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A Sermon on Discipleship

A SERMON ON DISCIPLESHIP

TEXT: LUKE 14:24-33

 

INTRODUCTION TO THE SCRIPTURE
Today we're beginning a series of sermons on what makes a church special. What are we doing here? Why do drag ourselves away from our morning coffee and the Sunday papers to show up each week. Why do parents bother to get their kids into decent clothes on what might be the one day they could lounge around? Why does the choir come an hour early Sundays and practice during the week? Why did we just watch that mob of folks walk out of the church-all those people committed to nurturing our children in the Christian faith? What are any of us doing here?
The first sermon in this series answers that question in this way. We're here because we want to follow Jesus-to become his disciples. When we repeat the U.C.C. Statement of Faith, we say these words: "You call us into your church to accept the cost and joy of discipleship." The scripture lesson today is about that. Well, no, it isn't about the joy of discipleship, only about the cost. It's one of those passages I kinda wish we didn't have to hear.

LUKE 14: 25-33 THE COST OF DISCIPLESHIP
25 Now large crowds were traveling with him; and he turned and said to them, 26 "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. 27 Whoever does not carry the cross and follow me cannot be my disciple. 28 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? 29 Otherwise, when he has laid a foundation and is not able to finish, all who see it will begin to ridicule him, 30 saying, ‘This fellow began to build and was not able to finish.' 31 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? 32 If he cannot, then, while the other is still far away, he sends a delegation and asks for the terms of peace. 33 So therefore, none of you can become my disciple if you do not give up all your possessions.
Here ends a very difficult word from the Gospel of Luke.

LIVING IN A POST-CHRISTIAN ERA
We are living in a post-Christian era. By that I mean, culture is no longer dominated by the church. We are secular and pluralistic. The church does not overtly set the standard for public values. Except for a few pockets, the so-called glory days of churches influencing school curriculum or determining government policies are over and we no longer assume that church membership is a requirement for social acceptance.
There has been fallout from this increased secularization that makes some people nostalgic for the good old days when attending church was the thing to do; when business deals were sealed with a handshake at coffee hour; when you went to church to be seen and to make important social contacts.

INTENTIONAL RATHER THAN CONVENTIONAL CHRISTIANS
But the theologian, Marcus Borg, is not one of the nostalgic ones. He writes:
For centuries, and in the United States until a few decades ago, there was a conventional expectation that everybody would be a member of a church. So long as this cultural expectation remained in place, mainline denominations did well numerically; they provided a perfectly respectable and safe way of being Christian. Nobody would ask you to do anything too weird.
This expectation no longer exists in most parts of the United States, and as a result membership in mainline denominations has declined sharply over the last forty years. The "good news" in this decline is that, very soon, the only people left in mainline congregations will be the ones who are there for intentional and not conventional reasons. This creates the possibility for the church once again to become an alternative community rather than a conventional community, living into a deepening relationship with a Lord other than the lords of culture. This is exciting.
(Jesus: Uncovering the Life, Teachings, and Relevance of a Religious Revolutionary. pp 302-3)

I wonder if this is true about Pilgrim. Are you here because you are intentional rather than conventional? Do we really come to church because our primary purpose is to follow Jesus? To live into a deepening relationship with a Lord other than the lords of culture?

Well, we might reconsider following Jesus when we think about today's scripture lesson, right?
• Hate your mother and father.
• Carry your cross.
• Give up all your possessions.
• Count the costs. Jesus advises us to consider these demands ahead of time. If you're not up to the task, don't bother.

I can see the Membership Committee cringing out there. "Hey, this is hardly the way to kick off the church year. Aren't you supposed to preach a happy, friendly, welcoming, joyful sermon? You're going to scare the new people away!"

Don't blame me. This is Jesus talking. I'm as annoyed about this as you are. I think this passage fits what Mark Twain was talking about when he said, " It ain't those parts of the Bible that I can't understand that bother me, it is the parts that I do understand."

HOW DO WE HEAR THESE HARD WORDS?
This is pretty easy to understand; it's just hard to take. How do suburbanites like us relate to these words?

I'm going to make an attempt to interpret this a bit but I don't think I can explain it away. We're going to be left with Jesus' hard words echoing in our heads. And I hope if you're visiting with us for the first time you won't get discouraged.

Hate your parents, siblings, wife and children. Hyperbole? Maybe. It is said that the word "hate" in Middle Eastern language of the time meant "love less." Either way, it's about priorities. And it had a significance for Jesus' people that it might not have to ours. Family was everything in that culture. It determined who you were; who you allowed into your circle; who you loved; who you hated. Tribal loyalties were primary. To some degree, that ethos remains. I remember this Doonesbury cartoon: an American soldier in Baghdad is talking to his Iraqi counterpart who proclaims his readiness to fight the enemy insurgents.
"They killed my cousin's cousin and stole his sheep."
"Well, I can understand that. When did it happen?"
"Five hundred years ago."

Breaking chains of vengeance and ancient enmities was part of the new kingdom that Jesus envisioned. Setting people free from old grudges. We may not be bound in the same way by family expectations, but they are there for us too. Could you imagine that following Jesus might require diverging from family norms?

Carry your cross. This has come to mean that we must bear the burdens that life has placed on us. But Jesus is talking about voluntarily picking up the heavy cross-beam and marching toward Calvary. It is that intention again. Being brave enough to stand for truth and justice whatever the cost.

Give up your all your possessions. This saying has been an issue for the church for centuries. At one point they reasoned that, of course, everybody couldn't do that but since the church was one body, there would be designated people who would live in poverty on behalf of the whole. And so the monastic movement was born. I'm not sure that does the trick. I agree that everyone can't do this. Even if we agreed to live at the most modest subsistance level, there would have to be farmers and weavers and builders who own equipment, animals, and land to feed and clothe us and provide shelter. But I do think Jesus is getting at something here. Something the Buddhists might call detachment. Give up being possessed by your possessions. Live as simply as possible so you don't worry constantly about money. Give generously.

I can hardly talk about the cost of discipleship without mentioning Dietrich Bonhoeffer, a Lutheran pastor, who wrote the book of that title.
DIETRICH BONHOEFFER'S "COST OF DISCIPLESHIP"
He was struggling with these very issues during the rise of Hitler's Germany as he watched the German church become coopted by Naziism. He observed the collapse of Christian institutions not strong or brave enough to stand firm or not grounded enough in the Gospel to understand what was happening.

Bonhoeffer defied that trend and did what Jesus asks in this passage. He gave up his possessions, his loving wife, his position and he took up the cross to face certain death. For his resistance, he was hanged by the Gestapo.

AND A CONTEMPORARY PASTOR'S IN KENYA
A colleague tells the story of another pastor in Kenya just this year. A pastor who offended one of the gangs in the depressed area where he was preaching. Gang members followed him and attacked him with a metal pipe intending to kill him. They knocked out his front teeth. This pastor continued to minister faithfully to his people, bearing the marks of his obedience. Every time he smiled, he reveald the gaping hole that was once occupied by teeth. The dentist told him it would cost 1000 Kenyan shillings for a cheap denture. $13 US dollars. This was not in the African pastor's budget since he had a family to feed. His American friend, a pastor too, writes: "I'm a wimp. I complain when Netflix takes too long to send me my next movie." He sent his friend money to get his teeth fixed all the while musing on the "cost of discipleship." (Adapted from a story told by Rev. B. J. Bergfalk in his blog, nakedreligion)

I'm going to end here because I feel a whole other sermon coming on. The follow-up sermon that really has to be preached. And that is about the joys.

NOT ONLY COSTS, BUT JOYS
Emily Collins is just back from Honduras where she continues to build relationships with deeply impoverished people in the village of Flores and helps provide medical care for a few who need intervention. She comes home wiped out by these experiences, distressed and emotionally drained. But they return again and again, compelled by the deep joy that prevails.

The church school teachers all tromped down to meet their kids this morning. They spend time in preparation, they come early, the miss things in worship. But they do it because it is rewarding. Joyful, even.

Jesus couldn't have made the kind of demands and attracted the followers that he did if there weren't something deeply satisfying, joyful, and uplifting in making God a priority, taking up the cross, and letting go of possessions. I don't think even his closest disciples did it right away. But they went along for the journey and on the way, they learned to love him more dearly and follow him more nearly, day by day. Perhaps we can too.