Pentecost 15 Year C
A sermon based on Luke 14:25-33
In the name of Jesus; amen…
Flipping channels on the TV the other day I passed some home remodeling show and caught about 15 seconds of it. Something had gone wrong with the project they were televising and there wasn’t enough of whatever it was they needed to finish the extravagant pool for which a huge hole had been dug. The owner commented to the camera that his kids would be disappointed when they came home from vacation and there was no pool for them to swim in.
For 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? Otherwise, when he has laid a foundation and is not able to finish, all who see it will begin to ridicule him, saying, “This fellow began to build and was not able to finish.”
Years ago I was trying to convince the husband of one of the members of my former congregation that he should also join the church. He attended regularly and had done so for many years. After a long conversation and a nice dinner he asked me point blank, “Why, what are some of the reasons that I should join?”
I was stunned by the question and struggled to come up with a list of answers as to what the church could do for him. It wasn’t until later on, driving home that I realized my mistake. I had tried to come up with a laundry list of all the wonderful perks membership would provide for him. The real reason he should have joined the church was that we needed him to be a member of the congregation. We needed his talents and his willingness to serve and commit to the community that he was often a part of.
I wonder now if his hesitancy was about the cost that he believed he might pay if he officially became a member. There were committees and projects and offerings that would have been expected of him had he become a member. Of course as I remember it he had dated his wife for 9 years before he finally agreed to marry her.
Large crowds were traveling with Jesus; he had quite a following at this point in his ministry. They were wowed by his miracles and awed by his ability to stand up to the religious leaders and make them look like hypocrites. Surrounded by so many people, Jesus must have known that most of them where in it for the effects… the way some of us go to bad movies to see the unbelievable yet realistic car crashes and computer animation that looks like the real thing.
Knowing this he turns to them and says, “Whoever comes to me and does not hate father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sister, yes, even life itself, cannot be my disciple. Whoever does not carry the cross and follow me cannot be my disciple.”
It’s a difficult saying of Jesus to swallow. I love my parents, my spouse, my children, my brother, and the rest of my family dearly. I would venture a guess that most of you feel the same way about at least one member of your family. And quite frankly I would consider myself a bad preacher if I even suggested that you should hate anyone, but there is a subtlety in what Jesus says that we miss in our English translations of the language of the Bible.
"Hate" is a Semitic expression meaning "to turn away from, to detach oneself from," rather than our animosity-laden understanding. In Genesis, we read in one verse that Jacob loved Rachel more than Leah (29:30), but in the next verse, it literally says that Leah was hated ("unloved" in the NRSV).
But Leah was not hated like we usually use the word; Jacob simply loved her less than he loved Rachel. Jacob didn't have an intense dislike for Leah. In fact, he had seven children with her after these verses so there must have been something he liked about her!
It isn’t that we are supposed to hate those who we naturally love. What Jesus says is that we are to love him more, more even than our spouse or our children or those closest to us in our families.
And then there is this business about bearing one’s cross. We often talk about the burdens we bear as being the crosses we bear. We get sick; it’s the cross we bear. We have a boss we don’t like; it’s the cross we bear. We have a difficult family relationship; it’s the cross we bear.
The language of cross bearing has been corrupted by the way it has been used. Bearing a cross has nothing to do with chronic illness, less than pleasant working conditions, or a trying family relationship. Instead, it is what we do voluntarily as a consequence of our commitment to Jesus.
Jesus knew that for many people the commitment they had to him was surfaced at best. They wanted to see the miracles and hear the stories, but the vast majority of them would disappear the moment he was arrested in Jerusalem. Even those who loved him best would vanish when that happened.
There is a cost to being a disciple.
I just read an article about Christianity in China. It is illegal to evangelize in China and while there are some state sanctioned Christian Churches there these are forced to use edited versions of the Bible and they cannot have crosses in their buildings. Public worship is, for the most part, entirely banned so that worshippers gather in private homes. And yet, 10,000 Chinese people convert to Christianity every day, EVERY DAY!
It is estimated that in the next 50 years China will be home to 200 million Christians. 200 million Christians in a place where sharing your faith is illegal and could land you in prison.
Grace is free, but discipleship costs. Following Jesus comes with a price that we pay by praying daily, worshipping regularly, studying scripture diligently, serving for the sake of others, giving generously, inviting others often, and passing on our faith before everything else in our lives.
Making the commitment to pick up a cross and carry it is to choose a different kind of life, but it is choosing a life lived with Christ… the one who chose us and continues to choose us over and over again.
Amen.
Flipping channels on the TV the other day I passed some home remodeling show and caught about 15 seconds of it. Something had gone wrong with the project they were televising and there wasn’t enough of whatever it was they needed to finish the extravagant pool for which a huge hole had been dug. The owner commented to the camera that his kids would be disappointed when they came home from vacation and there was no pool for them to swim in.
For 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? Otherwise, when he has laid a foundation and is not able to finish, all who see it will begin to ridicule him, saying, “This fellow began to build and was not able to finish.”
Years ago I was trying to convince the husband of one of the members of my former congregation that he should also join the church. He attended regularly and had done so for many years. After a long conversation and a nice dinner he asked me point blank, “Why, what are some of the reasons that I should join?”
I was stunned by the question and struggled to come up with a list of answers as to what the church could do for him. It wasn’t until later on, driving home that I realized my mistake. I had tried to come up with a laundry list of all the wonderful perks membership would provide for him. The real reason he should have joined the church was that we needed him to be a member of the congregation. We needed his talents and his willingness to serve and commit to the community that he was often a part of.
I wonder now if his hesitancy was about the cost that he believed he might pay if he officially became a member. There were committees and projects and offerings that would have been expected of him had he become a member. Of course as I remember it he had dated his wife for 9 years before he finally agreed to marry her.
Large crowds were traveling with Jesus; he had quite a following at this point in his ministry. They were wowed by his miracles and awed by his ability to stand up to the religious leaders and make them look like hypocrites. Surrounded by so many people, Jesus must have known that most of them where in it for the effects… the way some of us go to bad movies to see the unbelievable yet realistic car crashes and computer animation that looks like the real thing.
Knowing this he turns to them and says, “Whoever comes to me and does not hate father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sister, yes, even life itself, cannot be my disciple. Whoever does not carry the cross and follow me cannot be my disciple.”
It’s a difficult saying of Jesus to swallow. I love my parents, my spouse, my children, my brother, and the rest of my family dearly. I would venture a guess that most of you feel the same way about at least one member of your family. And quite frankly I would consider myself a bad preacher if I even suggested that you should hate anyone, but there is a subtlety in what Jesus says that we miss in our English translations of the language of the Bible.
"Hate" is a Semitic expression meaning "to turn away from, to detach oneself from," rather than our animosity-laden understanding. In Genesis, we read in one verse that Jacob loved Rachel more than Leah (29:30), but in the next verse, it literally says that Leah was hated ("unloved" in the NRSV).
But Leah was not hated like we usually use the word; Jacob simply loved her less than he loved Rachel. Jacob didn't have an intense dislike for Leah. In fact, he had seven children with her after these verses so there must have been something he liked about her!
It isn’t that we are supposed to hate those who we naturally love. What Jesus says is that we are to love him more, more even than our spouse or our children or those closest to us in our families.
And then there is this business about bearing one’s cross. We often talk about the burdens we bear as being the crosses we bear. We get sick; it’s the cross we bear. We have a boss we don’t like; it’s the cross we bear. We have a difficult family relationship; it’s the cross we bear.
The language of cross bearing has been corrupted by the way it has been used. Bearing a cross has nothing to do with chronic illness, less than pleasant working conditions, or a trying family relationship. Instead, it is what we do voluntarily as a consequence of our commitment to Jesus.
Jesus knew that for many people the commitment they had to him was surfaced at best. They wanted to see the miracles and hear the stories, but the vast majority of them would disappear the moment he was arrested in Jerusalem. Even those who loved him best would vanish when that happened.
There is a cost to being a disciple.
I just read an article about Christianity in China. It is illegal to evangelize in China and while there are some state sanctioned Christian Churches there these are forced to use edited versions of the Bible and they cannot have crosses in their buildings. Public worship is, for the most part, entirely banned so that worshippers gather in private homes. And yet, 10,000 Chinese people convert to Christianity every day, EVERY DAY!
It is estimated that in the next 50 years China will be home to 200 million Christians. 200 million Christians in a place where sharing your faith is illegal and could land you in prison.
Grace is free, but discipleship costs. Following Jesus comes with a price that we pay by praying daily, worshipping regularly, studying scripture diligently, serving for the sake of others, giving generously, inviting others often, and passing on our faith before everything else in our lives.
Making the commitment to pick up a cross and carry it is to choose a different kind of life, but it is choosing a life lived with Christ… the one who chose us and continues to choose us over and over again.
Amen.
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