Setting Our Face Towards Love and Peace!

. He was 
passionate about how he and others fought so that future generations wouldn’t have to. He described it as 
hell on earth and something to desperately avoid. After sharing these stories and his passion around an end 
to fighting, the conversation drifted along to other stories of his life. The reminiscences of life, of being in 
the army and his early life in the Hunter region, brought forth a different passion and sense of pain. He 
described the exclusion and discrimination he experienced in his regiments of the army and in wider 
workplace. The discrimination was grounded in the Protestant-Catholic distinction that was strong in his 
world. People were either Protestants (as he was) or Catholics. His immediate superiors in both the army 
and the workplace happened to be Catholic and so promoted ‘their own’ over him and other Protestants. 
As he spoke, he vented with a fury of hatred against the Catholics. It was so deeply ingrained and 
profoundly impacted him that he was bitter and angry after so many years. I imagined that if things had 
been reversed, his superiors were Protestant and favoured him and his mates, all might be well – as they 
were right and the Catholics, wrong. He certainly had his face set against the Catholics, with determined 
zeal. This had little to do with religion and faith, and more to do with culture, tradition, history. 
Unfortunately, when we set our face against someone or something with such determined zeal, we often 
resort to demeaning the other – it is violence, whether physical or violent rhetoric, exclusion… In setting 
our face with determination, we can set it for positive or negative. We can set it towards hatred, violence
and exclusion, or for justice, peace, inclusive love and in the way of God’s Reign, which is non-violent.
We see this in so much of the world’s leaders. Donald Trump has his mind set on a particular ideology
and considers refugees, immigrants and foreign workers as threats to American stability, security and the 
jobs of ‘true Americans.’ He has acted to expel them from America. There are others who he doesn’t like,
and they find themselves under various other threats. If his face is set against you, you will feel his hatred 
and violence. Vladimir Putin has his face set towards the renaissance of a Russian Empire, to restore its 
greatness (not unlike Trump’s rhetoric) and therefore acts according to his ideology and through warfare to 
bring Ukraine (and probably other nations) under Russian rule. His sense of his own being is such that 
anyone who opposes him will be imprisoned or murdered. There are other world leaders who are similarly 
determined, such as Benjamin Netanyahu, who is set upon expelling Gazans from ‘his’ land. With armies, 
tanks, bulldozers, he is driving people of the land they and their ancestors have inhabited. His face is set 
against people who are different, people he feels a threat and his determination is grounded in hatred, fear
and violence towards others.
When people set their face with determined effort towards justice and peace, there is a different response, 
a different agenda. When Rosa Parks refused to stand up on the Montgomery bus, when she set her face,
because she was tired and tired of being treated poorly, it wasn’t about violence and hatred. She just wanted 
a fair go and to be treated with dignity. As the Civil Rights movement progressed and Martin Luther King 
Jr was drawn into leadership, he set his face, not towards violence and hatred, but towards God’s Reign, 
resisting the hatred and racism, whilst seeking to love the people who inflicted such violence on him and 
the people whose skin colour was different. He called for people to be judged on the quality of their 
character, not the colour of their skin. He shunned violent resistance and championed a way of non-violent 
resistance grounded in the way of Jesus. It was a way of peace and reconciliation, of relationship grounded 
in love.
In our story this week (Luke 9:51-62) we hear that Jesus set his face towards Jerusalem, towards the 
cross and everything that meant. He set his face, and this marks a change in the direction of his ministry, 
life and the story. As he and his disciples journey southward, they journey through Samaria, which was 
previously the Northern Kingdom of Israel before the Assyrians conquered the land. Jews, from the 
Southern Kingdom, and Samarians became enemies and hated each other – their faces were set against one 
another in hatred and violence! Jews would typically travel the longer route of the Trans-Jordan, rather than 
venture through Samaria. Jesus sent disciples ahead to prepare a place for them to stay overnight. They 
went into the city and were met with rejection, as the inhabitants realised ‘his face was set towards 
Jerusalem.’ 
Reflection Notes – 29/6/25
3
rd Sunday after Pentecost – Geoff Stevenson
The disciples reported back and in a reference to an ancient story of the prophet, Elijah, they asked if he 
wanted them to command fire to come down and consume them. They are angry and feel the rejection. 
They want to fight back and exact revenge, but Jesus is adamant that there will be no violence! They will 
move onto another village, another place where they might be received. This is his way, the way of God’s 
Reign. His face was set on Jerusalem but as the place where the powers and principalities of the world 
would conspire against him and unleash their violence against him and his way of love. 
As they travelled, people came to him seeking to follow but each time he warned them of the cost. 
Following in his way would cost them! It would mean an itinerant life, where we don’t lay down roots and 
seek our security in place, ownership, our sense of control through wealth and things. Whilst kinship ties 
and responsibilities are important there would be times when they were stretched, or other priorities would 
intervene. If we are to follow the way of Jesus, we must set our face on the Reign of God and trust in this 
way that is challenging and costly.
The way of Jesus is about letting go of our need to be in control. It is a way that is not reactive against 
the other but seeks to reconcile and live peacefully with respect and dignity. To live in this way, warns 
Jesus, will cost. It will bring judgement and resistance from those who feel threatened, who are required to 
let go of their oppressive control and violence over others – and the Earth itself. We can see this in the 
response that people receive when they stand up for the earth and our environment. We see this in the 
response to people who seek to be reconcilers and work against the violence and hatred, the warmongering 
and conflict. They often become the victims, the scapegoats for people’s fear and angst, as everyone turns 
on them. The prophetic voice that speaks for truth that is grounded in love, peace, justice, hope and is 
lifegiving, will be rejected, as Jesus was on a Golgotha cross where the powers of the world crucified him. 
But God is a God of resurrection, love and grace!