First Reading:
15See, I have set before you today life and prosperity, death and adversity. 16If you obey the commandments of the Lord your God that I am commanding you today, by loving the Lord your God, walking in his ways, and observing his commandments, decrees, and ordinances, then you shall live and become numerous, and the Lord your God will bless you in the land that you are entering to possess. 17But if your heart turns away and you do not hear, but are led astray to bow down to other gods and serve them, 18I declare to you today that you shall perish; you shall not live long in the land that you are crossing the Jordan to enter and possess. 19I call heaven and earth to witness against you today that I have set before you life and death, blessings and curses. Choose life so that you and your descendants may live, 20loving the Lord your God, obeying him, and holding fast to him; for that means life to you and length of days, so that you may live in the land that the Lord swore to give to your ancestors, to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob.
Second Reading:
25Now large crowds were traveling with him; and he turned
and said to them, 26Whoever comes to me and
does not hate father and mother, wife and children, brothers and
sisters, yes, and even life itself, cannot be my
disciple. 27Whoever does not carry the cross and follow me
cannot be my disciple. 28For which of you, intending to
build a tower, does not first sit down and estimate the cost, to see
whether he has enough to complete it? 29Otherwise, when he
has laid a foundation and is not able to finish, all who see it will
begin to ridicule him, 30saying, “This fellow began
to build and was not able to finish.” 31Or what king,
going out to wage war against another king, will not sit down first
and consider whether he is able with ten thousand to oppose the one
who comes against him with twenty thousand? 32If he cannot,
then, while the other is still far away, he sends a delegation and
asks for the terms of peace. 33So therefore, none of you
can become my disciple if you do not give up all your possessions.
To be perfectly honest, this week I looked at what a lot of other
people had to say about this passage because it's something that's
really hard for me to accept on face value. And I guess I wasn't
surprised to find out in the research I did that it's hard for
everyone to accept on face value… Every single author I read
softened the word hate
in one way or another. There were lots
who said that Jesus was simply trying to shock people into listening
by giving an outrageous precondition for discipleship. Most of them
said Hate
was hyperbole, an intentional exaggeration… he
didn't actually mean hate
as we think of hate
now… After all, even the parallel passage in Matthew's gospel
softens it. Matthew's version says whoever loves father and mother
more than me is not worthy of me.
So there hate
is turned
into loving less
… But even that's hard for me because my
understanding of Christ's message says that loving others (family,
friends, neighbor, stranger, enemies)… loving others is one of
the tangible ways we can express our love of God.
But there were some authors who gave an explanation that did resonate
with me… Fred Craddock, who's a world renown preacher and
scholar, says that in biblical times to hate
was an expression
that had nothing to do with the kind of emotion that we associate with
the word now. In the ancient near East, what's translated to
hate
meant to detach from.
As in; you need to be detached
enough from other people including your family and things that if you
need to make a choice, you'll be able to choose the way of
Christ… With that reading, the passage doesn't say that you
have to despise your family and loathe yourself in order to follow
Jesus, and it reduces the number of impossible tasks to one…
and it's this, a new priority. Every time there's a conflict, every
time there's an option…Choose the way of Christ. If you have
to choose between what is convenient and the way of Christ, in order
to be a disciple, you need to choose the way of Christ. If you have
to choose between security and the way of Christ, in order to be a
disciple, you need to choose the way of Christ… see where this
is going? If you have to choose between the way of Christ and
anything else (including family or personal gain, or even life
itself), in order to be disciples, we need to choose the way of
Christ. Now to be clear, there are plenty of times when the choice
isn't forced… and that's well and good because in those cases
the decisions are easy. But there also may be times when a choice is
forced… and those are the times when it's helpful to have
looked ahead and to have counted the cost.
In our story, Jesus was speaking to a large crowd of people who were following him… in the flow of the gospel, he had just finished talking about how the most unlikely candidates would be invited to God's great banquet… the good news of Christ's coming would be shared more broadly than any news ever had been… and the good news that God loves all people is better news than any news that had ever been shared before. So, I get the impression that there was a groundswell of enthusiasm in the crowd… the people were joyful, there was a building sense of anticipation to see where all of this would go… to see how far Jesus was going to take his message… and I don't think Jesus spoke about counting the cost in order to turn people away… I think he did it to prepare people for what was inevitably coming… he said look down the road because it's not necessarily an easy road… And I would say, just make sure to look far enough because when all is said and done, it's worth the journey.
Jesus says count the cost. Be ready to have your loyalties tested and be ready to have your values challenged because they will be. Of all people, Jesus understood that unswerving commitment to his life's mission would very likely end with his death at the hands of the people who felt threatened by him. And sure enough, in the time-line of the gospel, it wasn't terribly long after this that he died alone, hung on a Roman cross. He knew where the road led and still he decided that it was a road worth traveling… He counted the cost and decided that what he was asked to give was worth it so that you and I and everyone else would have a new way to know God and to experience God's loving grace. That's what his mission was about.
Now for us, undoubtedly the cost will be different but there will be a cost…and perhaps in this day and age part of the cost of discipleship might be acknowledging and dealing with things that you would rather not deal with… the unpleasant things in life… the things that either are going on or that have gone on in your life that stand in the way of you growing in your faith, that stand in the way of you choosing the way of Christ. You see, it may happen differently than the stories we read in the bible, but Jesus is every bit as active now as he was then when it comes to drawing people into relationship with God and bringing health and wholeness where he does. It's not an easy task to move toward health because it means letting go of old ways of doing things and commitment to doing things differently.
But there's also more than that… The heart of discipleship is transformation and so we can expect to be transformed as we follow Christ… but Jesus wasn't just about transforming us. He didn't only come to bring health and wholeness to our lives, but through us to bring health and wholeness to our communities and to our world. So another piece in the cost of discipleship might just be to embrace Jesus' teaching, to change our behavior and to engage in his mission with every ounce of our being, to use what we have been given for the benefit of others without regard to self.
Yes, you may have been healed or perhaps you're just beginning the process of being healed… now go and be a healer. Yes, you may have been restored to community or even if you're just starting the process of being restored, go and welcome others into community also. Yes, your life may have been made better, now go and make someone else's life better too. Perhaps the cost of discipleship is that whatever has been given to us isn't solely for our own benefit… Everything that we have and everything that we are is able to be used by God. The reality that this passage points to is that the claim of Christ redefines the other loyalties and the other priorities in our lives. So for those who would be disciples the way of Christ takes precedence over security, or comfort, or convenience or anything else that our culture lifts up as ultimate ideals.
And when we live by a different set of ideals, it raises the possibility of conflict… and that's yet one more element of the cost of discipleship. There will always be people who don't understand what we do or why we do it. Even in this congregation I'm conscious of how many people have family members at home sleeping or out playing golf or doing whatever they do on Sunday morning and I'm aware that in one way or another… sometimes painfully… you who come to church have set a priority that's different from theirs… even though they may think you're crazy… That, in-and-of itself is a testament to your faith because there are probably at least as many people who haven't set that priority… they're sitting at home right now too because somewhere along the line they decided that's not a discussion worth having with their spouse and it's not a battle worth risking… to put it in Jesus' words, they counted the cost and decided not to start.
But what they may have missed is that the flip-side of counting the cost is looking at the benefit… and following Christ is worth every bit of the cost we're asked to pay. Some would say that's because of the promise of eternal life… but for me, it's also because of the promise of abundant life. Whether we yearn for connection with other people, or to belong to something that's greater than ourselves, whether our greatest desire is to be loved for who we are without pretense, or to have a sense of ultimate meaning for our lives… following Christ on the path of discipleship gives a framework where all of that and more is available.
Choosing Christ in the midst of everything that life holds may seem an impossible task but because of who Jesus was and what he did we can trust that even when things seem impossible, God is right there with us… And perhaps most important, because of who Jesus Christ is and what he did, we can come to God as people who know that we've been forgiven, as people who know that we're in the process of being freed and as people who know that without measure, we are loved… The cost of discipleship may be high, but it pales in comparison to the benefit. Thanks be to God. Amen.
The foregoing sermon was given by Rev. Dan Holland at the United Parish of Bowie on September 5, 2010.
© 2010 Daniel Holland
