Sermon: "Wow! What a Cost!"

Wow!  What a Cost!
Luke 14:25-33

I've been accused more than once of claiming certain texts are my favorites. Well, let me assure you, this one is not! This one makes me more than a little uncomfortable. I mean, reading words attributed to Jesus claiming that we should "hate" our parents, spouses, children, and siblings? This one doesn't sit too well with me. The thought of Jesus saying that I can only be a disciple if I “hate” those I love creates in me this awful sense on the one hand of feeling unworthy and on the other this sense that Jesus is being impractical. This text creates a tension in me between my really wanting to be a follower of Jesus Christ’s – my really wanting to be among those he can count on – my really wanting to be true and loyal and obedient to him; and my really loving my loved ones. Surely someone has messed up - surely some translator along the way mistranslated.

Well, something like that happened. Bible scholars offer us some helpful thoughts about some of the not-so-obvious reasons Jesus may have put what he said the way he did. One thought is that Jesus was on his way to Jerusalem – on his way to the cross. And, the crowds that began to crowd around him did so because they believed he was on his way to Jerusalem to overthrow the hated Roman government. The crowds wanted to be on the winning side so that they could share in the establishment of the new kingdom they believed would be the result. Jesus had become a sort of “traveling side-show” – a “tourist attraction” - with his healings and radical teachings that were out of sync with the legalisms of the religiously self-righteous. As a result, Jesus was concerned about the crowd’s lack of understanding of what his real mission was.

You see, Jesus refused to give into the temptation to confuse large numbers with success. He refused to succumb to the temptation to let numbers determine what he said or what he did.  He’d had conversations with his closest followers, his disciples, about what following him was going to mean and he perceived that it was time to share the same message with the general public in case they had missed it in their enthusiasm for what they sensed he could do for them – about their place in society – about their health.

No watering down the message to keep the good times going, the masses around him, for Jesus.  No sirree. If for no other reason than to rid the ranks of his followers of discipleship wannabees, of would-be disciples who were primarily attracted by his teaching and healing and who thought that following him would mean a free ride, Jesus figuratively stepped onto the podium and shocked the crowd with these words about the necessity of hating our loved ones. It probably worked. The crowd probably did get smaller – quit shoving each other to get closer to him.  It probably also got a little quieter.

Another thing the bible scholars suggest is that we not take the words of Jesus here quite as literally as they come out in English. They point out that Jesus was most likely using a favorite figure of speech – hyperbole, exaggeration – to draw attention to the point he wanted to make – that discipleship costs – that it costs a whole lot sometimes.

They further note that the Greek word translated in English as hate doesn’t quite mean the same thing we mean when we use the emotionally charged phrase I hate you.  “Hate is not primarily a feeling word in the Aramaic language, the language Jesus spoke. It is primarily a priority word. It means to abandon or to leave aside; the way a sailor needs to abandon a sinking ship or the way a general needs to leave aside distracting things to win his battle.” (1)

And so you see, the meaning of the Greek word here means something more like being free to be a Christian without there being any conflict between our following Christ and any other loyalty we might have. It’s being free from undue pressure from the other relationships and responsibilities we have in our lives. What Jesus likely meant here was that while we have many important relationships in this life, none dare be more important than our relationship with him.

So, perhaps we can let out a little sigh of relief because we don’t have to actually hate our loved ones. We need to be careful though not to miss the really challenging point Jesus was trying to make: DISCIPLESHIP IS COSTLY! Perhaps more costly than we can afford or want to expend. Jesus turned to the crowd and said in effect, count the cost. Loyalty to me can and will create tensions within you and between you and those whom you love. You cannot be my disciple unless you are willing to put me before your family and your friends when push comes to shove. He added two other ways to count the cost: you cannot be my disciple unless you are willing to take up your cross and follow me – unless you are willing to give up being concerned about whether you live or die. And, you cannot be my disciple unless you are willing to give up being owned by your possessions – unless you are willing not to be possessed by your possessions.

Jesus doesn’t want people who just want to hang around on the fringes of the crowd, people who are looking for an axe to grind against established religion, or people who want to see miracles. Jesus wants people to come to him and be his disciples knowing that it really might cost them their families, their lives, and their possessions.

Danish philosopher, Kierkegaard, complained in one of his writings that some of the preachers in his day were more interested in the artisticness of their sermons than challenging people to commit themselves to Jesus Christ and as a result Jesus obtained admirers rather than followers. Crowds admire Jesus because that’s the nature of a crowd – they want to be entertained – they are stimulated by excitement. Groupie Christians are those who jump from church to church looking for the most interesting and/or entertaining sermon and worship service. They are fascinated by Jesus’ teaching – they think the world of the way he lived his life – by the way the preacher packages the message. But, friends, there’s a great deal of distance between admiring Jesus Christ and admiring the program of a local church that is built on an entertainment model, that seeks to entice, with numbers being the primary goal. And the distance between the two can only be bridged by a heart-felt, spirit-produced commitment to Jesus Christ himself – a commitment that enables us to be able to walk away from every other worthy commitment we have in life if it stands in the way of fulfilling our commitment to following Jesus Christ.

When the Jesuit priest, Daniel Berrigan, was being led into a federal prison to begin his sentence for his resistance to the Vietnam War, he was reported to have smiled at reporters and said, If you follow Jesus, you’d better look good on wood.

William Barclay shared a story in his The Daily Study Bible commentary on this text. He began it with “It is possible to be a follower of Jesus without being a disciple.” And then he wrote: “Once someone was talking to a great scholar about a young man. He said, ‘So and so tells me that he was one of your students.’ The teacher answered devastatingly, ‘He may have attended my lectures, but he was not one of my students.’ There is a world of difference between attending lectures and being a student. It is one of the supreme handicaps of the church that in the church there are so many distant followers of Jesus and so few real disciples.” (2)

Martin Luther once was reported to have said: “A religion that gives nothing, costs nothing, and suffers nothing, is worth nothing.”

There’s a story about a time centuries ago when a wealthy nobleman in a mountain village in Europe decided that he wanted to leave a legacy to the people of his community. He decided to build them a church. No one was permitted to see the plans or the inside of the church until it was completely built. At the grand opening, the people gathered and marveled at the beauty of the new church. Everything had been thought of and included. It was a masterpiece.

And then someone noticed and commented, “Wait a minute! Where are the lamps? It is quite dark in here. How will the church be lighted?” The nobleman pointed to some brackets in the walls. Then he gave each family a lamp and told them they were to bring it with them each time they came to worship.

Then he said: “Each time you are here the place where you are seated will be lighted. Each time you are not here, that place will be dark. This is to remind you that whenever you fail to come to church, some part of God’s house will be dark.” (3)

Rather poignant story, don’t you think? The poet Edward Everett Hale put it like this: “I am only one, but still I am one. I cannot do everything, but still I can do something; and because I cannot do everything I will not refuse to do the something I can do.” (4)

James Moore used these two illustrations in one of his sermons and then made this comment: “What if every member of your church supported the church just as you do? What kind of church would you have? What if every single member served the church, attended the church, loved the church, shared the church, and gave to the church exactly as you do? What kind of church would you be?” (5)

One of my favorite stories is one Will Willimon, former chapel dean at Duke and now a retired United Methodist bishop, tells of a time when he received a call from an irate parent. The parent began: “I hold you personally responsible for this.”

“Me?” Will asked.

What the father was upset about was that his graduate school bound daughter had just informed him that she wasn’t going to graduate school but was going to do mission work in Haiti with the Presbyterian Church. The father described her decision as “throwing it all away.” “Isn’t that absurd!” shouted the father. “A BS degree in mechanical engineering from Duke and she’s going to dig ditches in Haiti.”

Willimon responded: “Well, I doubt that she’s received much training in the Engineering Department here for that kind of work, but she’s probably a fast learner and will probably get the hang of ditch-digging in a few months.”

The father was not amused. “Look, this is no laughing matter. You are completely irresponsible to have encouraged her to do this. I hold you personally responsible for this.”

As the conversation went on, Dr. Willimon pointed out that the well-meaning but obviously unprepared parents were the ones who had started this ball rolling. THEY were the ones who had her baptized, read Bible stories to her, took her to Sunday School, let her go with the Presbyterian Youth Fellowship to ski in Vail. Will said, “You’re the one who introduced her to Jesus, not me.”

The father rather meekly replied: “But all we ever wanted her to be was Presbyterian.”  (6)

Hmmmmmm.!?

I’m pretty sure you’ve all heard the story before of Millard and Linda Fuller’s journey to founding Habitat for Humanity. It’s such an appropriate illustration of the kind of discipleship we’re talking about this morning that I want to share it with you again. This particular version is from Tony Campolo’s book Wake Up America!

Millard was a millionaire by the age of twenty-nine. He could buy his wife everything he thought she could possibly want. But one day when he came home he discovered that she had left him.

He went after her and caught up with her on a Saturday night in New York City. They stayed up very late as she shared from the depths of her heart until she got him to see that she wasn’t interested in the things he was buying her. She told him that her heart was empty and her spirit burned out. She told him that she was dead inside and wanted to live again. In the wee hours of the morning the two of them knelt at the side of their hotel room bed and made a radical decision – to sell everything they had and dedicate themselves to serving poor people and to work for justice for the oppressed.

Since the next day was Sunday they found a church and they went to worship God and to thank God for their new beginning. They got to church early and they looked up the minister to share with him what had happened to them and the decision they had made.

To their surprise, the minister told them that such a radical decision was not really necessary.  “He told us that it was not necessary for us to give up everything,” Millard said. “He just didn’t understand that we weren’t giving up money and the things that money could buy. We were giving up a whole way of life that was killing us.” (7) Wow! What a cost!

Brothers and sisters, discipleship is costly – it may cost us our most intimate relationships – it may cost us our lives – it may cost us our possessions. And, we need to count the cost. But, I challenge you – I invite you – to consider committing yourself to journeying with Jesus in a new way – in a way that will make a difference in your life – in the lives of others – and for all eternity.

How about praying the following:

Lord Jesus, you call us to be your disciples, to follow you down the narrow way of faithful discipleship. Lord, give us the grace we need to risk discipleship, to discipline our lives to your will, to love you enough to serve you in all that we do or say. Teach us to listen to you more than we listen to the voices of the world. Keep us close to you in all the times of our lives. In short, help us to count the cost and to be able to pay the price. Amen.

John G. Lynch, Troubled Journey (Lima: CSS Publishing Company).
William Barclay, The Daily Study Bible: Luke (Philadelphia: The Westminster Press, 1975), p. 196.
James W. Moore, Some Things Are Too Good Not to Be True (Nashville: Dimensions, 1994), pp. 117-118.
Ibid.
Ibid.
David E. Leininger, Collected Sermons, Adapted from William Willimon, Pulpit Resources, September 10, 1995, p. 45.
Tony Campolo, Wake Up America!