September 9, 2007 – Fifteenth Sunday after Pentecost
Deuteronomy 30: 15-20; Luke 14:25-33
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Grace and peace to you from God the Creator, and from our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. Amen.
A few weeks ago I received a “Save the Date” postcard in the mail from former Vicar Katie. It made me start thinking about stories she told us when we were first getting to know her and her background. She was talking about her family, and shared with us her family’s “Expectations.” There were three of them and they were: go to college; get married, and bring us grandchildren…IN THAT ORDER! It made me think about how we have expectations as Christians, and although the order might not be so important, we are expected to deal with three phases: becoming a Christian (or “being saved”), joining a church, and following Jesus, which we call “discipleship.”
Today is Rally Day, and just like in our Gospel story today there is a “large crowd” here – for today is a day of gathering together and new beginnings – and just like the crowds that followed Jesus,
some have come today out of curiosity, while some are here wanting to commit, or recommit themselves and their families to more frequent worship and deeper study.
Today is a day of transition, both here and in Luke’s Gospel. This story is what we call “special Luke” because it is information that appears only here in Luke, and so we want to pay particular attention to what it has to say. In one week, we’ve moved the focus away from hospitality and table fellowship and teaching about the Great Banquet where “Everyone’s invited” (even the Gentiles who were excluded from the table before!) Now Jesus is more interested in sharing his expectations, and it is as if he has asked, “Now that God has chosen you; how will you choose to live?”
Unfortunately for us modern folks, our choices have become mundane, and we have begun to use the idea of “being a Christian” interchangeably with “being a disciple.” Christian author William Easum said recently in an article titled, On Not Being Nice for the Sake of the Gospel:
“I'm convinced that one of the main sins of the Church is that we have taught ourselves to be nice instead of Christian. In spite of aspiring to be Jesus' disciples, we teach that the essence of Christianity is to be nice.”
This raises the question, “Are we just folks trying to live a good life? Are we trying to get people to like us, or be nice to people, or to be Christians? Certainly Jesus was not being nice in our lesson today, in fact he was pretty much being “in your face” as he confronts us with his expectations of his followers.
I wonder what kind of questions you hear when you are talking with friends and neighbors about God and your faith life. Perhaps it would be helpful to look at those three expectations I mentioned earlier, and give you some way to distinguish them, and to answer them. These might even be helpful to you on your journey. The first question often comes as, “What must I do to be saved?” or “How do I become a Christian?” The answer to that is simply “To be a Christian you must believe in Jesus Christ, and that he is who he said he is. Since he said he was the Son of God, the inference is that you would also believe in the Trinity: that God expresses God’s self in three persons: Father, Son and Holy Spirit.”
The second question might be, “How do I become a member of the church?" In most mainline churches, there is a rite to receive new members, in which each person must “reject evil, the devil and all his empty promises.” Then, that person must make a statement of faith, something like the Apostles or Nicene Creed. If a person wants to become Lutheran, or Methodist, or some such, they will affiliate with a community of faith that worships and teaches in that tradition. For us, it would be following our Northern European heritage in worship style, and the teachings of Jesus as interpreted by Martin Luther, a 16th century monk.
Now if those questions are already settled for you, you might ask "How can I become a disciple, or how can I better follow Jesus?" With that question you are seeking something MORE, something deeper than eternal life and fellowship with other Christians. With that question you are looking for meaning in this life, and then the stakes are raised.
Many of our brothers and sisters in the faith practice what we call “decision theology,” or, a requirement that you “make a decision for Christ” in order to be saved. However, I believe that God has already saved us, and that our state of salvation can only be recognized or rejected, not “accepted” or “decided for.” SALVATION is an act of Grace by God, and the only decision that we have is whether or not to be a DISCIPLE, to choose to be one who follows Jesus and Jesus’ life and teaching. And choice is as old as the record in Deuteronomy – Moses’ advice for the children of Israel poised to enter the Promised Land. Before they step across the border and claim the promise that God has already made to them, they must decide how they will live in that land. “Choose Life!” says Moses, “by loving and obeying God.”
Every January, I talk with parents of High School Seniors in our Faith Stepping Stone #7 Class. I remind them, that even a choice for something good and exciting, something that they have prepared their child for for at least 17 years, requires some pain in the change and the grief of letting go. Anyone who has attempted to modify the behavior of their child, or themselves, knows that Behavior Modification is based on the willingness to let go of something – and reveals how deep is the desire to achieve or obtain something else – it measures how invested you are in what you are holding on to and what you are willing to let go of. If you’ve ever gone rock climbing, or seen someone do it, you know there is a point where the climber has to let go to move up the mountain. Even good choices, made for the best of reasons, can be hard in the choosing. But choice is the stuff of freedom, and we know that freedom comes at a cost.
The cost of discipleship is clear in Jesus’ words today. We have to look no further than verse 26 “Whoever …does not hate father or mother, etc…” to feel the sting of a choice that Jesus appears to be asking us to make. But I’m convinced Jesus is not suggesting dumping the Ten Commandments. For those who were hearing him, family members were property, and this was more about IDOLATRY than some arbitrary measure of love. The word “hate” is a literate exaggeration which is used to bristle us sufficiently that we might consider how deeply we are invested in those things that we hold dear. Then, “yes, and even life itself” is added to the mix, and we consider the true cost of being Jesus’ followers.
But the thing that intrigued me the most are Jesus’ statements, three times, “…you cannot be my disciple.” The word is dynamai (dunamai) and it is the root for our word “dynamite.” It means power, and Jesus is telling us that we are not able, we have no power to be his disciple. No matter what we give up, no matter how much we love, or want to follow, by ourselves, we are not able. But God is able. God has the power! And God has chosen YOU and waits only for you to recognize the gift of grace and to CHOOSE LIFE. Then, Go will empower you thru the Holy Spirit to live as a disciple, an apprentice to Jesus Christ.
Moses advised us to dis-possess of everything except God and God’s ways; Paul vowed to know nothing except Christ & Him crucified; and we must learn that salvation comes to us to fill our need, as a free gift from the God who has chosen us as beloved children. But discipleship is our choice, and it flows out of a grateful heart. Amen.
