Read the fine print

September 8, 2019 * Luke 14:25-33

Well, here is it, laid out before us for all eyes to see and all ears to hear:  the cost of discipleship.  The fine print, as we say.  This morning is going to be another one of those hard conversations…hard to speak, and hard to hear. 

The location in Luke of this morning’s text is peculuar at best.  Just last week we heard the parable double-feature about the wedding banquet invitation and the seat of honor; for whatever reason, the lectionary editors skipped over the “Great Dinner” parable, in which a man hosted a wonderful meal at his home and invited many people, but when it came time to attend the gathering, one by one the guests began to make excuses as to why they couldn’t (or simply wouldn’t) come.  So the host sent his servants out into the streets to invite anyone and everyone they saw.  So they did.  They went out and they cast the net wide and brought in all they encountered, no one was excluded, so that the host’s house will be filled.  Of course, this parable relays to us the true act of grace, seeking us out and pulling us into this wonderful life with Christ, receiving the gift of salvation that has been offered to us.  And now, the fine print.  Yes…now. 

Does anyone here remember those CD clubs you could join?  Columbia House was the most notable.  Their offers were everywhere:  come, join our club, and get 10 free music CDs!  Really!  They’re free and yours to keep!  And if you act now, we’ll make it 12!  Well who wouldn’t sign up for that!  I mean, I like music…and if you can think back to the late 90’s and early 2000’s, you might remember when we didn’t have streaming services and music on demand (and for those of you who don’t remember that, trust me, it was a hard life).  So you would go through the massive sheet of stamps printed with CD covers, and you’d carefully punch out the ones you want (like Dave Matthew’s Band, and Pearl Jam, and The Smashing Pumpkins) and you’d stick them on the boxes on the order form, and you’d mail it off and then you’d wait.  There were some terms, like you had to buy 3 more albums in a year, but you’re going to do that anyway so no biggie. 

The day comes and your package arrives and with excitement you rip it open and you sink into the music you’ve been so excited about.  There was some paperwork there, but who wants to read paperwork when Live is waiting to tell you what happens when “Lightning Crashes”. 

Then, next month, there’s another package, which is odd because you didn’t order anything else.  It’s from Columbia House.  It’s another CD and it’s nothing you’d want to keep (if we’re being honest, it was Hootie and the Blowfish, but let’s keep this hypothetical, shall we?).  With this horrible album was an invoice.  I could have bought this CD at Walmart for $15…and Columbia House expects me to pay $30 for it?  Really?  What?!?

So now you scramble to find that paperwork that came with the “introductory package” because you’ve obviously agreed to something you surely didn’t mean, and there it is:  the disclaimer that they’ll automatically ship you CDs, and they’re going to be at full “club” price, yada, yada, yada.  And suddenly, the “Melancholy and the Infinite Sadness” double feature you’re listening to takes on a new meaning (it’s a Smashing Pumpkins reference). 

The person who found themselves in this predicament hadn’t planned on the cost being so great.  They jumped in, both feet, never looking back.  And if you think about it, it seems that parallels the invitation to a life of discipleship, doesn’t it?  When you and I evangelize (and remember, evangelize actually means to preach the Gospel and declare the faith, despite what others might tell you it means), we do so by proclaiming the Good News, that salvation is free, it’s for everyone, and accompany it with all the wonderful and amazing things God through Christ has done for us (love, and grace, and forgiveness).  Much like Columbia House…who touts free music (in a time when CDs were like currency…because Sirius XM wasn’t a thing back then).  Because if this morning’s Gospel Lesson were our marketing material, the church would be in worse decline than it actually is. 

Let’s look at the text from Luke.  Jesus is traveling and he isn’t alone; we are told that he is surrounded by a large caravan of people who are traveling with him.  We aren’t told that it was a small group, a few people, or even a large crowd, but large crowds, in the plural. This is a lot of people.  So to these large crowds, Jesus turns and says “whoever comes to me and doesn’t HATE his or her family, or their own life itself, cannot be my disciple”. 

Now as someone who preaches love; love that is complete, love that is unconditional, and love that is all-encompassing, seeing the word “hate” in a sentence by Jesus is a difficult thing to read, to comprehend, and to understand.  So I’ve spent a lot of time this week trying to understand why Jesus would tell us to hate something…especially when we’re told to hate something that goes against so many other things!  So what are we to do with this conundrum?

We handle it like we handle all texts; we research it, we study it, and we allow the Spirit to guide us along the journey.  So I looked this word “hate” up in the original language to see what was exactly said.  So, hate in this sense is not the same as what we refer to as hatred.   For us, hatred conjures thoughts and emotions so negative that they border on harmful.  The hate we know eats us alive; but the term “hate” here doesn’t carry the same meaning within the historic, the literary, or the linguistic context.  Here, the term hate, simply means that within this context, the subject matter at hand must take precedence over everything, even the things we hold most sacred.  It is severe, but Semitic hyperbole always is – it’s dramatic and crystal clear.  So is Jesus telling us to hate as we know hate?  Absolutely not. 

But that doesn’t make this morning’s lesson any easier.  If we read on we see that this prioritization of following Christ even at the expense of the most sacred earthly bonds we have is what is demanded of us.  We are to put Christ and our discipleship above the relationship we have with our mother, father, spouse, children, siblings, and even ourselves or life itself.

So at this point I can’t help but wonder what went through the heads of the people in those large crowds when they heard those words.  Perhaps they felt like that unsuspecting and hypothetical Columbia House “club member”, who, after gaining entrance through the hype and excitement is just now trying to understand the “fine print”,  just now examining the cost.  And what was Jesus’ end game here?  Was he trying to winnow down the numbers that surrounded him, or warn of the inevitable conflict of loyalties that lie ahead?  Because the more I have thought about this directive, the more I’m questioning, “can it actually be done?”. 

Are we capable of accomplishing this?  Is this within the realm of what we are capable of?  Can this actually become a way of living our lives?  Are we able to place our discipleship walk, our relationship with Christ above everything else?  Because, here, that’s exactly what we are being told to do. 

Let’s think about this for a minute.  If you’re a parent, and most everyone here is, are you able to deny the love, the care, the bond you have for your children (or grandchildren) for the sake of not only your relationship with Jesus, but your discipleship walk with him?  Are you willing to forsake your parents, and not just the “good times”, but what if your parents depend on you for care?  What if their life has come to a point that your presence, care, and support are what keeps them alive and moving forward?  What about your siblings?

What about you?  What of the things in your own life (other than what may have already been mentioned) might you have to set aside and deny?  We are to stop and take a good, long, hard look at the costs as instructed by Christ.  After telling them the cost of discipleship, Jesus tells them a story of two people.  A builder who is constructing a tower and a king who is about to wage a war.  Both must calculate the cost, which will be great.  But these are things that we calculate first.  We go into them educated and equipped; it is in this same manor that we approach this relationship with Jesus. 

Maybe it will cost you money, and possessions.  Maybe you’ll be called to sell everything, and give all you have to the poor.  Maybe you’ll find yourself in a situation where you have to love someone you hate.  Maybe you’ll have to pray for someone whom you would rather curse.  Maybe you’ll be brought into service in a way that makes you uncomfortable.  Maybe you’ll have to give up values you’ve held on to for your whole life, because you believed they were good and just, but aren’t compatible with the Good News of Jesus.  Maybe it’ll cost you prejudice, or your ability to judge, or your ability to assign worth and value to people based on what you think or what you’ve been told.  Whatever this cost, we’re told to not let it sneak up on us like those Columbia House terms of membership.  We are to evaluate, with great criticism, the cost of discipleship.

The more I meditated on this morning’s lesson, the more I realize that I miss this mark with my every breath.  And the more I realized this, the more overwhelmed I became.  And the more overwhelmed I became, the less I thought about other stuff.  And the more I thought about this other stuff, the more clearly the Spirit began to point me in a direction:  I have enough to worry about with myself…why am I so concerned with what’s going on other people’s lives?

Now let me qualify this statement a little further.  We are supposed to be concerned with eachother and eachother’s lives.  We are to be concerned with the care, and wellbeing, and we are to tend to all things good.  What I’m talking about is all the times I render judgement of right and wrong against other people.  Ponder that for a minute.  Take it in and sit with it.  With this massive task of putting Christ literally above everything in my life, including my life, who am I to scrutinize, criticize, validate, or pass judgement on what anyone else does?  We all do it…we all do it every day.  We do it on purpose, and it’s also so systemic that we don’t even notice when it happens.  Have you ever looked at a couple and condemned them because they aren’t the same color?  Of maybe they have an age gap.  Or maybe their marriage isn’t what you and I define as marriage for whatever reason.  Maybe you don’t like the way they dress.  Maybe their morals and social positions don’t match yours.  Maybe their politics are wrong and you just don’t understand why a good red blooded American would think, act, believe, or vote that way.  Maybe they’re not even American.  Maybe they’re on welfare.  I can literally go on, and on, and on, and I would literally run out of breath before I exhausted the list.  But here we remain, missing the mark so badly that we’re not even hitting the board, and we’re obsessed with others. 

Stop it.  Stop it right now.  Stop it today.  Make an effort to stop it.  Come to the shocking realization that you’re so far off course that you actually don’t have the right to say what’s right and what’s wrong in another’s life.  Jesus was pretty clear in saying disciples, not advisors.  Tend to your own shortcomings. 

Perhaps the words of Jesus this morning were never meant to be taken literally.  Maybe, all along, they have been a parable that over the years has lost that context.  Maybe this is some other literary device, like a hyperbole or metaphor.  Regardless, it is good food for thought. 

But we need to be reminded that, even if we get it right or we get it wrong, grace is still there, following us, chasing after us, continually pulling us up and carrying us along the way.  Grace, upon grace, upon grace.

Thanks be to God.