Luke 14:25-33, from Proper 18 (23)
A life lived apart from God may not be as miserable as evangelical Christianity’s marketing often suggests.
Peruse Amazon.com’s list of best-selling Christian books, and you’ll find title after title promising, in one way or another, to help you finally have it all. Marital bliss, parental success, financial peace and personal empowerment can finally be yours – along with blessed awareness of your sacred enneagram and the unique path to spiritual growth it offers you. That’s really a thing. Look it up.
There is probably truth in all, or at least most, of the ideas behind these pitches. But one particular truth is often conspicuously absent: Being a disciple of Jesus is tough. If you’re looking for the easy path, don’t pick the one he is pointing you down.
The persistent absence of this insight might have been what was bugging Jesus when, in Luke 14:25-33, he wheeled on the “large crowds” following him and broke just about every rule in the marketing books.
“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,” he tells them. And as if those words alone weren’t a sufficient buzz kill, he adds, “Whoever does not carry the cross and follow me cannot be my disciple.”
Jews in first-century Palestine didn’t think about crosses sentimentally the way we Christians do today. In their time, a man who carried a cross would soon spend agonizing hours dying on it and horrifying days rotting on it.
Jesus spends the rest of the passage warning the crowds to think carefully about what discipleship will cost them, to weigh the profits against the losses as carefully as would a man planning a construction project that might bankrupt him or a king planning a war that might annihilate him.
As stump speeches go, this is the perfect example of one not to give. A book version sure isn’t going to make the best-seller list among the LifeWay.com set. Yes, Jesus said that all things are possible with God (Matt. 19:26). Yes, Paul said he could do all things through Christ (Phil. 4:13). But neither was talking about breaking sports records or exceeding sales goals or any of the other things associated with “making it.” Jesus was talking about the hard work of repentance, and Paul was talking about finding contentment while enduring an unjust imprisonment and awaiting trial for capital crimes.
Everyone wants to read about having it all. Nobody wants to read about giving it all. In fact, passages like Luke 14:25-33 probably would have priced Christianity out of the market long ago were it not for another fundamental truth of the faith: grace.
It is vital in this passage and others like it to understand that being a follower of Jesus and being a redeemed sinner are two different things. If you’re worried that God will rescind your pardon and send you to Hell because you still own the clothes you are wearing, a few nice things or even something as valuable as a car or a home, don’t be. The same Jesus who laid down all this tough talk about giving it all laid down his life so that salvation could be yours. There is no balance left to be paid. You guilt is gone, and it will never come back. You are free.
But you will not always be a follower of Jesus. You will follow some of the time and drag your feet some of the time. Now and then, you will turn and run as fast as you can. It’s that way with everyone, including the 12 – perhaps we should we say 11 – who were Jesus’ first and best disciples. They all doubted. They all grumbled. They all got greedy. And in the end, they all ran away. And when they did, this same tough-guy, take-me-or-leave me Jesus rose up out of death, shoved aside the rock sealing his tomb and came after them in love. He will do the same for you. Every single time.
But none of that changes the fact that once he catches up with you, he will ask you to surrender everything – everything you own, every person you care about, even your life itself. If you think he is asking for anything less, it’s because you’re not listening.
But try to understand why he asks. He is not out to impoverish you. Rather, he is out to help you understand how impoverished you already are, to help you see that nearly all of the “all” you imagine when you imagine “having it all” is worthless. Seek the kingdom and righteousness of God first, he is saying, and all the “all” that matters will be yours.
