Sermon 6.29.25: All In

Pentecost 3C, Luke 9:51-62

You know that idiom, “I’m gonna give them a piece of my mind?” Or, “I’ve got half a mind to XYZ?” I was thinking about these this week - and it’s interesting to me because these indicate strong feelings - so why only a piece of our mind? Why only half?

And then, of course, we’ve all heard the jokey saying from t-shirts and Facebook memes that says, “never do something half-assed when you can give it your WHOLE ASS.” Okay, but why is it the JOKEY idiom that’s all in, giving it the whole thing rather than half, or a piece? Is this one the joke because we feel the need to hedge our bets rather than truly going all in?

That’s often the case, right? Of course we want to look before we leap, want to keep something in reserve, want a back-up plan and a just-in-case, a safety net.

And we see that impulse in today’s Gospel reading, too. The disciples, well, they want to be all in - they’re going with Jesus on this journey into that lion’s den, Jerusalem, after all. But they’re not quite there, are they? Not like Jesus, with his face set with steely determination toward that city that kills its prophets, as he’ll lament a few chapters later.

Because Jesus knows what’s ahead and where he’s going, and, even still, he’s all in - he won’t be derailed from walking this defiant way of radical, subversive, disruptive love, no matter where it leads him. And he doesn’t seem to have any patience with his disciples’ desire to go and put things in order before they come along, either.

"Lord, first let me go and bury my father." Reasonable, right? But Jesus replies, "Let the dead bury their own dead; but as for you, go and proclaim the kingdom of God."

"I will follow you, Lord; but let me first say farewell to those at my home." Again, that doesn’t seem like too much to ask, does it? But Jesus said to him, "No one who puts a hand to the plow and looks back is fit for the kingdom of God.”

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This feels like a pretty hard passage at first blush. If this guy is supposed to be “fully human” why doesn’t he have any patience with these perfectly reasonable requests? It’s only human, after all, to want to bury your father or say goodby to your loved ones before setting out on this grim march toward the violent, death-dealing jealousy of empire.

And then that very harsh sounding reply to the desire to simply say goodbye: "No one who puts a hand to the plow and looks back is fit for the kingdom of God.” It’s easy to read this in a really condemnatory way, but I think we shouldn’t forget that, really, none of us are “fit” for the Kingdom - but that never gets us cut from the invite list. Never. It’s actually never about proving our worthiness.

We are always invited - always. And if that is who we understand God to be - the one who invites us to come - and if that’s who we understand Jesus to be - the one who shows us how unconditional that invitation is, who shows us what it looks like to go all in for this radically loving way of living - well, I think we have to read this story through that lens, too. This is about what it looks like to be defiantly, radically all in for God’s way of love.

We can’t half-ass this one, Jesus is saying. We find the Kingdom when we go all in for it. Look back at the Collect of the Day we said together this morning: “teach us to leave behind the fear that kills what is different, (to leave behind) our love for what is dead and safe; may we set our face like you to find our true home…” This passage is about going all in without reservation, journeying defiantly and unhesitatingly for our true home - for life in God’s radically unconditional love, invited just as we are.

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At the Ecumenical Pride service this past Wednesday at Vine Street Christian Church, the Rev. Wesley King preached to us, a room full of mostly queer folk, about standing up and showing up - even in the midst of these death-dealing systems and our many reasons to fear and to hedge. And he spoke about that standing up and showing up as the whole thing, as what it means to live into God’s Kingdom. “What if how we show up to the work IS the work?”, he asked. In times like these, he said, when there is so much to fear and so many reasons to despair, the work, on some level, consists of being who God created us to be and being proud of it. Consists of going all in for love, all in on God’s invitation to us, God’s radical, unconditional embrace of us, just as we are.

And I thought about you all. About St. Ann’s and the way you’re all in, showing up to the work in whatever ways you can. About your whole-hearted and full-throated “yes” to God’s invitation - you show up, confident that you’ve heard this radical and unconditional invitation.

And the way you do that creates the space for others - for me! - to bring their whole selves, and to hear and accept that invitation. And I thought about the gift of realizing my own queerness among you. You’ve also created space for me to learn something new about myself. And I am all in - for my life and myself as God made me - in a new way. (Happy Pride.)

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When we go all in - when we understand God’s invitation and choose it as what matters most, when we set our faces toward God’s Beloved Community and keep walking toward it with fearless determination, we can make it possible for others to do the same. In other words, we create the conditions for the Kingdom of God to live and thrive right here and now. It’s not about being fit for it or not - we are all invited. It’s about accepting the invitation, showing up to the work, being all in, and in so doing finding ourselves not only fit for the Kingdom, but living into it.

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In one of the post-communion prayers in the BCP, there is a line that always catches my ear: “Send us now into the world in peace, and grant us strength and courage to love and serve you with gladness and singleness of heart…”

“With gladness and singleness of heart.” Singleness of heart! Not a piece, not half - the whole thing. On some level, I think the Kingdom of God is about wholeness. When we are undivided, as Jesus is, when we are not reserving a piece of ourselves in caution, when we are able to unreservedly say yes to God’s invitation, we find that we are already there.

And then there’s that gladness part. Where does the gladness part come in? Doesn’t it come precisely from that sense of wholeness - even when that seems scary or the cost seems high? When we choose it, anyway?

You’ve probably all seen my bumper sticker that reads “Joy is an act of rebellion.” (Having a designated parking spot, and all.) Jesus, with his face set toward Jerusalem, is all rebellion here - rebellion against the death-dealing systems that keep us small and scared and fractured and rob us of our joy; rebellion against a half-lived life, rebellion against the voices that claim that there’s not enough love or grace or mercy or welcome to go around, or that we can only bring the approved parts of ourselves along. Jesus, in his rebellion, invites us to join him, to be all in - wholly, radically, defiantly alive as God’s beloveds.

Don’t look back and don’t hold back, Jesus says. Life is up ahead and all around, and it’s the place you can be fully yourself, be radically alive, and unreservedly and joyfully step into the fullness of love God invites us all to. Go all in. Bring your whole self without reservation. Joy waits there. God waits there with arms outstretched. Happy Pride.

Amen.