Thirteenth Sunday after Pentecost

Richard Davenport September 4, 2022 - Proper 18 Luke 14:25-35 It's interesting the value we place on some things. Our likes and interests draw us into all sorts of activities that we enjoy. Some people enjoy woodworking, they enjoy working with their hands to produce something tangible. They enjoy the need for detail and craftsmanship to make something that will last. Others enjoy writing, telling stories of fiction or real life. Helping others to understand the world around them better. Some like sports, playing them or watching them, getting into all of the details of the game, learning the strategies, training and competing. All sorts of hobbies and interests, many that will follow you through a lifetime. My wife and I enjoy fencing. I got into it fairly early, back around middle school and stayed in it for a while up to college and then got back into it again after moving to Cincinnati. She got into it because she knew I liked it and found herself trying it too. I couldn't say exactly why she enjoys it, but I know why I got into it. It's a very subtle sport and it's a very intellectual sport. Every sport has some element of psychology to it. A team tries to get into the heads of the opposing team and figure out what they're going to do so you can plan accordingly to get a shot on the goal or make the play or whatever it is you're trying to do. But fencing brings that to a whole different level. In a game like soccer or hockey, a team might get together to set up a play, with some guarding opposing team members, others creating an elaborate ploy to pass the puck or ball back and forth in order to set up one guy with a shot on the goal. Then they attempt to carry out their plan over the next couple of minutes as the action goes back and forth until they finally get things lined up. In fencing, all of that takes place over the space of 2 to 4 seconds. You read your opponent. You look for a way to exploit his movements, you create a plan that's half thought, half trained instinct and you carry it out. And then you do it again, and again, and again. There is rarely more than a couple of seconds of inaction in a bout, so plans are being continuously created and put to work. That makes fencing more like a game of chess, more so than any other sport I know. You and your opponent have the same basic moves. The only question is who can outthink the other best. It's true that it is a sport and so being athletic does help, but not as much as it might appear. I've seen old men who can hardly walk utterly destroy much younger opponents, simply because they've seen all of the plans before and know how to break them down without even thinking. All of that said, for all of my years in fencing, I'm no master. I've never been big on competing officially at a tournament level and have never put in the time and effort I would need to stand a reasonable chance of doing well in a decent sized competition. For all of the time I've put into it, I still recognize the huge gap between what I can do and what the real masters, such as those at the Olympics, can do. It would be great to be at that level. I'm sure at that level I'd enjoy the sport even more than I do now, not just because I'd be able to beat most of the people I faced, but because of the pleasure you derive from mastering something and being able to immerse yourself in it. The same could probably be said of nearly any hobby or interest you might have. There's a wide spectrum of skill or ability in most interests of that sort. Even in something as simple as reading, the more books you read, the more you find yourself enjoying them as you're able to compare them, discuss them, and relate them to your life. Unless you're a master, and often even then, there's always more to get out of the things you enjoy, more to learn, more to explore, more things there you never knew were there. Often the issues with getting to that level are time and resources. If you had nothing but time, you could sit in the library forever and read every book in there. With a little money and a ton of time, you could probably become an artist like Rembrandt or Da Vinci. You could become an Olympian, a world-class illusionist, a Grammy winning musician, and so on and so on. But time and money are always a factor, as well as motivation. Even with the time and money, if you aren't really motivated to do the hard work, the endless hours of practice or planning, you'll never get to that level. The work to improve is rarely avoidable. Rarely does anyone have the innate talent to put them up at that level and even if they do, it often needs a little refinement. The Gospel reading for today follows the passage from last week where Jesus talks about proper attitudes at a feast. A short parable that follows, where Jesus talks about people who make excuses when the time of the feast comes, lies in between. Jesus has amassed a crowd by this point as he continues teaching. At this point he starts talking about what it means to be a disciple, what it really takes to follow him. Many theologians and Bible translators in the past have tried to soften Jesus' words here. "Jesus is really saying something more like you shouldn't cling to your family and make them into an idol," they might say. But you really can't avoid it. The Greek word here means hate. That's all it ever means, whether in the Bible or elsewhere in Greek culture. There are very few words that Jesus could have chosen that would be stronger here. Hate. It's what he's really saying here. His point about family seems a bit disconnected from what follows though. Kings going to war, builders building a tower, salt that isn't salty. Anyone who is looking to build a tower probably needs to make sure everything is in order for the project to be completed. It sounds rather obvious and yet it's surprising how many times this sort of thing happens. If you don't finish then you're left with just a part of what should be a grand edifice. You end up having to settle for less than what you should have. It takes a lot of work to follow through on a big project like that. You may have the time and the resources but you still have to have the motivation to keep at it, day after day, until it's finished. This is where Jesus makes the connection to our own lives. Being a Christian means work. It means struggle. It means sacrifice. It's a project that needs to be seen through, day after day, until the whole thing is completed. As with any other project, that means, time, resources, and motivation. The world is chock full of Christians who didn't realize being a disciple of Christ meant hard work and sacrifice. They have since gone on to other things. This point is already a serious problem for the church, particularly today as the country becomes more and more aggressive against the church. Being a disciple means hard work and sacrifice, following Christ in all things even when they are painful. You can choose to go off and do something else, leaving your faith behind, but all of the time you've put in following Christ will ultimately be for nothing. Unfortunately, that aspect of the message here is really only a part of the problem. The other problem is much more subtle and insidious. In fencing, to be a truly great fencer requires a lot of work on my part. I can't pay someone else to train for me. I can't sit back and watch while someone else does my drills. Either I do it or it doesn't happen. The work has to be mine. As much as I'd like to be Olympic level, I have other responsibilities and other interests as well, so that becoming a top ranked fencer just isn't feasible. But, what if, somehow, someone else could do the work for me? Someone else could go through the practices, the endless hours of training, a thousand lunges followed by a thousand parries followed by a thousand ripostes, over and over and over until every movement was perfect and everything flowed like I was born with a blade in my hand? Someone goes through all of this trouble, all of the hours, the toil, the sweat, the blisters, and then comes to me one day and says, "Here, this is all yours now. I know how much this means to you and I want you to have it." I've seen a lot of people come to fencing who think they're interested in it. They think it's cool and fun and they put some time in, only to realize it's really just a passing interest and they don't really care about it as much as they thought they did. Someone like that probably wouldn't appreciate this sort of gift as much and would probably use it more to show off than anything really productive. But, with the 10 or 12 years I've got in fencing, I understand what this sort of sacrifice entails and rather than letting it go to waste would make the best use of it I could. I'd get into the competitions and start making the tournament circuits, I might even start teaching since I love fencing and I love teaching. I'd try and make sure that I got everything possible out of the gift and that others benefitted from it too. On the other hand, someone who had done all of this work and came up to me with this special gift that he meant just for me and I could say, "No, that's ok. I don't want it." Knowing the significance of what he was offering me, I could still turn it down. Knowing what I could have, I could decide I'm perfectly content at my level as a dabbling amateur. Not only would that show my utter disregard for the magnitude of the gift I've been given, but also show the level of apathy my low grade contentment has put me in. That's where all of this gets started. You could be satisfied with the life you are given. It certainly has its good points. There are things to enjoy here and fun to be had. But God offers you a gift: eternal life, perfect and glorious, a life that is completely devoid of every bad thing you could ever think of. This comes through God's grace and forgiveness as he rids our lives of sin through the blood of Christ. Acceptance of this gift is the ultimate division between belief and unbelief. But God's work is so much broader than that. The world tempts you with many things. It hands them to you or makes them easy to get. You take these things, things that are often good and evidence of God's providence, but then, once you have them, you sit on them and feel comfortable. Why look for anything more when you already have something good? Why put forth the effort to learn about anything more, to take hold of anything more, to be a part of anything more, when you already have something that is good and helpful? Sin blinds you to the immensity of God's goodness. God gives you earthly things to help and support you, but also to direct you to something greater. Many of you sitting here have come with family: husbands or wives, kids or parents, brothers or sisters. Those of you who haven't, perhaps you have family at home or perhaps most of your family lives far away or has passed on, leaving you with fond memories. Your family is a gift from God. It gives you relationships to share in and build together for the rest of your life. Family is one of the ways in which God ensures you are supported and cared for throughout your life, which is why he gives special responsibilities to family members to care for one another. But, if family is as far as you go, then you miss out the greater things God has for you. In baptism, God formally brings you into the fold and calls you his child. Communion is where we see that at work. God brings the family together at his table. Everyone who gathers at the table is part of God's family, brothers and sisters in Christ sharing together. God creates a family that extends across the world and through all of history. That means everything you do for your earthly family and everything they do for you is magnified. You have a family that isn't just 5 or 10 or 20, but millions. Your earthly family may have members who are not believers and who cling to their sins. Every member of God's family, all who share God's table, know their sins to be forgiven and will live together with you and the Lord for eternity. The wonders of the family God gives to you through baptism and communion are beyond comprehension. Millions of people you will get to spend eternity with, learning and growing as God's people together. Focusing solely on your earthly family means missing the wonders he offers you here. If you do not hate the world's vision of family, you will never find and appreciate the greater family that God has in store. Even that is just the beginning. As God gives good gifts in this life he takes many of those good things and gives them renewed purpose in his service. Music, already a good thing, is taken and given new life as it tells the story of Christ, it tells of his triumph and the salvation he brings. It rejoices in the blessings that God has given his people and the eternal life we will share together. Happiness, joy, peace, and all of the other good things you might settle for here are only the beginning. With God all of those things become amplified. The grace and righteousness of Christ that washes away sins takes every good thing we have and makes it into something greater. This isn't about wealth and prosperity, giving some to God in the expectation that he will return it fivefold or something like that. That sort of thing is something the world offers in abundance. These are the spiritual gifts and blessings that only God can provide, things that surpass anything in the world. God tells us to count the cost of being a disciple, to know that the life of a disciple means suffering and toil. It means confronting sin in all its forms and calling that sin to account and then offering the grace that Christ died to give. It also means never being content with the minimum. Don't take a foundation when the tower was what was intended all along. Don't let your music, your liturgy, your church be the bare minimum, because the glory of God and the grace of Christ Jesus are infinite as well. Being a disciple means working in the world to bring the wonders of God's glory and grace into this life. It means stirring the world out of its contentment and lethargy to look to the infinite majesty and mercy of God and to yearn for his kingdom. It means to listen attentively to God's word, to hear his plan for the world and for your life, to hear the message of sin forgiven and life restored. It means reveling in the sacraments as God's word takes shape in the world and shows us who we are as God's people. It means celebrating in worship, filling our hearts and minds with praise and thanksgiving for all that God has given us through his word and sacrament. It means coming to God in prayer to lift up the estate of the fallen world and to give us the strength and wisdom to carry out his commands. It means sharing the gifts we have been given with our neighbor so they start to see beyond this broken and sin-filled world to the kingdom of God that is to come. Being a disciple means hardship and strife, but it also means joy and peace. We as God's people have seen what God is doing and know that he has already begun that work in us. We celebrate here today that he has blessed us and that his work is far from over. He has much more in store for us.