of “ghost religions” found on FB, the internet and the ever squalid haunts of religious radio: more cloying than a room full of over-powering, cheap, flowery perfumes.

The Jesus we follow, the Lord for which we must give up our sin, our pride, our
virtue-signaling and self-righteousness is no soupy religious notion; but Jesus as he is known and followed in Divine Service!

Why do we make this exclusive claim? Because every time man encounters God, as in today’s Old Testament lesson, the encounter is a liturgy.

Today we find a very small Service, only one attendee, Elijah coming into the presence of the LORD God Almighty. He comes, as must we all, confessing his sins, in particular the sin of self-pity. And what happens in such an encounter? Always the same thing: God hears. God speaks forgiveness, and then he takes action. What commonly call: Word and Sacrament ministry.

Consider the similarities between now and then.

First we engage in the Liturgy of the Word where we hear God speak; then begins the Liturgy of the Sacrament where God takes action!

In verse nine of our reading it says, “The Word of the LORD came to Elijah.” This was not merely verbiage but it was an appearance of the pre-incarnate Christ. Jesus coming to his prophet, who would later appear with him on Transfiguration Mountain.

He came to supply Elijah with the Divine Word which is more powerful than a world of Jezebels. The same word that makes us Jezebel-proof today. And then the LORD gives a display of power unequalled. A mighty wind that dislodges great boulders and breaks down the mountains before Elijah’s saucer-like eyes as if to say: Elijah, why are you worried that Israel has torn down my altars? I am the LORD God Almighty. Look what I can do!

Once Elijah is sorted the LORD sends him on another mission: this time to anoint Hazael and Jehu as kings and Elisha as prophet to replace Elijah whose earthly ministry was almost over.

But as you remember there was a snag. Like the people who had other business to take care of in today’s gospel before they would follow Jesus, Elisha had other business, too.

But Elijah who had been sorted by the LORD, was in turn able to get Elisha straightened away as well; and see what happens next? Nothing less than an Old Testament prophecy of the Liturgy of the Sacrament.

Elisha burns his bridges, as it were, so that he can never return. Which bridges? Only the “works of the flesh” that St. Paul catalogues in his sermon to the Galatians:

“ … adultery, sexual immorality, impurity, sensuality, idolatry, sorcery, enmity, strife, jealousy, fits of anger, rivalries, dissensions, divisions, envy, intoxication, orgies and the like.”

He says this because those who do such things cannot “enter into the Kingdom of God,” and there is nothing worse than that.

But Elisha doesn’t just burn his bridges as it were, but he does so liturgically so that what he does is an Old Testament prophecy of the Sacrifice of the Cross and of the Eucharist by which we obtain all its benefits.

As Elisha cut up the wooden yokes to make a fire so a Tree was cut down to construct a cross on which the Bread of Life would be boiled in the fuel of our wrongs. But the sacrifice did not end there. The meat of the sacrifice was not discarded, but it went to feed the people.

In the same way the Eucharist we celebrate today will be consumed by us. Not the flesh of oxen but of our Lord Jesus Christ; and his exalted Blood as our drink; under the cover of Bread and Wine.

And so as we see from Scripture it is an expensive proposition to follow the real Jesus. We must steer clear of the works of the flesh. We must deny ourselves and take up our own crosses. We must put our flesh to death each day and embrace the fruits of the Spirit which are: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control, against such things there is no law and those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires.” Amen.