NEGOTIATING INTERSECTIONS
Psalm 16
Luke 9:51-62
Driving our cars and living our lives we face many intersections that must be negotiated. To ignore an intersection spells disaster on the highway. Ignoring intersections in our lives results in breakage and wreckage in our relationships.
An intersection is a crossroads. It is a place where a directional decision must be made and action taken. The driver who is indecisive is in jeopardy of being hit from both sides by oncoming traffic. An intersection in life is where a decision has to be made about the direction to live. Apprehensions rise as we approach significant intersections in our lives. We are at risk of being bombarded from many directions if we stand indecisive at a crossroads in our lives.
The biblical stories can be significant resources to help us negotiate the approaching intersections. Exploring how, when, where, and why our stories intersect with the biblical stories offers valuable resources and provides tremendous insight into the intersections we are approaching and negotiating.
A story I’ve told before illustrates really well a change in perspective. On the border between Canada and the United States was a small town the two countries had fought over for years. Each claimed the town was in its territory. Finally the matter was brought to court, and the judge decided in favor of the United States. At the end of the trial as people left the courtroom an old man was overheard commenting, "Oh, thank goodness, I just don't think I could have survived another one of those cold Canadian winters!"
What a change in perspective can do for us! Often something is said in a conversation that alters perspective. Luke (9:57‑ 62) told about three potential followers of Jesus and indicates that dialogue with Jesus altered their perspectives or at least caused them stop, look, and listen at this intersection in their lives. The responses of these three are representative of ways we approach life's intersections. Jesus was on his way to Jerusalem when a volunteer said, "I'll follow you anywhere" (Luke 9:57). A sense of excitement had surrounded Jesus and his disciples, and this man wanted to jump on the bandwagon. Why didn't Jesus welcome the man aboard with open arms? Did not Jesus want to get as many disciples a possible? It was important to Jesus that his followers count the cost of discipleship and know what they were getting themselves into before they signed on with him. He said to this impulsive decision maker, "Foxes have holes, and birds of the air have nests; but the Son of man has nowhere to lay his head" (Luke 9:58). Jesus wanted the man to know that if he joined him as a disciple he would have less stability than the creatures of the air or land. The ground would be his bed, his clothes his pillow, and the sky would be the only roof guaranteed to cover his head. Before anyone drove straight through one of life's intersections, Jesus wanted the person to count the cost of moving full steam ahead. This volunteer was miscalculating how fast and in which direction the bandwagon was going. He represents the danger of impulsively hurrying through intersections.
The second person with whom Jesus talked about discipleship was a draftee. Jesus said to him, "Follow me" (Luke 9:59). This was a straight‑forward invitation to travel through the intersection of commitment and join others who had joined with Jesus, come what may. But the man was reluctant. He requested that he be permitted to bury his father. Surely Jesus could wait long enough for a funeral!
There was deception in this man's request. Family customs in the Ancient Near East stated that a son was responsible to his father as long as the father lived. The son was responsible for arranging the burial of his father. Apparently in this situation no funeral procession was ready because no corpse was available. The father of this man was alive and well! The younger man was saying to Jesus that he needed to stay there and take care of family responsibilities. After he had taken care of family duties, then he would come with Jesus. This young man approached the intersection of commitment reluctantly and hesitantly. Jesus responded to the young man with what sounds like an odd, even callous, comment, "Let the dead bury the dead" (Luke 9:60). But what Jesus did was to shift the perspective. He pointed out that the young man was permitting the future death of his father to crowd out living in the present. This man is the antithesis of the first. His approach was calculated delay for an indefinite time.
The third man in Luke 9:57‑62 illustrates indecisiveness. Indecisiveness often leads to disappointment, despair, and lethargy as people begin to feel they have given up control of life to the forces that affect their lives. Rather than being in control they are being controlled by the events that surround them. Jesus invited this third man to become a disciple, a learner. The man had but one request. That seems logical. All he wanted was to say goodbye to his family. That should not take too long. But the time element was not the issue. Jesus knew that the issue was the man's double‑mindedness, his inability to decide one way or the other. Indecisiveness is a decision because not to decide is to decide.
These three men approached the intersection of discipleship from different perspectives. The first was impulsive; the second wanted to delay making a decision indefinitely; and the third was indecisive. To all of these Jesus said, "No one who puts his hand to the plow and looks back is fit for the reign of God." In Jesus' day plows had one point and only one handle. A plow required a farmer's undivided attention. The one plowing had to focus his eyes straight ahead to the end of the field in order to plow a straight furrow. Jesus was saying that the invitation to discipleship was an intersection that called for decisiveness. Discipleship requires single‑minded, full attention. This is not the time to be looking back and wondering about what might have been. Now is the time to look squarely ahead to what is to come.
Approaching an intersection means we have to make a decision about the direction we will travel. In the Wizard of Oz Dorothy asked Scarecrow for directions. Scarecrow inquired where Dorothy wanted to go. Dorothy replied, "I don't know," to which Scarecrow responded, "Then it doesn't matter which direction you go, does it?" Isn't this true of many of us? We do not know where we are going or want to go; therefore, it doesn't matter which direction we choose.
Life's decisions have crucial moments‑‑times when a person's whole being says, "Yes, the time is now!" A reluctance to commit oneself at the crucial moment may result in putting things off too long and risk never doing them. Some opportunities come and if we do not take advantage of them, they may never come again. It may be a job offer or decision to go to college or to marry a certain person. Each of these can be postponed and planned at another time. But with each postponement comes the increasing possibility that these events and opportunities will not happen or be repeated.
An old proverb says, "Strike while the iron is hot." That is sound advice for blacksmiths and for religious faith. As we approach intersections there is a time for being cautious and thinking out our actions and the possible results. Jesus told the volunteer to consider what the cost was for what he was about to do. But there also is a time to move forward once the consequences have been considered. To hesitate and be reluctant at that point is to court disaster.
We approach many intersections during the course of a lifetime. Birth is the first one and although we have no conscious memory of being born, all of us were affected by the events which surrounded birth and the care that was given us at that intersection in our lives. Other intersections include beginning school, making friends, making a faith commitment, vocational choice, educational options, deciding whether to marry. The options for job changes, confrontation of illnesses, the death of family and friends, retirement, and one's own death are intersections common to all of us. Many of us are at one or more of these intersections today.
Thinking about any one of these intersections can create an exorbitant amount of anxiety. But Jesus urged us not to be anxious about what was ahead of us. How can we keep from being anxious? There are some good safety tips that will help us as we approach these intersections in our lives.
When we were children we learned a helpful rule when crossing the street: stop, look both ways, and listen. As we approach intersections in our daily living this is still good advice. First, we need to stop. Our tendency often is to keep on the move. Stopping can keep us from going in the wrong direction, expending and wasting an unusual amount of energy heading off in an unproductive direction. Second, we need to look around at the intersection. Where do the different roads lead? What are the options that are available to us? We need to evaluate the pros and cons of each option, determine which direction matches our gifts, decide what needs the decision will meet, and then make the decision. By stopping and looking gives us time to allow our hearing to improve. We need to listen. What do we hear at this intersection about our lives, our living, and our relationship with God? What is the growing edge in our lives that this intersection highlights?
Several biblical characters illustrate stopping, looking, and listening at intersections in their lives. Consider one, Ruth. Ruth, caught in the snare of grief caused by the deaths of her husband and father‑in‑law, struggled with whether to go to Israel or to remain in Moab. Naomi urged, even commanded, Ruth to remain with the familiar, with the people and the land she knew. But Ruth saw her life moving in a different direction and gave expression to commitment, an essential quality in order to negotiate life's intersections. Ruth's well known words to Naomi expressed her commitment. "Don't ask me to leave you. Wherever you go, I will go. Wherever you live, I will live. Your people will be my people and your God will be my God. Where you die, I will die and that is where I will be buried" (Ruth 1:16‑17, GNB). In the context of grief, Ruth approached an intersection which set the direction of the remainder of her life.
Intersections in our lives occur in a variety of places and often at unexpected times. Each intersection we approach in our lives makes possible a synthesis, a new creation. You probably are approaching an intersection right now in your life. What is it? Maybe your child is starting school or you are facing living alone. Maybe you are at the crossroads caused by the death of someone important in your life or you are considering a vocational change. Maybe you’re looking for a job because in this economic crisis, you lost your job. Perhaps you are exploring new understanding about yourself as a created being? How is this event also an intersection of your life with God? Whatever the intersection is, may the story from Luke’s gospel and the example of Ruth serve as models to help us stop, look, and listen as we approach and move through these intersections in our lives.