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 text for Sunday 4 September 2016

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      Most of us look at the cross and see either the dark Good Friday cross with Jesus’ dead body nailed to it or the Easter Morning cross, draped in white and pointing to resurrection. But none of this has happened yet. Jesus is very much alive when he instructs us to “Pick up the cross and follow me?” He never read  the description of his death, “He (Jesus) bore our sins in his body on the cross, so that, free from sins, we might live for righteousness; by his wounds you have been healed.” (1 Peter 2.24) Nor was he privy to the work of the bishops at the First Council of Nicea three hundred years after his death, ironing out the details of his dual nature and the atoning benefits of his sacrificial death as perfect substitute for the sin of humanity. So, what does Jesus mean, “Pick up the cross and follow me?”

One way to understand the cross is as the intersection of human and Divine life.  The horizontal timber corresponds to our temporal life journey. The vertical beam represents Divine Presence on earth. At their intersection is the present moment. Each of us is traveling the horizontal plane amidst large crowds with Jesus, headed to Jerusalem because no one gets out of life alive. All along the way the vertical dimension of Divinity crosses our path in the present moment. Whenever we choose to accept or consent to the present moment, we are aligned with Divine Presence. We have “picked up the cross to follow Jesus.”

More often than not, instead of saying, “Yes, yes,” to the present moment, we equivocate. “Well, this is not how I pictured it. This hurts, I don’t like it. This makes me feel vulnerable, puts me out on a limb, out of control. What will people think? This is not good. No way. I can’t. I won’t.”  We reject the present moment. In Jesus’ terms, we refuse to “Pick up the cross and follow me.”  Perhaps this is why Jesus counsels us to “give up all of our possessions,”  to let go of anything that is in the way of saying “Yes, yes,” to the present moment. 

Let me be clear. I do not for a moment believe Jesus wants us to give up our food, shelter or loved ones. Nor do I believe Jesus wants us to roll over and be doormats for mistreatment. Rather I believe Jesus is inviting us to dispense with our ideas about God about ourselves and about the way things are supposed to be. Jesus is inviting us to consent to the present moment and in so doing align ourselves with Divine Presence. Jesus is unequivocal. “Pick up the cross and follow me. Consent to the present moment and you will find me there with you. “

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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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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    How could Jesus who was all about healing and dinner parties and searching for every lost sheep and even the smallest coin; how could Jesus who went to great lengths to tell the story about the prodigal father who spared no expense to welcome home his profligate son who had squandered ever bit of his inheritance; how could Jesus instruct the crowds and us to get rid of all our possessions if we want to be his disciples?

Thank goodness for my seventh grade English teacher who introduced me to that extravagant figure of speech, the hyperbole. Without it to amplify my understanding of Jesus’ words to the crowds of follk that were traveling with him I would be bereft. If I want to become Jesus’ disciple I must “give up all (my) possessions,” including all of my relationships and even my own life! Really! Jesus’ use of exaggeration works with me. It evokes a strong response. There are things and people in my life that I don’t want to give up. And frankly, I prefer not to die today. But as soon as I get over reacting I remember, Jesus’ point is to get me to dig a bit deeper. 

What is Jesus actually telling me to get rid of? What does he mean by possessions? I apologize for being a bit nurdy and going back to my Greek translation of the text. Another perspective from the Greek reads, “Therefore everyone of you who does not take leave of all that he himself possesses is not able to be my disciple.” Notice the slight of hand? Rather than speaking of possessions as a noun, an object or asset that we own I believe Jesus was speaking of possessing as a verb, how we relate or hold onto relationships and all things in our lives. I believe Jesus is telling us, possessing is not the way to relate with people and things in our world.  

We are not to treat people and things (even our own life) as objects to grab, seize, dominate, control or hold onto. That is not the way of being Jesus’ disciple. Rather, the way of being Jesus’ disciple is with an unclenched fist and open heart. Being willing to let go of all ideas of ownership, control, dominion or entitlement can be a bit like dying, dying to our sense of the way things are or ought to be. That is the cost of becoming Jesus’ disciple.

Jesus invites us to become, which is to say, to be reformed, transformed, and reborn in relationship with him. What the master transmits to the disciple is not possessed. It is born. I wonder if that is what Jesus meant when he said to Nicodemus, “‘Very truly, I tell you, no one can enter the kingdom of God without being born of water and Spirit. What is born of the flesh is flesh, and what is born of the Spirit is spirit...?” (John 3.5-6)

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