Luke 14:25-33
“What Price Discipleship”

      What do kings wondering if they have enough troops to win a war or people building a tower wondering if they have enough bricks have to do with hating one’s father and mother?  And does Jesus really expect us to hate our fathers and our mothers as the price of following him?  This scripture has always troubled me.  Surely Jesus wants us to love everyone and hate no one.  So what is Jesus talking about in this Sabbath’s reading from Luke’s Gospel?  I believe that the reading today is about the importance and depth of the commitment we make when we claim to become followers of Jesus Christ.
 
      Jesus begins by saying that if anyone comes to him and does not hate his family members and even his own life, he cannot be Jesus’ disciple.  I believe that Jesus does not use the word hate here to imply that we wish harm on those for whom we would normally have affection.  Rather, hate is used here in the sense of “to love less.” I believe that another way to say this is: “Your love of me must be such a passion that your love of family will be as hate in comparison.”  Put bluntly, Jesus is telling us that if we truly want to be his disciples, we must love him more that even our parents, our spouses, our children and ourselves.  Put in the context of the persecutions of the time that this passage was written, Jesus is saying that if one must choose between denying him and denying one’s family, one must be willing to deny one’s family.  And indeed, this is what many of the martyrs in the early church had to do.

      But we are still to love our families.  Instead of loving them with a natural affection, however, we are to love them first in Christ.  To love someone in Christ is to say that we are to love them as Christ first loved us, which means that we must be willing to lay down our lives for them, if need be.  As a human being, I want to be loved, but I would rather be loved in Christ than just loved in a natural way.  To love someone in Christ is not to say we hate him or her, not at all, but that we love him or her in a more unconditional and sacrificial way.  Do you remember or have you heard the little chorus that was sung at camp a number of years ago: “(NAME), I Love you in the Love of the Lord?”

      Now, what about the man who is building a tower or the king that is going out to meet his enemy?  Jesus tells us that before these men start, that should be certain that they have enough resources to be successful, because if they do not have sufficient resources for success, if will go poorly for them.  People will mock the one who starts, but cannot complete, a tower; the king will be in even worse shape because, if his enemy defeats him, he may stand to lose his kingdom and perhaps his life as well.

      So what is Jesus saying to us about our decision to follow him?  I believe he is saying that if we want to be his disciples, we need to make sure that we are serious about it, that we have enough courage and discipline to do whatever it takes to follow him.  If we do not have what we need to be his disciples, then we will fall by the wayside.  We will remain at most lukewarm Christians.

      The problem is that none of us has the resources by ourselves to follow Christ.  If I depend on my own strength to grow in holiness and love of God, I will surely fail.  Does this then imply that I should not commit myself to follow Christ?  Of course not, but it means I must be humble and realistic in making that commitment and recognize that I depend on Christ for the strength to keep it.  I, myself, must choose to follow Christ.  Christ will not force me into that decision.  But Christ does ask me if I know what I am getting into if I become his follower.

      Jesus’ first disciples, like Peter, James, and John, did hot have a clue what they were getting into.  It took the Resurrection and a healthy dose of the Holy Spirit before they were able to do what Jesus wanted them to do.  Many of Jesus’ disciples paid for their commitment with their earthly lives.  That is what we must be willing to do, if need by, to be faithful in Christ.  If we are not willing to die for Christ, it is doubtful that we are truly willing to live for him.

      Jesus also states that anyone who does not carry his own cross and follow him cannot be his disciple.  We might ask whether the cross is the cross of the disciple or the cross of Jesus.  We must identify our life with the life of Christ and follow him wherever he leads.

      Where will Christ lead us if we truly want to follow him?  We do not know when we set out, anymore than Peter, James and John did.  We can be sure that our lives will be different and probably full of surprises.

      No, Jesus will probably not ask us to become missionaries in Africa or conduct grand crusades.  He may ask us to do what we are already doing.  But we will be doing it not for ourselves but for Jesus.  We will no longer live for ourselves, but for the one who died and rose for us that we might have a new life in God.  And, thus, our own lives in Christ will be new lives, his life.

      If we think that this will be easy, we need to think again.  Bearing any cross is not easy.  The cross is a sign of sacrifice, of death.  We die to self so that Christ might live in and through us.  To live in Christ means living for others and not merely for ourselves, and this is not an easy thing to do, especially when we are in situations where we realize that following Christ means denying ourselves.  Our lives become lives of giving rather than taking, of thinking of Christ and others first rather than of ourselves.

      There is a story of one Arthur Wellesley who at one time in English history became the Duke of Wellington. This young man was a talented violinist, but he decided to make the British Army his life’s vocation.  On leaving to begin his military career, he took his expensive, beautiful violin and deliberately smashed it into bits. At first thought, such conduct seems strange, if not fanatical; but it demonstrated the commitment that he felt he must bring to his new chosen career if he were to be a good soldier.  What price commitment!

      I believe that it is not a cliché, but life’s great truth, that Christ cannot be Lord at all, unless he is Lord of all.

      PRAYER: Dear God, we want to follow wherever Jesus might lead us.  We want to pick up our crosses and follow him, whatever the cost.  We want to be entirely yours now and forever.  Give us the strength, courage, wisdom and grace to fulfill these desires, for without your help we can do nothing.  We want to be completely yours, we pray in Jesus’ Name.   Amen.