The Worth of It

Text: Luke 14:25-33
Other texts: Deuteronomy 30:15-20

Here is our story up to now. This is what Jesus has done so far in this one chapter—chapter 14—in Luke.

First he tells some fancy dinner guests that the last will be first and the first—meaning them—will be last. Then he tells them that instead of inviting their family and friends to dinner, they should have invited poor and sick people. Then he tells a parable of another feast in which the original guests offer lame excuses and so the are replaced by street people. Then, today, he tells us who can and cannot be his disciples, and it seems a little rough. His followers might have wondered what they were getting into.

You might find Jesus to be a little cranky in these stories. Or at least forceful. But I hear in the voice of Jesus and in the stories he tells in this section of Luke a deep sadness. The things that go with being a disciple of Jesus are hard and upsetting sometimes. And he knows, I’m sure, that most people will find them so.

You cannot be my disciple, he says three times. These verses are littered with negatives. There are thirteen occurrences in the Greek of the word “no” in these eight verses. These are not happy sayings, and they are not encouraging ones. Jesus knows that being a disciple, a follower, is hard. He is not commanding us here, or threatening us, or laying down admission requirements. He is telling us how it is, how it will be.

In today’s reading Jesus presents three choices. Or better to say, Jesus makes three offers. He presents to us three attributes of the life of a follower of Jesus. They are allegiance, risk, and poverty. It is as if—as he teaches us in the two parables—the one about the tower and the one about the king—as if he wants us to know what’s up before we sign up.

First, allegiance. To whom do we turn for blessings? To whom do we turn for safety? And who calls us to responsibility? In other words, what is the source of a life that is prosperous, secure, and good? Those things to which, or to whom, we turn are the things that command our allegiance. The list is long for most of us, and includes things like our own skills, our close friends, our loving families, our possessions, the rules of our culture. When we say that we must attend to these things, then they have our allegiance. Sometimes these things deserve it, and other times not. But no matter what, Jesus says, they are secondary to what God calls us to be and do.

If you do not hate your parents, your spouse, your family, Jesus says, you cannot become his disciple. And not only that, but if you do not hate life itself, you cannot become his disciple. Jesus is not talking about degrees of love here. He is not mostly talking about emotion. The word “hate” is the opposite of the kind of love that we have for our neighbors and our enemies. We don’t have to like our enemies and we don’t have to dislike our family and friends and life.

But we should not soften what he says too much. He is saying that his followers disavow the things that—in the time of Jesus and in our time—command their allegiance. He is saying that his followers put all those other people on notice. If there is a choice between God and them, the choice goes to God. Not to their families, not even to the preservation of their own lives.

Jesus is describing a way of life. That’s what makes this so shocking, so hard, and so potentially rewarding. He is not describing a way to slightly adjust things. He is saying that to be his disciple one must live with God always in mind. We must ask when taking some action: does this action I’m taking align me with God or not? When making some decision: in this decision that I am making, am I thinking about God or not? And, practically, if not then is there some other way I can act or other decision I can make?

Second, risk. Jesus was tried and executed for his teachings and his actions. All this about making the first people be the last, about disavowing your family, about not honoring the sabbath, about loving your enemies, about turning the other cheek—that made people angry. And if the followers of Jesus do what he did and do what he said to do, people will be angry at them, too. And disown them, and imprison or exile them, and maybe harm them.

Jesus proposes a new way of living, but to proclaim that and then to actually do it is a risky endeavor. The cross is not a pleasant symbol. Christians celebrate the resurrection of Jesus in spite of the cross, not because of it. The cross was a means of violent and hateful death. Whoever does not carry the cross and follow me cannot be my disciple, Jesus tells the crowd. It is a risk-filled path. Jesus warns his followers.

And third, poverty. In our culture, we are at least as distracted by possessions as we are by relations. To acquire and protect our possessions, to house and maintain them, distracts us from God’s call to us to love God and to love our neighbor. We are tempted to love God and neighbor less than we love our stuff. We are willing to harm our neighbor and ignore God’s commands for the sake of our stuff.

This is not news. In the parable of the feast in Luke, the invited guests fail to show up because they have been diverted by what they own or wish to own. I’m sorry, one says, I just bought a new house (he really says land, but it’s the same thing) and have to go look at it. I’m sorry, the other says, I just bought a new car (he really says oxen), and I want to try it out. People like stuff and are unwilling to let it go. It was just reported that the wealthiest top 1% of people in this country receive 23% of the all the income. They are holding on to that money. Thirty years ago it was 9%.

Jesus says that none can become his disciples unless they say farewell to all their possessions. Not give up, as the words in our Bible have it. But: say farewell to. Not a loss, but a separation from possessions. A dis-attachment.

The things that Jesus places in opposition to being a disciple of his are all entanglements. They are things that we get stuck to. Family. Safety. Possessions. They take effort and energy away from God. That is, we are unable to respond to God’s calls—calls to care for all others, to refrain from violence, to give freely, and to be grateful.

There are always multiple calls on our time and work. We are always managing our attention and care. A parent caring for a difficult child might shortchange his other children. A person caring for a sick parent might shortchange the rest of her family. A doctor spending hours caring for his patients might shortchange his spouse. It is harder to turn our backs on our responsibilities than it is on our possessions. But if something has to be shortchanged, Jesus says, it is our entanglements, not God.

When Jesus says that people cannot be his disciples, he is not judging them. He is not condemning them for their ineptitude or their inabilities. He is talking physics here, not morality. To lose weight, eat less or exercise more. To move an object at rest, apply a force in the direction you hope for. There is no should here. It is the way things are.

Now, this all seems pretty grim. The things Jesus wants us to let go, to say farewell to, are things we like. Things that sustain us, even, like our network of family and friends. If that’s what disciples of Jesus do, is it worth it?

It is a hard question to answer. If it were easy, we wouldn’t be hearing about it in Luke’s Gospel. If it were easy, it wouldn’t be upsetting to contemplate. A rule of thumb in reading scripture says that if someone in the Bible talks about how people should do something, it means that they were not doing it. Moses tells the people of Israel to obey the law of God, to choose life over death, because they have not been and probably don’t want to. If it were easy to choose life over death, Moses wouldn’t be talking so much about it. When Paul tells the people of Corinth not to be so snooty about sharing the Lord’s Supper, it is because they have been. When Jesus tells the crowd that they must carry their cross, it is because they are reluctant to. For many in that crowd the consequences of discipleship are just not worth it.

But for others … What the crowd—a large crowd, Luke says—what the crowd sought from Jesus was a new life. For one reason or another—it doesn’t say—they were lost or tired or confused or unable to cope or unsatisfied. They listened to Jesus—people listen to Jesus now—because they—because we—hope to hear about a new way to live. They need to get out of themselves and the patterns of their lives. Patterns that are tiring, boring, dangerous. They need to be freed from what John Calvin called “the deadly pestilence of love of strife and love of self.” It goes beyond being a good and responsible person—they want to be a new person. That’s what Jesus is talking about. That’s is why people are willing to consider what he has to say, as hard as it is to hear. That is why they are willing to follow Jesus.

This transformation of our being is, for most of us (but not all of us), a long process. It happens in a lifetime rather than in a moment. And, for most of us, it requires the support of a community of other people looking for something similar. Moses was speaking to all of the Israelites, but what happened did happen because of what each person did. Discipleship is a communal activity that is implemented in the decisions that each one of us makes over time.

I have set before you life and death, Moses says. He is asking them to love God with all their hearts and souls and minds and to love their neighbors as themselves. This is not about emotions and feelings, even though emotions and feelings come from it. To follow God, to follow Jesus, is a rational and decisive act. Or better: many rational and decisive acts, one after the other, in different circumstances and over time. In those places and times, as much as you are able, choose life.

I set before you life and death, says Jesus. Choose life that you may live.