Gospel text for Sunday 8 September 2019

Luke 14:25-33        Now large crowds were traveling with Jesus; 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. Whoever does not carry the cross and follow me cannot be my disciple. 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.' Or what king, going out to wage war against another king, will not sit down first and consider whether he is able with ten thousand to oppose the one who comes against him with twenty thousand? If he cannot, then, while the other is still far away, he sends a delegation and asks for the terms of peace. So therefore, none of you can become my disciple if you do not give up all your possessions.”

Reflection        The cost of responding to Jesus’ invitation to discipleship, the cost of actually living the Way of Jesus, insists we break away from the past and from all attachments that would stand between us and living in imitation of Jesus. In his 1937 classic, The Cost of Discipleship,  the German theologian Dietrich Bonhoeffer writes,

"The price we are having to pay today in the shape of the collapse of the organized church is only the inevitable consequence of our policy of making grace available to all at too low a cost. We gave away the word and sacraments wholesale, we baptized, confirmed, and absolved a whole nation without condition. Our humanitarian sentiment made us give that which was holy to the scornful and unbelieving…  But the call to follow Jesus in the narrow way was hardly ever heard.”**

Which begs the question, what is ‘the narrow way” of following Jesus? I believe it is picking up the cross and imitating the life of Jesus. And what does that mean? It means, like Jesus we must be willing to suffer or sacrifice for the sake of others. You see, Jesus did not come as a warrior king, intent on fighting the purveyors of evil and oppression and winning. Jesus did not come as a politician seeking office to govern the land and legislate change and take over. Jesus did not even come as a stakeholder in Judaism or the Roman Empire. Jesus came as a powerless peasant willing to empty himself of all attachments in order to serve and to suffer for the good of others. This is the cost of discipleship, our whole life.

It is in our willingness to advance benefits for others even at our own expense; to feed the hungry, house the homeless, give refuge to the stranger, comfort the mourning and heal the sick that we are the bodily presence of Christ in the world. If we claim to be disciples of Jesus then we too must empty ourselves of attachments, in Jesus’ words, “hate father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters, yes, and even life itself,”  in order to serve and to suffer for the good of others. This is the cost of discipleship.

Doing good works has its shadow side too. There is always the temptation to elevate ourselves. “Look at me. Do you see all the good I am doing? I help the homeless at Sr. José, I serve the refugees at Casa Alitas, I help my neighbors, I bring groceries to the food pantry…” The good works that we do are not intended to point to ourselves. They are meant to reveal Divine Presence and fulfill Jesus’ law of love for all people. By our self-emptying, our giving away of ourselves for others, we are the living Body of Christ and we reveal the Way of the cross to the world, and, there is absolutely nothing easy about this. The cost of discipleship is our life.

**Bonhoeffer, Dietrich. The Cost of Discipleship. New York: Macmillan, 1966. BT 380.B66 1966.

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Gospel test for 30 June 2019

Luke 9:51-62        When the days drew near for Jesus to be taken up, he set his face to go to Jerusalem. And he sent messengers ahead of him. On their way they entered a village of the Samaritans to make ready for him; but they did not receive him, because his face was set toward Jerusalem. When his disciples James and John saw it, they said, "Lord, do you want us to command fire to come down from heaven and consume them?" But he turned and rebuked them. Then they went on to another village.

As they were going along the road, someone said to him, "I will follow you wherever you go." And Jesus said to him, "Foxes have holes, and birds of the air have nests; but the Son of Man has nowhere to lay his head." To another he said, "Follow me." But he said, "Lord, first let me go and bury my father." But Jesus said to him, "Let the dead bury their own dead; but as for you, go and proclaim the kingdom of God." Another said, "I will follow you, Lord; but let me first say farewell to those at my home." Jesus said to him, "No one who puts a hand to the plow and looks back is fit for the kingdom of God.”

Reflection       Two thousand years ago and today the cost of discipleship means putting Jesus  front and center of our lives, truly living in imitation of Jesus. This is down right daunting. No wonder we construe endless lists of things to do, distractions, diversions, anything but discipleship. This is why we say to Jesus, “Not right now. First I must say “farewell to those at home… bury my dead relative.”  Discipleship is costly. 

Several weeks ago I told  the story of taking my grandson Alec to the Federal Court trial of Dr. Scott Warren. Warren is a member of the nonprofit group No More Deaths that provides water, food and shelter intending to prevent migrants who are crossing Arizona’s  Sonoran desert from dying. In January of 2018 Warren was arrested for offering water, food and shelter to two unauthorized migrants.

Warren was arrested for doing what he says his “conscience demands of him,” providing humanitarian aid to people who are suffering. In so doing Warren faces three felony charges that could land him in prison for up to twenty years. Faith leaders, atheists and agnostics gathered, a chorus of voices calling this situation, “Compassion on Trial.” On June 11th a hung jury failed to convict him. A hearing on July 2nd will determine whether or not Warren’s case will continue in Federal court.  The questions eleven year old Alec raised with me continue to be relevant, “Can we be punished for helping someone? Can we go to prison for doing what we believe is right?” The disconcerting answer is, “Yes. Discipleship is costly.”

Jesus’ message that the kingdom of God is greater than the political empire is not well received, not in his time, not now. The demoralizing aftermath of Jesus’ ministry to the sick, the scorned, the suffering is not resounding affirmation that compassion is a high order humanitarian value. Quite the contrary. Jesus is charged with treason, his compassion is criminalized and he is brutally murdered as a common criminal. 

This establishes a precedent for condemning compassion. But here is the thing. Criminalizing Jesus backfires on the Romans.  Instead of being a quickly forgotten criminal, for the next two thousand years Jesus’ status is  elevated to that of martyr, son of God. His message that the kingdom of God is here, now, with and for all people has taken root in the evolution of human consciousness, raising us human beings up from creaturely brutality to claim our divinely inspired humanity. 

We, the self proclaimed followers of Jesus, are not meant to “command fire to come down from heaven and consume…” people who do not think, feel, look like or act as we wish that they would. We are meant to put Jesus at the center of our lives. We are meant to live in imitation of Jesus which means, proclaiming with our words and actions that the kingdom of God is here, now, with and for all people.  We are meant to be defenders of God’s care and compassion for everyone, even when it means coming out of hiding, putting aside our endless ‘to do’ lists, standing up for what we believe is right and “facing the time of trial.”

The cost of discipleship is great but the cost of failing to act on our values is even greater.  If we allow compassion to be criminalized  we will destroy ourselves from the inside out. The kingdom of God is right here, right now and it depends on us to deliver God’s care and compassion to everyone. 

Click on user right corner box for a 13 minute guided Loving Kindness Meditation - a practice to help cultivate compassion.

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Gospel text for Sunday 8 September 2013

Luke 14:25-33     Now large crowds were traveling with Jesus; 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. Whoever does not carry the cross and follow me cannot be my disciple. 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.' Or what king, going out to wage war against another king, will not sit down first and consider whether he is able with ten thousand to oppose the one who comes against him with twenty thousand? If he cannot, then, while the other is still far away, he sends a delegation and asks for the terms of peace. So therefore, none of you can become my disciple if you do not give up all your possessions."

Reflection     If I want to stop dancing around the edges of the “large crowds traveling with Jesus” and actually come to him, get close to him and be his disciple, it is not going to be easy. Jesus does not mince words. I imagine if he was speaking today he might say, “If you want to come with me and live the way of peace in the midst of anything and everything but peace, it is like climbing a fourteen thousand foot mountain carrying a hundred pound backpack. Or, it is like trying to feed the 870 million people in the world who do not have enough to eat with one boatload of rice.” 

The way of picking up the cross is not the way of burying our heads in the sand. (Did you know the only animal that buries its head in the sand is humans... not ostriches, emus or pink flamingos)? The way of coming to Jesus asks us to do the impossible, to step up and step out into the hardest places where his peace is most needed because if not we, then who?

Think about it. Estimate the cost. Do you have what it takes to stand on Jesus’ shoulders? to swim against the tide? Are you prepared to be misrepresented? misunderstood? ridiculed? excluded? Jesus counsels. Consider the cost of coming to me. It is everything, You will have to “give up all of your possessions.”He is not talking about books or real estate. Jesus is talking about getting rid of anything that prevents us from cooperating with his mission for peace in the midst of anything but. 

One of my favotite philosophers, Jimi Hendrix, put it this way, “When the power of love overcomes the love of power the world will know peace.” The question before us is, are we satisfied dancing around the edges of the “large crowds traveling with Jesus” or  are we ready to step up and step out to advance Jesus’ mission for peace?

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