Bonjour. thanks for your prayers last week, we “happened to” meet a man who was able to advise us concerning our residency status. It’s been all go since we arrived. This week I went to an annual meeting of the apartment owners, a new president was elected, they seem nice and we discussed upcoming maintenance needed amongst other topics. But the main thing which I’m sure if you have watched the news this week you will have heard of, are the record temperatures we are currently experiencing in France. Here in Vannes, we can confirm it was just as hot as you can see from this screenshot from my phone earlier in the week. I found myself singing the theme tune to « It ain’t ‘alf hot mum » and visions of the sergeant Windsor Davies coming to mind. Most French don’t have air-conditioning, it’s kind of looked down on, so everyone suffers together. You can at least escape the high temperatures at the shops and at the local beach which is a 20 min ride on the bus. But for those shops that don’t have air-conditioning, it’s not a surprise to find the shop closed for the day. The mayor of the town who we really like, announced that the schools were closing and a ban on alcohol at public events to help the rescue services. All these kind of things, which are every day issues really are of course more of a challenge in a foreign language country and I found myself thinking this is all too hard, it would be much easier just having our life in New Zealand. So this week’s reading was an encouragement to me and hopefully to you as well.
Luke 9:57-62
Now it happened as they journeyed on the road, that someone said to Him, “Lord, I will follow You wherever You go.” And Jesus said to him, “Foxes have holes and birds of the air have nests, but the Son of Man has nowhere to lay His head.” Then He said to another, “Follow Me.” But he said, “Lord, let me first go and bury my father.” Jesus said to him, “Let the dead bury their own dead, but you go and preach the kingdom of God.” And another also said, “Lord, I will follow You, but let me first go and bid them farewell who are at my house.” But Jesus said to him, “No one, having put his hand to the plow, and looking back, is fit for the kingdom of God.”
Here in France where our apartment is so basic and in the process of renovation, and being a stranger in a foreign country, I do miss my home in New Zealand and or is easy to look back. But then I remembered that God’s call doesn’t change, and sometimes we just have to persevere on the journey he has put us on. As I thought about this and the passage from Luke today, I was reminded of Ruth. And when I went for my devotion the following morning, the page was opened at Ruth chapter one, I even asked Mhairi if she’d been reading Ruth but she said no. so that acted as an indication to pursue the story. Naomi and her husband and family were living in Bethlehem and when a famine came they made a decision to move to Moab to start life anew. Things went wrong fairly quickly when the husband died, but life carried on, the two sons got married to local Moab girls and they just fit in with a new way of life and things were normal for 10 years. But then real tragedy hit the family when the 2 sons also died leaving just Naomi and her two daughter-in-laws Ruth and Orpah, though no children are mentioned even after the 10 years. Without any men to earn a living, it was extremely difficult economically and a decision had to be made. Naomi decided to return home to Bethlehem where the Lord was moving and providing bread for his people. Naomi told her two daughter-in-laws to go back to their Moabite families even though it was heartbreaking say goodbye after a life of 10 years together as family. Orpah finally made the decision it was best to go home but that’s when Ruth made her famous statement…
But Ruth said: “Entreat me not to leave you, Or to turn back from following after you; For wherever you go, I will go; And wherever you lodge, I will lodge; Your people shall be my people, And your God, my God.
Ruth’s decision was not made based on economics or convenience. It was solely based on wanting to maintain her relationship with Naomi and no doubt all the Jewish beliefs and customs she had gotten used to. Ruth was prepared to go through any personal hardship necessary to maintain her relationship with Naomi even if it meant leaving her home in Moab.Maybe you can just relate to what it’s like to not have a home. A home is usually thought of as a physical address but not everyone has their own home or even a place to live. Where would you call home, the place where you most love to be? Because you can have a physical address and still not feel at home. I have never been without a place to live but I have been in places in my life when I have not always felt at home. A home is where your family are. Our true home is with God, he wants to welcome you into his house, but sadly many people reject that for the comfort and convenience the World offers. It is just a temporary illusion, a mirage in the desert ! I want my home to be wherever Jesus is. I want to forsake the comfort and convenience of this World if that is necessary to be where Jesus is, just as Ruth did to be with Naomi. That’s what Jesus’s call is all about and reflected in that old hymn
All to Jesus I surrender,
Humbly at His feet I bow,
Worldly pleasures all forsaken;
Take me, Jesus, take me now.
Jesus is where our real home is, not any place here on Earth.
In My Father’s house are many mansions; if it were not so, I would have told you. I go to prepare a place for you. And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and receive you to Myself; that where I am, there you may be also. And where I go you know, and the way you know.” Thomas said to Him, “Lord, we do not know where You are going, and how can we know the way?” Jesus said to him, “I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through Me.
Jesus is the only way to a home in Heaven, there is no other way. Of all the messages Jesus gave, this is and the need for him to pay for our sins are the ones the World rejects. The World does not have much of a problem with much else Jesus said or did.
Let’s read today’s passage again a bit more slowly;
Luke 9:57-62
Now it happened as they journeyed on the road, that someone said to Him, “Lord, I will follow You wherever You go.” And Jesus said to him, “Foxes have holes and birds of the air have nests, but the Son of Man has nowhere to lay His head.”
A few people looking on, see the appeal of Christ but finally don’t accept the lack of earthly comforts that may come with following Christ closely. Following Jesus does not bring with it the guarantee of financial success that prosperity preachers would have you believe.
Then He said to another, “Follow Me.” But he said, “Lord, let me first go and bury my father.” Jesus said to him, “Let the dead bury their own dead, but you go and preach the kingdom of God.”
Following Jesus can also mean at times forsaking societal norms and protocol. If Jesus has called you to some task, that is your priority. Bear in mind that Jesus knows what’s going on in your life and he already knows the predicament you may face when a situation contradicts something he has asked you to do. We should be discerning on this point because for example, God also asks us to honour our parents, it’s just if the situation is an excuse for not doing what God has asked us to do. It’s a question of priorities.
And another also said, “Lord, I will follow You, but let me first go and bid them farewell who are at my house.” But Jesus said to him, “No one, having put his hand to the plow, and looking back, is fit for the kingdom of God.”
Sometimes when Jesus calls someone, they think to themselves, there’s plenty of time, I’ll just do this or that first. But you don’t know if you have time, you may not. This may be the only opportunity you have in your life.
We then, as workers together with Him also plead with you not to receive the grace of God in vain. For He says: “In an acceptable time I have heard you, And in the day of salvation I have helped you.” Behold, now is the accepted time; behold, now is the day of salvation.
Sometime in your life did you hear a call from God to leave your home and security and follow him? It may have been at Church or it may have been in some tough moment in your life. Is the Lord calling you TODAY?
