Text: Luke 14:25-33
The Cost of Discipleship
25 Now great multitudes accompanied him; and he turned and said to them, 26 “If any one comes to me and does not hate his own father and mother and wife and children and brothers and sisters, yes, and even his own life, he cannot be my disciple. 27 Whoever does not bear his own cross and come after me, cannot be my disciple. 28 For which of you, desiring to build a tower, does not first sit down and count the cost, whether he has enough to complete it? 29 Otherwise, when he has laid a foundation, and is not able to finish, all who see it begin to mock him, 30 saying, ‘This man began to build, and was not able to finish.’ 31 Or what king, going to encounter another king in war, will not sit down first and take counsel whether he is able with ten thousand to meet him who comes against him with twenty thousand? 32 And if not, while the other is yet a great way off, he sends an embassy and asks terms of peace. 33 So therefore, whoever of you does not renounce all that he has cannot be my disciple.
In the Name of God, the Holy and Undivided Trinity. Amen.
Remember W. C. Fields, the comedian? One story about W. C. goes like this – a friend of his dropped by one day, and found W. C. sitting at his dining room table, with a Bible open before him, and W. C. was flipping through it with a look of total concentration on his face.
His friend was really surprised by this, because W. C. Fields was anything but a religious man.
“What in the world are you doing, W. C.?” he asked.
“I’m looking for loopholes,” came the reply.
Well, when we hear today’s Gospel lesson, we might feel the same way.
Luke lays out our job description, blunt, unvarnished, and unadorned; and we, too, might wish we had a way out of it.
Verse 26 gives us the first shock. “If any one comes to me and does not hate his own father and mother and wife and children and brothers and sisters, yes, and even his own life, he cannot be my disciple.” Of this verse, F. F. Bruce writes the following:
“This is a hard saying in more senses than one: it is hard to accept and it is hard to reconcile it with the general teaching of Jesus. The attitude which it seems to recommend goes against the grain of nature, and it also goes against the law of love to one’s neighbour which Jesus emphasized and radicalised.”[1]
Is it any wonder that so many people, when they hear or read passages like this, say “Well, that’s it, then! This is not for me! Count me out!”?
Throughout the last two thousand years of Christian history, there have been millions of people who have had exactly that reaction. Why would anyone sign on for a life of sacrifice, persecution, derision and hatred?
This is because the simple fact of the matter is that the Gospel is offensive, and that deliberately.
Many years ago, I came across the term “the problem of preaching.” I don’t recall now whether or not that phrase was in a lecture I heard, or an article I read; but it has stuck with me ever since.
What is the “problem of preaching”? It is simply this: Owing to the incendiary nature of the Gospel and its forthright and uncompromising demand on those who hear it, it is not a possibility, but a guarantee, that sooner or later, we will be offended by it. It’s happened to me, too – I’ve sat where you’re sitting (metaphorically speaking) and found myself squirming more than once when something was said that just didn’t sit right. Sometimes the preacher was off-base in his or her comments (in my opinion); but more often than not, he or she said something that jarred my complacency, made me think, and made me take stock of my spiritual inventory. What was said was something I needed to hear at that moment.
There’s really no way around that. It’s been said that “the Gospel comforts the afflicted and afflicts the comfortable.” This is much more than just a clever turn of phrase – it strikes to the heart of the mission and work of Jesus Christ, and therefore to our own mission and work as his followers.
The Gospel collides head-on with what we call “normal.” It runs completely counter to our society. It goes toe-to-toe with the Romans and the Pharisees of our day; it does not shy away from speaking truth to power; it is bold in its unmasking of the conceits and hypocrisies we might use to try to water down its message. No matter how we might try to sugarcoat it, the truth of the Gospel will always come out.
Well, before we decide to just quit, board up the church, and go home, let’s unpack just what Jesus is getting at here. Because, remember: The word “gospel” does mean “good news” – and even this passage, which seems like nothing but bad news, is indeed good news.
First, the word “hate.” The Greek word is μισέω (miséō) – and it doesn’t mean “hate” in the way we think of “hate.” It means, depending on the context in which it’s used, “to denounce,” “to detest,” “to hold in lesser esteem,” or “to love less” than something or someone else. Bruce writes, “We know that in Biblical idiom to hate can mean to love less. When, for example, regulations are laid down in the Old Testament law for a man who has two wives, ‘one beloved and the other hated’ (Deut. 21:15), it is not necessary to suppose that he positively hates the latter wife…”[2]
In short, Jesus is not telling to hate our families, as we understand the word. Even though we were sure – well pretty sure, anyway – that this was the case, it’s still nice to have the truth confirmed: Jesus is indeed the Lord of Love.
So, what is Jesus really getting at, then?
First, to quote William Barclay: “When Jesus tells us to hate our nearest and dearest, he does not mean that literally. He means that no love in life can compare with the love we must bear to him.”[3] None of us can ever do that 100% of the time; but when we fall short, as we will, we just need to pick ourselves up, keep trying, and trust in God’s forgiveness and grace.
Secondly, based on the commitment that this love brings with it, we are called to take up our crosses and follow him.
To follow Christ means to live “outside of the box,” outside of the comfortable norms of a society in which might is right, in which we seem to be hard-wired to admire those who hit the hardest or yell the loudest, in which the poor are almost universally despised and even blamed for their condition (a view that was particularly popular back in Victorian times), and in which those who are “different” are not celebrated for their diversity but feared, and hated because they scare us so.
Taking up our cross means, at least in part, to live and act in a way that pushes back, that counters these prevailing attitudes. If you’ve ever been the one person in your family, in your coffee group, or in your office who has stood on your principles in rejecting what everyone else agrees on, you know what it means to bear the cross. If you have ever chosen to follow your convictions and gone out of your way to do something for someone else, even though you are fully aware that you might get in trouble for it, you know what it means to bear the cross. If you have faced some dilemma, and asked yourself “what would Jesus do in this situation?” and then followed through accordingly, without even thinking of the consequences because you truly believed it was the right thing to do, then you know what it means to bear the cross. If you have ever taken the hard road and not the easy one everyone else was following, then you know what it means to bear the cross.
Whenever we hear that we’re supposed to take up our cross, we automatically think this means sacrifice. Sacrifice, like duty, might be described as “something we hate to think about, loathe to do, but brag about incessantly after we’ve done it.” Going back to our earlier discussion of the “Gospel vs the world,” our instant-gratification culture places no value whatsoever on sacrifice of any sort, and instead teaches that “we can have it all, 24/7.” But that’s a dead end street.
When you think about it, though, we all make sacrifices. Parents make sacrifices to give their children a leg up in life. Students sacrifice to get the grades they need so they can earn their degrees. People sacrifice discretionary spending so they can save for the down payment on a house. And they all – parents, students, home buyers – make these sacrifices with a sense of joy and even fulfillment.
Professor David Lose puts it very well when he writes: “Jesus isn’t inviting meaningless sacrifice. He isn’t inviting door-mat discipleship or a whiney Christianity (“that’s just my cross to bear”). Rather, he’s inviting us to a full-bodied Christian faith that stands over and against all those things that are often presented to us as life by the culture. Jesus invites us, that is, to the kind of abundant life that is discovered only as you give yourself away. The kingdom of God Jesus proclaims is about life and love. And just as love is one thing that only grows when it’s given away, so also is genuine and abundant life.”[4]
When Jesus invites us to love the world and all its charms less, and him more, when he asks us to take up our cross, he asks us to stop looking for loopholes and to live in a way that shows that better way of God’s kingdom to which we are called and to which we belong.
It means that we need to take stock from time to time of where we stand in our relationship with Jesus. The parables of the tower and the king preparing for war symbolize self-examination. Every one of us can stand a little spiritual and mental house-cleaning now and again. Cleaning out the cobwebs from the nooks and crannies of our spiritual house is at least a good place to start.
So then, let’s give it a try. Let’s try to rearrange our priorities and put Jesus first. Let’s take up our cross, not as a burden, but as a way to open ourselves to a greater and more abundant life!
In the Name of God, the Holy and Undivided Trinity. Amen.
[1] Bruce, F.F., The Hard Sayings of Jesus, InterVarsity Press, Downers Grove, IL, 1983, p. 119
[2] Bruce, p. 120
[3] Barclay, William, The Gospel of Luke, The New Daily Study Bible, Westminster John Know Press, Louisville, KY, 1975, 2001, p. 233, emphasis added.
[4][4] Lose, David, “Pentecost 16 C: Life-Giving Sacrifice,” …in the Meantime, http://www.davidlose.net/2016/08/pentecost-16-c-life-giving-sacrifice/