TEXT: Luke 14: 25-33 nRSV
THE STORY
Large crowds followed Jesus, but let’s be clear about who may have been in these crowds and what their assumptions and expectations were. In short, the followers are first century Jews. They have been living under Roman occupation for roughly a hundred years, and their highest hope was for a Messiah who would restore their independence.
Some of the followers were radicalized, looking only for a military leader who could assemble an effect army. Others were pious Pharisees, who believed that Israel’s success depended only upon the people remaining faithful to the Lord and his Law. Others were “sinners”—commoner Jews who had lost their connection with the Temple. Perhaps they hadn’t paid their tithes or were in some way deemed unfit by the leadership, but either way they were called sinners, which means wanderers. Although informally “excommunicated” from formal Judaism, they certainly hoped to find ways to stay within God’s good favor. Others, like the woman bent double whom we read about last week, followed to partake in Jesus’ now-famous healing powers. Also in the crowd are the twelve apostles, and dozens of disciples.
Jesus turns to them and says:
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.
He calls them to count the cost of following him, and the bar is quite high:
- 1.Hate family
- 2.Hate your own life (psyche)
- 3.Give up all possessions
My wife Tara notices how often I use the word hate in the midst of sermons, and she rightly advises me to find some other wording. The word has become a powerful political word in recent years and there are usually better words to use. Except for here.
Jesus’ teaching is pure hyperbole; we would no more take this literally than we would cut off a hand once we’ve sinned. Like a good golf coach trying to correct a bad putter for constantly putting feet short of the hole, we are told to aim ten feet past the hole and put there.
Jesus calls all his followers to total commitment.
TOTAL COMMITMENT
The call to follow Christ, simply put, is all or nothing. It is presented as an absolute. There can be no part-time Christianity, no Christianity plus—as in, I follow Jesus, but I’m also informed by Buddha and the Eastern traditions. There is no such thing as Christian materialism, as in, I’m a Christian, but I’m more interested in this world than in Heaven.
To follow Jesus is to be totally committed or you don’t quite get it at all.
The first phrase of our vision statement—Deeply Committed—indicates the first aim of faithfulness, that we would grow into total commitment. “But wait, why doesn’t it say ‘totally committed’?” The problem with that is that everything you are today is less than everything you will be tomorrow, or even an hour from now, so we are always growing deeper. To be deeply committed means that we are regularly recommitting ourselves. It is total commitment without being able to feel like we’re done now or we have already totally arrived.
What does it look like to be totally committed and more deeply committed with every year? That is between you and our Lord. It would be a kind of idolatry if the church were to spell it out for you into a handful of steps—and we must be wary of any such recipes for spirituality—though they abound.
Yet each of us must live our life in relationship to God wrestling with this question: What does total commitment mean for me, O Lord? And yes, you and I are required to ask this question of Christ and to heed his leading.
A rich young ruler once asked Jesus, “What must I do to inherit eternal life?” Do you remember what Jesus told him? Sell all you have and give it to the poor so that you may have treasure in heaven.
Let’s here the qualifications again:
- 1.Hate family
- 2.Hate your own life
- 3.Give up all possessions
“Now Pastor, really, do we all have to to that—this could very quickly start to sound like Jim Jones and David Koresh stuff?”
Total commitment may be difficult for us to picture, and since I’ve already warned you against preachers who would try to dumb it down or otherwise spell it out for you—which is just another way of recreating the Law and becoming Pharisees—I’m still left with giving you a picture of total commitment. I think we might begin by looking at what it is not. I’ll suggest three ways churches have missed the mark.
“FAMILY” CHURCHES
Large crowds still follow.
I’ve been part of at least one—those churches that say “We’re all about families,” which always makes single people feel great. They’re quite popular churches because all families are just messed up enough to respond to promises of happier homes.
There’s nothing wrong with happier homes, of course, but once the gospel enterprise turns its focus toward becoming cozy suburbanites two steps ahead of the neighbors, it runs afoul of the calling to discipleship.
Yes, we all would like healing for broken relationships and equipping for life within the cabin comforts of hearth and home, but this is not the same thing as leaving all to follow Jesus.
HEALTH CHURCHES
We’ve all heard that people who attend church regularly live longer and people who pray tend to have fewer heart problems and score higher on basic happiness quizzes.
The idea that having some religion is good for you and your family has been regularly advanced. To follow Jesus because you think it makes your life better-balanced than it would be otherwise has been given a name: Moralistic Therapeutic Deism.
Moral Therapeutic Deism is the religion that rationally makes sense, and its followers are reasonably Christian. It is the religion of American populism that speaks of “God” but politely declines mentioning Jesus because doing so is less than fully inclusive. It is a truncated, Christianity Lite, and is not so much discipleship as it is collective narcissism with a holy blessing.
MTD allows you to manage your own life in your own way while the local priests and pastors sprinkle a blessing over you for being nice people. This is the sacralization of our comfort zones, and behind the hypocritical mask of holiness is merely self-love seeking holy blessing.
To “hate our own life” as Jesus says is to forsake our own good for his good. We don’t hate “life itself” so much as we renounce our ego (psyche). We follow Jesus in spite of health questions or issues, not because of them.
WEALTH CHURCHES
Wealth churches are too much fun to criticize, so I’ll exercise some restraint. In short, they believe that we are a blessed people in Jesus and therefore Jesus wants us all to have more cash.
Because you’re “so special” in God’s eyes, he doesn’t want us living so much sacrificially as he does joyously and abundantly—so abundantly that we praise him if we can manage to rake in the dough and sing Hallelujah! as we roll around wallowing in it.
This is the most popular, most successful, and most egregiously un-Christlike discipleship I can imagine.
In these churches—some of them unspeakably huge, I’m sad to say—people are taught to prosper as a sign that their lives have been changed by Christ. Furthermore, personal prosperity and success become the center of their witness, which amounts to: “Follow Jesus and you’re financial dreams will come true.”
This is nothing short of heresy: worshipping Mammon and calling it Jesus.
Part of this same movement includes its shadow side—the anti-wealth churches. These still are focused on money but in the negative.
At what age to children learn that word that has power and individual will to ownership: “MINE!” You know that word. “Mine, mine, mine!” It is a normal part of childishness, but adults—especially Christian adults—are expected to outgrow it.
As a sophomore in college I went through a phase—yes, I was a Christian Communist—I believed that the total renunciation of possessions was closer to the call of Jesus than the ownership-based capitalism. I believed that Jesus was more in favor of an economic system that would redistribute wealth more evenly. It lasted about 5 months.
I concluded that I was wrong to center reality on economics at all, and that the transfer of wealth does nothing to solve the problems of wealth—it just changes who has the problem.
The anti-wealth pietism in Christianity can make some good points, but it too suffers from having the wrong focal point.
IN CHRIST ALONE
All of these ill-focused Christianities subvert the Word and calling of Christ. The only solution for human beings—the only hope we have—is found in Christ alone.
Dietrich Bonhoeffer puts it all so effectively in his book, The Cost of Discipleship. In brief, we Christians who mean to represent the gospel have a very tough sell. To quote Bonhoeffer:
When Christ calls a man, he bids him come and die.
That is a far cry from the popular alternatives:
- •Come be healed and well!
- •Come fix your family!
- •Come and be prosperous!
- •Come and be holier than others!
When we follow Jesus we are given one thing: a cross, a crucifixion devise. We are called to come and die.
In Christ alone is our hope. Alone, alone, alone!
All else is snake oil—Jesus plus, etc.
May God help us all to appropriately reorder our lives as we grow toward total commitment—deeper and deeper with each day, week, month, and year.
And may God lead us in taking others by the hand and walking them gently and lovingly into the ever-deeper waters. †