The Cost of Discipleship
Lord may we hear your will and ways, catch a glimpse of what you want for us during this service and respond as willing disciples… in the name of Father, Son and Holy Spirit - Amen
I would like to start out by saying, if you are new to Church, visiting church and us at Farringdon for the first time…. Boy did you pick the wrong day
You may have thought, it is a long weekend and the approaching new school year and with that comes new things; maybe I should check out Christianity and see what it is all about
…And then you hear the Gospel passage for today
“Whoever 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.”
Welcome… Welcome to the Farringdon Independent Church
welcome to Christianity
Hate father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters, yes, and even life itself
Not exactly sugar-coating it
The reading today is from a section which some bibles have subtitled “the cost of discipleship” - not necessary the best “entry-level” stuff
Not only that but those words come out of the mouth of Jesus
Maybe one could spin it for a good passage for a capital campaign Sunday
Jesus is asking you to hate your whole family and even your life itself - we are only asking to help to do your share and pay for the electricity…
Just to let you know, that in many of my sermons I follow a four part structure,
* explaining the trouble in the passage,
* then the trouble in our world – the connecting point
* the good news or grace in the passage
* then finally the grace in our world that God provides
This passage doesn’t provide for us that Grace
It is a good thing that our service is set up in two parts this the first Sunday of the month
What is known as ‘Ministry of the word’ (in which the sermon is part of) and Holy Communion
…Today you will find God’s Grace in the second half
I am sure that some of you here today will find the message of this part of scripture and my sermon to be uncomfortable - I know that was uncomfortable writing it
But when we have a passage so shocking in our readings, as I have said before, it needs to be addressed
One might quickly react and think God doesn’t really want us to hate our family - what about the Ten Commandments that was affirmed this morning and number 5 “Honor your father and your mother”
So what is really going on here?
Like anything in life, in order to understand something you need to dig deeper, you need to look at the whole situation and let’s start with the context of the passage
So first thing that you need to understand is that like all the Gospel writers Luke has an over-arching structure and motif to his writing
For Luke it is a “journey motif”
It is a series of journeys to Jerusalem,
Which, for us, is symbolic of journeys to getting closer to knowing God.
Whenever you read Luke, read it with a eye to a message of journeying
This passage is the conclusion to an important section in Luke’s account - of Jesus’ response to who will be part of the wedding feast in heaven.
And part of an even larger section in which the general theme is confronting hypocrisy with some very challenging truths
If you put together all of what Jesus says in the four Gospels - How he challenges so much of what they understood in life
It is no wonder that the religious authorities plotted to kill Him
And if you have bible in which the words of Jesus are in red - this section is filled with the a lot of red - a lot of teachings of Christ
Even though the passage for today ends chapter 14, the section starts at chapter 12
- Chapter 12 begins with Jesus Warning the disciples against the Hypocrisy of the Pharisees
- There is Parable warning against coveting riches with the parable of the Rich Fool - building a bigger barn only to miss God
“those who store up treasures for themselves but are not rich toward God.”
- Then a large section which is very similar to the part in Matthew’s gospel on the sermon on the mount focus of the instructions to “Not Worry” - ending with
“Sell your possessions, and give alms. Make purses for yourselves that do not wear out…For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.”
- Then the passage where Jesus is the Cause of Division - and says similar things to today passage
“Do you think that I have come to bring peace to the earth? No, I tell you, but rather division! …they will be divided: father against son and son against father, mother against daughter and daughter against mother, mother-in-law against her daughter-in-law and daughter-in-law against mother-in-law.”
- This is followed by Jesus chastising those following him about how they fail to Interpreting the Time - telling them how they see the signs of weather to forecast what is coming but missing the signs of the Son of man
- He then calls them to Repent or Perish
- Twice there are challenges to Sabbath observance with Healing a Crippled Woman and then the Man with Dropsy - re-orienting the understanding of the true purpose of those rules - calling them to a higher purpose
- There is the Parable of the Mustard Seed and Yeast
- Peter’s question of whom His teachings are for and Jesus’ answer with the message of the “Narrow Door”
- There is Jesus’ Lament over Jerusalem
“Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the city that kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to it!
- His instructions on Humility and Hospitality
“When you give a luncheon or a dinner, do not invite your friends or your brothers or your relatives or rich neighbors, in case they may invite you in return, & you would be repaid”
Through-out all of this large section we see Jesus challenging us
Revealing what the world has come to understand to be wrong
Even the very religiously observant in the group and challenging what they understand
Pushing the limits - calling them to a purer - higher - more righteous understanding and stating God’s truth
Our passage today is immediately following “The Parable of the Great Dinner”
With the question of who will be part of the heavenly feast
What is Jesus doing? Why would he string together all these challenges?
Why does He seem determined to upset all their understandings?
Does this seem like the strategy to build a movement?
Does this seem like the plan to grow a group to follow God…?
I mean the passage today starts out with
“Now large crowds were traveling with him; and he turned and said to them Whoever 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.
Jesus seems determined to scare them away
A large crowd following Him would by our accounts seem like a good development…
But remember that Jesus is on the road to Jerusalem and is preparing Himself and His followers to something that they don’t understand
God’s ways are not our worldly ways
God’s desires for us are not limited to our human understanding of success
Jesus seems determined to thin the crowds
When we see a growing group we think - great - bigger the better
More the merrier - if you get some to follow well you might achieve somewhat
- but if you get a lot to follow - well now a lot can happen
God directly challenges that
And Jesus is not afraid of telling the truth
Growing up I often heard my mom attribute positively someone by saying “I like them, you know where you stand with them – they call a spade a spade and not a blooming shovel”
Jesus on his journey towards the great cost He will pay in His discipline to the Father, thins the crowd by ‘calling a spade a spade’
Jesus doesn’t want quantity - He wants quality
And that is precisely what the passage today is about - “the cost of discipleship”
Now an important clarification needs to be made in regards to the word “hate”
There is throughout the Bible a tendency to use the word “hate” when what is really meant is a secondary form of love.
So when in Deuteronomy 21:15 there are regulations for a man with two wives (one of who is loved and one of whom is hated)
the meaning is not that there is literal, visceral hatred per se of the second wife but more that the second wife is less preferred than the first.
Similarly when God says things like “Jacob have I loved, Esau have I hated,” the meaning is not that God literally hates Esau or his kin in the colloquial use of that word
but rather that Jacob was preferred over Esau and that Esau, therefore, received love but a love that was perhaps a bit less in intensity or scope.
In this passage Jesus is in fact not really saying anything new
As we shared in the Ten Commandments earlier
And the first and most important is
I, the LORD, am your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, that place of slavery. You shall not have other gods besides me.
And commandments two and three basically clear it up further
No idols of other gods and do not take the Lords name in vain
God is saying “Me first”
Jesus, Himself restates this in Mark 12 this very same thing
“Hear, O Israel; The Lord our God is one Lord: And thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind, and with all thy strength”
The cost of discipleship is putting God first
NT Wright, who I often quote is a leading New Testament scholar and Bishop of Durham, and in is his book “what Paul really said” comes to this conclusion - simply put
“Jesus is Lord….!”
Not Caesar
Not other gods
Not my house
Not my car
Not my job
Not even my family
And Not my own life
Jesus is Lord
The Cost of discipleship is making that claim - for all in you life
Make no mistake about it, some of the old sayings are sometimes the wisest -
“If it doesn’t cost anything - it isn’t worth anything”
“You get what you pay for”
And so too, being a follower of Christ costs
It certainly challenged the crowd of followers - and it challenges us today
My message for today is not to soften the “cost of discipleship” but to be true to it
Today I am so glad that we have two parts of the service
‘The ministry of the word’ in which my sermon is part of: needs the message of the cross and the resurrection
Brothers and Sisters in Christ - if you found the gospel and my sermon uncomfortable today - listen closely to the next part
Today the grace is contained in the presence of the Lord and in the remembrance of the Lord’s sacrifice and the promise that goes with that
Today, with the limited time that I have, I have tried to lay out the truth of some of what it costs to be a disciple and I am truly glad that in our communion service - our second half we have God’s Grace.
And I want to share with you one last thing
A few years ago when I was first ordained as a Priest, I had the privilege of attending a services that celebrated and recognized the role that the non-clergy people play in church
I was sitting on the end of an aisle and during the point in the service when all gathered “share the peace” with each other, generally by shaking hands, which can be a disruptive moment;
The minister that organizes many of the services at the Cathedral, took the opportunity to ask me if I would serve in administering one of elements - the Bread or the wine (where a common cup and the bread in a common basket is used)
I was to go to the back and due to logistics I needed to cross the floor in front of everyone
This gave several people, including my parents - the opportunity to see where I was going and they subsequently lined up in that line
It was incredibly humbling and moving for me, a new Priest, to say and serve people close to me with the bread as “the body of our Lord”
To my Mom and Dad with tears in their eyes - and in mine
And then to a person who I know somewhat - who after he received it said in clear voice ….“Thank you Jesus”
Most people say nothing… - some say “Amen”
But I will never forgot the conviction in his voice and the words offered to the one who deserves it… “thank you Jesus”
As our Gospel story today tells us - Jesus does not need any more admirers, he wants disciples
that will allow their growing personal knowledge to shape their character, their actions , their lives
so that it might reflect God’s character, God’s actions and God’s life as revealed to us in the life of Jesus
In their homes, their relationships their work
to show that Jesus is the way, the truth and the life
The cost of discipleship, if accepted, allows us to come to the Communion, to face even the most challenging parts of the call on our lives and and say… “thank you Jesus” Amen