"Half Priced Discipleship"
Luke 14:25-33
March 22, 2009
St. Paul United Methodist Church
Rev. John Fleming
When people have been visiting our church for a while, for more than a few Sundays one of us, them or me, bring up the subject of joining the church. If it is me, I bring the subject up gracefully. I cloud it in asking if I can come over to their house, to visit with them, to get to know them better, since I am about to be their pastor and as our Book of Discipline says, in charge of their souls.
After I arrive I ask questions like, "What brought you to Saint Paul?" "What do you really like about our church?" "Are you happy here?" When they say "yes" to that last question, it gives me the perfect opportunity to ask them to join the church. I ask them if they would consider joining our ranks, signing on the dotted line, coming down the aisle and having their picture made.
Thankfully most of them say "yes" to this invitation. The question that is on their hearts is now these two: "What do I have to do to become a member? What is required?" I know the answer to that. I have rehearsed it hundreds of times. In essence I say, "Not much. It is easy to become a member of our church. All you have to do is to make five equally yoked promises. You commit your life to God and His church in five ways." Then I spell out the promises. You support the church with your prayers. That is, you promise to pray for our church and her ministries. You promise to pray for the pastor and the staff. You promise to lift up families who are here and ones who will come. The next promise is presence. You promise to show up on a very regular basis for worship services and Sunday school classes and ministry opportunities. The third promise has to do with money. In the past I have shied away from talking about this. I can no longer do that. Anyone who joins here needs to know that it takes all of us, working financially together, for the ministries of our church to happen. Besides that, we all have a great need to give. The fourth and fifth promises are the ones where we say we will volunteer in ministries and tell others about Jesus.
Then I say, "That's it. That's all there is." The look on the faces is usually one of relief. The reaction is usually good. Most people have no problem committing to these five things.
Most pastors, good pastors, spend a lot of time getting new folks into the church and keeping the ones who are here happy. We do that by offering things like flavored coffee and donuts, powerful worship services with good sermons, classes that are stimulating and interesting, and a community of people we cannot live without.
As Barbara Brown Taylor puts it, if Norman Rockwell were to paint the picture of the church, there would be a third grade Sunday school class with girls in pigtails and boys with slingshots in their back pockets. There would be families who sit in the pews they have for years and years. Two of three generations would be sitting together. Light would seep in through the stained glass windows and up front would be a graying and gentle pastor who is a friend to everyone.
I wonder what would happen if Jesus made that pastoral call. What if Jesus were having the conversation with the folks about to join the church? Can't you just see him there, in the living room, answering the question of what is required for membership? With a serious look on his face, I think Jesus would say, "Just three things. First, leave your family. Second, give away the things that are more important than me. And third, carry a cross."
Would you join if those were the promises to make and the conditions of membership? No, probably not.
Let's look at our lesson for this morning, taken from Luke's fourteenth chapter. Jesus is not trying to fill a Sanctuary on Sunday morning, a person in every place in every pew. There is a great difference, it seems to me, in joining a church and being a disciple. Joining the church is just the beginning.
Jesus wants to make sure we understand that following him costs us something. Jesus, in fact, wants us to know that following him costs us everything. All of this is brought about when Jesus notices that a large crowd is now traveling with him and the disciples. These are not the twelve he called to leave everything and follow him. These are the hundreds who have heard his words and wanted more. These are the ones who have seen his miracles and wanted one for themselves.
Jesus does not want them to get their hopes up in their following of him. He wants them to know that there is a price to pay and a cost involved. The cost, he says, is that they must hate their families, give up their lives, and carry a cross.
Now, Jesus evidently has not been to a church growth seminar. If you want your church to grow, you don't say these kinds of things. Jesus should be talking about serving flavored coffees and fresh donuts, not about abandonment. Jesus says these things, I think, because he knows that the worst thing he can do for anyone is to mislead them.
I must admit to you that I have trouble with these tough words of Jesus, these words about hating your family and even your own life. Why would he say that? One possibility is that Jesus was using a figure of speech we don't use anymore. In his day, the way you stated a preference was by pairing two things together and saying you loved one and hated the other. It really had nothing to do with hatred; it was a matter of preference. If you loved one, it was a preference and a priority for you. So if I said that I love the beach and hate the mountains, what that really means is that the beach is my first choice.
Jesus is talking about priorities here. He wants us to understand that. He is on his way to Jerusalem. He knows what the road ahead is like and what will happen at the end of it.
Luke knows it, too. By the time he writes his gospel, Christians are being persecuted for following Jesus. Having a family member who followed Jesus was dangerous for the entire family. In one fell swoop, everyone in the house could be arrested. So it really could mean that following Jesus meant leaving your family.
I think Jesus wants to make sure that we know that following him will cost us. He is not threatening us. He loves us, as usual. He is refusing to lie to us; he is refusing to make his way sound easier than it really is. Jesus doesn't want us to get half way through the building project and have to abandon it or go charging off to battle without the resources we need. Those are the examples he uses.
If all of this sounds a little too dramatic, then perhaps we have forgotten what following him really is all about. Being a disciple of Jesus doesn't mean just being a good person. Being a disciple means that we are supposed to play a part in changing the world, or at the very least, someone's world. Being a disciple does not mean finding a place where we are all comfortable and well fed. It is about living in such a way that sometimes people get mad enough at us to kill us. I like what the great preacher, Ernest Campbell, once said. He wondered, "If I'm following Jesus, why am I such a good insurance risk?" Discipleship costs all we have, all we love, all we are.
Now, by this time I hope you know that we're spending some time this Lenten season looking at the mistakes the disciples made in hopes of avoiding them ourselves. Their mistake, ultimately, was abandoning Jesus. They underestimated the cost of continuing to follow him and overestimating their ability to be unwavering in the face of whatever would come. And here we are. Today is a different day and we live in a different time than those first disciples. What does it really cost us to follow him these days? Have we counted the cost?
I like the story that Bishop Will Willimon tells about the phone call he got one day from a very angry and upset father. He called Will, then a pastor and teacher at Duke Divinity School in North Carolina. The father started, "I hold you personally responsible for what my daughter just told me!" Will answered, "Sir, what are you talking about?" He said, "My daughter who is graduating with a Bachelor of Science degree from Duke University is supposed to be on her way to graduate school. Instead she is going to live in Haiti for a year, digging ditches." The man continued, "And you are responsible for this!" Will said, "Sir, it's really your fault. You were the ones who got the ball rolling. You were the ones who had her baptized, who read Bible stories to her, who took her to Sunday School and let her go to the youth group. You, sir, were the one who introduced her to Jesus, not me!" To which the man said, "But all we really wanted her to be was Presbyterian!" Hmm.
Following this Jesus sometimes leads to time in the mission field and in those cases it costs you a part of your life and if it's your kids who are going, a lot of restless nights. For others of us it might cost us our jobs. I knew a man who lived in Camden, lo these many years ago. He was high up in his company and his company asked him to do something he just couldn't do and sleep at night and so he quit. For him it cost him his job, but not his soul. For others it might mean a little more time that you had set aside for you, time that is needed in ministries here at the church. To sit and talk with someone who just needs a little attention, to teach a child who Jesus really is, to encourage someone who is lonely. Following Jesus could cost us some of our friendships, because taking a stand sometimes does that.
What I know is this, Jesus may not have been a church growth expert, but he's a wonderful savior who is still doing his best to save us. He carries a cross towards a hill and invites us to carry our own. As Barbara Brown Taylor writes, "He asks us to suffer with him, not for suffering sake, but because he wants you to know how alive you can feel under something so heavy that it can take your breath away." But more than that, I think Jesus wants us all not to take this cross for granted. I am pretty sure he wants us to know how much following him will cost us. Let us pray.
(Special thanks to the United Methodist Church for the questions of membership that all of us must take. Special thanks to the writing of Barbara Brown Taylor for a quote or two in this sermon. Special thanks to the story that Bishop Willimon told. Thanks to the writings of Mary Jane Gorman. I have used her Lenten book again this week for guidance for our sermon. And special thanks to the St. Paul Church and Christians everywhere who take their discipleship seriously).