Now it came to pass, when the time had come for Him to be received up, that He steadfastly set His face to go to Jerusalem, and sent messengers before His face. And as they went, they entered a village of the Samaritans, to prepare for Him. But they did not receive Him, because His face was set for the journey to Jerusalem. And when His disciples James and John saw this, they said, "Lord, do You want us to command fire to come down from heaven and consume them, just as Elijah did?" But He turned and rebuked them, and said, "You do not know what manner of spirit you are of. For the Son of Man did not come to destroy men's lives but to save them." And they went to another village. - Luke 9: 51-56 (NKJV)
It is such a shame that churchgoers are so easily manipulated to feel victimized and aggrieved. I so desperately want us to wake up and be able to discern when we are being fed a narrative designed to make us hate the very people, we should be bringing the gospel to. The lost are not your enemy beloved. Even if they are rude. Even if they are intolerant. Even of they are homosexual, or drag queens. Christians behave as if we came out from our mother's womb, as born again. We did not. Maybe we have convinced ourselves that the sins we see in the world today are somehow worse than the ones we were steeped in when Christ found us. Let me assure you, we were just as wretched. We were just as lost. Whatever righteousness we have belongs to Christ alone. Yet we often become so easily arrogant against people no better than we were.
I was hoping today that many Christians would take a big step back from the selective outrage merchants selling the opening ceremony from the Olympics as being some kind of purposeful slap across the face of Christianity. Instead, it seems that we have all doubled down on our victimization while the world laughs at us because we cannot tell the difference between a French painting of Dionysus and an Italian painting of the Last Supper. The world shakes their heads in disbelief because what we profess to be so upset about is a depiction of the Last Supper, which has already been parodied thousands of times. While the things of God are foolishness to them, they can easily spot hypocrisy.
Let us now turn to the bible because God has given us an example of this arrogance and hypocrisy at work within followers of Jesus, in the key verses above. We see Jesus come through a Samaritan village. Before getting into the text, we need to remember that the Samaritans were reviled by the Jews. They were hated. They were considered half-breeds filled with pagan beliefs. Sound familiar? So, when Jesus came through, it turns out the Samaritans rejected him. James and John, the "Sons of Thunder", put their nicknames on full display by asking if they should reign fire down upon the Samaritans and consume them. No grace. No mercy. No understanding of who Christ is. Just arrogance, hypocrisy and clear bias against the despised Samaritans. Jesus of course rebuked them, because they were serving only the own carnal flesh. If Jesus was watching the ceremonies yesterday do you honestly think He would lament that the church rebuke was not harsh enough? Or do you think He would rebuke us as He did the Sons of Thunder? We do not belong to a social club where we are skeptical of new members. Jesus came to save all of us, not just people we like. With these scriptures in hand, let us turn to commentary from Barnes' Notes on the Bible:
"Ye know not what manner of spirit ye are of - You suppose that you are actuated by a proper love for me; but you know not yourselves. It is rather a love of revenge; rather revengeful feelings toward the "Samaritans" than proper feelings toward "me." We learn here:
1. That "apparent" zeal for God may be only improper opposition toward our fellow-men.
2. That people, when they wish to honor God, should examine their spirit, and see if there is not lying at the bottom of their professed zeal for God some bad feeling toward their fellow-men.
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