Wild Goose - Pt 1

“Wild Goose Chase: Goose Bumps” Nehemiah 2: 1-10

Luke 9: 59-60

What do you think of when you hear the phrase “wild goose chase”? I think for many of us the phrase speaks to something that is unattainable, undefined, or without an end point. In other words something that isn’t worth our time pursing. But for the next four weeks, I want to invite us to reimagine what it means to be in a wild goose chase, based off of a book bearing the same name by Pastor Mark Batterson. 

For a few years I volunteered at a festival held in North Carolina called the Wild Goose. It was named after celtic Christians description of the Holy Spirit. A wild goose. Now I didn’t know much about real undomesticated geese prior to this sermon so I looked up a few things about them - they cannot be tamed. While geese have some particular patterns in their behavior there are some things you cannot do to them - you cannot control them and  you cannot silence them - they make a lot of noise.

In many ways, I embrace the symbol of the wild goose for the Holy Spirit instead of the more traditional dove. Doves are birds that can be trained - we can make them do we want we want them to do. Doves also are thought to be gentle. Brothers and sisters, somewhere along the way in our faith journey we have tried to make the Holy Spirit into someone who follows our leading and bends to our will instead of the other way around. The Holy Spirit is mysterious and untamable. We’ve got in trouble over the years because we have tried to act like we are in charge. 

Perhaps that is what Jesus was speaking about in today’s gospel lesson. Shortly before this particular passage a lot has taken place in the gospel of Luke. The five thousand have been fed, Jesus has experienced the transfiguration and has healed a boy possessed by a demon. But Jesus has also been rejected by a town in Samaria and has predicted his own death. He is now having would-be disciples come up to him and say that they will follow him, but he is looking into their hearts and realizing they have alternative motives. He has already dissuaded one person by telling him that he doesn’t have a home - he simply goes from place to place sharing about the Kingdom of God. And now a second would-be disciple comes to him and says that he needs to bury his father before following Christ’s call to follow him.

A lot has been written over the years about this particular passage - probably because it makes us uncomfortable. Why would Jesus deny what seems to be a very reasonable request to let a man bury his father. One commentator believed that the man’s father wasn’t yet dead, and that it could be years before he was able to follow Jesus. Another said perhaps it spoke to Jesus burial customs, that were often lengthy. But perhaps the commentator that I resonated with the most was pastor and seminary professor Elaine Heath who said the following: “His point is when other localities to family, community, and tradition claim first place, disciples will compromise the call on their life.”

Whether the man meant to or not, he put a condition on his willingness to follow Jesus. Jesus sees right through this and gets to the heart of testing his loyalties -  let the dead bury the dead. Let any excuse you may have about following Jesus on your own terms and in your own timing be buried. This wasn’t a reasonable request the man was making, it was a blockade on the call of his life.

O brothers and sisters, how often do we do the same thing - having our list of conditions or ‘if only’s’ when it comes to following Christ. I will follow you Jesus, but let me take care of my family first. I will follow you Jesus, but don’t ask me to leave the security of my day job. I will follow you Jesus, but only if I can keep my home. I will follow you Jesus, but only after I retire. You can probably think of some of your own ‘if only’s’ you offered to Christ over the years. And perhaps many seemed very reasonable at the time - but how many of them ultimately ended up being a blockade against the Holy Spirit, even unintentionally. It is as if Jesus is asking the man, and asking us, if we are truly committed to following the leading of the Spirit in our lives no matter what the cost? 

Let us not be too quick to answer yes to that question, friends. For when we follow the leading of the Holy Spirit it will probably not be logical or convenient, which Pastor Mark Batterson is trying to stress with the phrase Wild Goose Chase.

In the time of Jesus the average person didn’t travel more than 35 miles from their home. Ever. And yet, Jesus called his disciples to go to the very ends of the earth spreading the good news of the Kingdom of God. Jesus took the comfort zone that people were used to being in and pushed it aside, expanding it for the sake of the mission and vision of the Kingdom. The Holy Spirit does the same thing in our lives, brothers and sisters, expanding our definition and mission and vision of what it means to be the Church of Jesus Christ all for the sake of people who aren’t yet here. It won’t be what we expect or on our time table, but it will have mighty results for the Kingdom of God. If only we are willing to go on a bit of a wild goose chase, letting the Holy Spirit truly lead. 

Someone who knows a little bit about the wild goose chase is Nehemiah. The history of the people of Israel got a little rocky around 586 B.C. The capitol of Judah was invaded and seized, Jerusalem fell, the walls around Jerusalem were destroyed, and the people of Israel were taken as captives by Babylon. They were held captives for over 50 years, when a small portion of people were allowed to return to Jerusalem, but not enough to rebuild the wall or restore the temple. 

Enter Nehemiah - a cup bearer to the King of Babylon. One day he was serving the king and he was deeply troubled by a dream he had recently received to rebuild the wall surrounding Jerusalem. The king noticed he was perplexed and asked him about it. Nehemiah had a choice to make - he could he pretended the dream never happened or share it with the King. He chose the later and asked the king if he could go back and rebuild the wall around the city of Jerusalem. 

What a bold, spirit prompted request, friends! Would you have reacted in the same way if you were in Nehemiah’s sandles? Or would you have pushed aside any leading of the Spirit out of fear? Or would you have pretended it was someone else’s call or problem? 

How often, brothers and sisters, do we get in the Holy Spirits way and not give people the opportunity to say yes to what God is leading us to do? I don’t know what Nehemiah expected that day but it probably wasn’t the king agreeing - yet that is exactly what happened. But he had to follow the Spirits prompting to ask first. So many of us don’t even get that far. We think our faith is about believing the right things about the Holy Spirit instead of actually taking the rest to following the Spirit’s leading. But our faith, Christianity, is about doing. So may we be praying for opportunities to follow the Spirit’s leading, whatever it may be, so that we may live into our faith and make the Kingdom of God known in and through us! Amen!