The great Thomas Aquinas once observed that “There is more to the Church than Jesus, and more to Jesus than the Church.” The Church is intended to be a place of welcoming and love. Sometimes it is characterized more by exclusivity and cliquishness than by the all-embracing mercy of God. Though Jesus is in the Church sometimes he is hard to find there. On the other hand, Jesus is not restricted to the boundaries of the Church. Many young people today are finding Jesus elsewhere.
In Jesus’ time God’s house was the Temple of Jerusalem. People from all over the world came to experience the presence of God in this “holy city.” Strangely, however, when God sent his Son to Israel, he located him in the hill country of Nazareth rather than inside the Jerusalem area. Jesus did most of his ministry in the Galilee area where the Jewish culture was not apparent. There was much more to God than Jerusalem and much more to God’s presence than in the temple.
Today we join Jesus and his disciples as he headed toward Jerusalem for the last time. An interesting thing happened on the way (Luke 9:51-56).
“When the days for Jesus to be taken up were fulfilled, he resolutely determined to journey to Jerusalem, and he sent messengers ahead of him. On the way they entered a Samaritan village to prepare for his reception there…”
The Samaritans were a lower class of people who were not welcome in the Jerusalem culture. They “didn’t belong.” So God decided to bring Jerusalem to them. Jesus is the new and authentic temple of God. He is the full presence of God on earth. On his way to Jerusalem, Jesus decided to stop in Samaria and bring God’s love and mercy to this forsaken people.
We are surprised at what happens next.
“…but they would not welcome him because the destination of his journey was Jerusalem.”
They rejected God’s own Son just as the leaders of Israel had done. Why? Because he seemed to violate Sabbath rules? No, because he was going to Jerusalem, the place where the Samaritans were not welcome. Their hearts were as closed to Jesus as were those of the Jewish leaders. Prejudice goes both ways. And so, these poor Samaritans passed up the opportunity of a lifetime by not letting Jesus stay with them.
“When the disciples James and John saw this, they asked, ‘Lord, do you want us to call down fire from heaven to consume them?’ Jesus turned and rebuked them, and they journeyed to another village.”
Rejecting the Messiah deserved the kind of fire that fell upon Sodom and Gomorrah. James and John wanted to call down fire on this village just as the prophet Elijah had once done with the people of his time. Jesus got on their case. He came to bring fire to the earth, but not a punishing fire. He came to bring the life-giving fire—the fire of the Holy Spirit. Jesus did not have an ounce of revenge in his heart. Quietly, he left this village and headed toward another one. Being the true representative of God on earth, he returned rejection with love.
Jesus ministers God’s love to those whose hearts are open to him. He is not restricted by cultural boundaries imposed by misguided religious leaders. If he is turned down in one place, he heads for another.
Where do we fit into all of this? Do we represent the presence of God in our churches and reach out with love to those who seem “not to fit in” so that Jesus can easily be found in our churches? Furthermore, do we readily bring Jesus to those in the marketplaces of our lives, even when we feel rejection as a result?
What about the “mini church” called me? Am I allowing God to purify me of what is not Jesus? Am I so filled with the presence of Jesus that those in the world recognize it and want to have what I have?
