Costly Discipleship—Lectionary Reflection for Pentecost 13C/Proper 18 (Luke 14)
Luke
14:25-33 New Revised Standard Version
Updated Edition
25 Now large crowds were traveling with him, and he turned and said to them, 26 “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. 27 Whoever does not carry the cross and follow me cannot be my disciple. 28 For which of you, intending to build a tower, does not first sit down and estimate the cost, to see whether he has enough to complete it? 29 Otherwise, when he has laid a foundation and is not able to finish, all who see it will begin to ridicule him, 30 saying, ‘This fellow began to build and was not able to finish.’ 31 Or what king, going out to wage war against another king, will not sit down first and consider whether he is able with ten thousand to oppose the one who comes against him with twenty thousand? 32 If he cannot, then while the other is still far away, he sends a delegation and asks for the terms of peace. 33 So therefore, none of you can become my disciple if you do not give up all your possessions.
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Jesus’
message is certainly subversive. He subverts the “family values” platform
offered by some religious/political folks. Then there’s the word about giving
up all your possessions. That certainly sounds almost socialist in orientation.
In between, these two declarations—one about hating family and the other about
giving up all your possessions if you want to be Jesus’ disciple—comes this
word about counting the cost of discipleship, which involves carrying Jesus’
cross.
When I read this passage a phrase from Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s book Cost
of Discipleship comes to mind: “When Christ calls a man, he bids him
come and die.” I first read those words back in college, and they have haunted
me ever since. For Bonhoeffer, writing in the mid-1930s, while living under the
oppressive Nazi regime, he began to understand that to be a disciple of Jesus
meant taking up the cross and even being willing to die as a result of one’s
faith. Discipleship involved the cross. As we read this, we need to be careful.
In fact, we’ll want to “count the cost” of this message. There is a wariness
today about the proclamation of a theology of suffering, as that theology has
been used in oppressive ways. So, what Bonhoeffer had in mind is not just any
suffering. It’s not sickness or injury, it is suffering that comes as a result
of one’s confession of faith in Christ. Looking out at his own context of 1930s
Germany, he could take note of how “a Christianity that no longer took
discipleship seriously remade the gospel into only the solace of cheap grace” [Discipleship, p.
86]. That is, Christianity willing to tolerate or embrace an oppressive
ideology.
The cost involved in the kind of discipleship that Bonhoeffer described
involves a choice. Will we follow Jesus no matter where he leads? Are we ready
to do the math and count the cost of discipleship? Are we ready to let go of
the ties that bind us to family, nation, and community if they stand in the way
of our commitment to following Jesus? Interestingly, Bonhoeffer remained close
to his family and friends to the very end. He did lose his position as a
teacher and pastor and faced imprisonment and eventual execution. However, his
imprisonment and execution were not directly related to his confession of faith.
Rather they had to do with his involvement in the resistance movement that
sought to overturn Hitler’s rule in Germany. Still, there was a cost involved
in standing against tyranny, and this resistance was nurtured by his faith (discipleship).
When Bonhoeffer was writing his important theological works the cultural
Christianity that marked the nation of Germany was being tested. Christians
were being asked to decide whether to stand with the regime or with Christ.
While Bonhoeffer was part of the Confessing Church that sought to resist to
some degree the Nazi infiltration of the church, the German Christian movement
represented those who embraced Nazi ideology and reformulated the faith to fit
it. Is it possible that we can fall prey to similar temptations? Could a
political ideology corrupt the church? The answer, as we see in 1930s Germany
is yes. Are we seeing something similar today, especially in the embrace of a
Trumpist ideology among some in the church? But there are more subtle
expressions of cultural Christianity. Consider for a moment the placement of
the American flag in many of our churches, even rather progressive Mainline
Protestant Churches. Could the flag become a sacred symbol? I find it
interesting as I drive around the community the number of churches flying the
American flag high above any other sacred symbol. Though this isn’t the text
for the day, many churches will recite the Lord’s Prayer, in which we pledge
our allegiance to the realm of God. Does not this prayer require us to place
our loyalty to the nation below our loyalty to God’s realm? Is this not the
message of this passage? [On the Lord’s Prayer, see my book UltimateAllegiance].
While there were those in the
German churches who rejected Nazi ideology, at least when it came to mixing the
ideology with their theology, many were proud Germans who supported their
government. They might not be ready to embrace an Aryan Christ, but otherwise,
they put their heads down and supported their “national interests.” As I read Bonhoeffer,
he believed that this was insufficient. One had to go beyond the theological protests
of Barmen and stake a claim of opposition to Hitler. That opposition, as he
very well knew, could cost one’s life, or at the very least great suffering.
By
the time we get to this point in Luke’s Gospel, Jesus has gained quite a
following among the people. Miracles can do that! It seems that the time had
come for Jesus to do a reality check. Who was really ready to be a true
disciple? Who among his followers was ready to let go of every relationship
that might stand in the way of following Jesus to the cross? Here in Luke Jesus
uses the strong word “hate.” The kind of hate he speaks of here isn’t that
angry emotional hatred that we see present in our political/cultural context.
It’s not a visceral thing. Rather, it’s the act of distancing oneself from all
entanglements with the world. It’s a word about choices and decisions.
As we learn in the parable that
precedes this passage when the invitation to the Great Banquet, which is
symbolic of the realm of God, goes out, those who were initially invited turn
down the invitation because they were too busy to attend. They had better
things to do! When word got back to the banquet host, the host sent out another
invitation. This time the invitation was sent out to those who didn’t usually
get invited to great banquets. The reason the host did this was so that if the
original invitees changed their minds (because their more desirable event had
fallen through) there wouldn’t be room for them. They had their chance, but
they wasted it (Luke
14:15-24). With that parable as the background, to this word, Jesus asks
the crowd if they will accept his invitation or make excuses as to why they can’t.
The question before us is this: if
we’re thinking of accepting the invitation to discipleship, have we done the
math? Have we counted the cost? Jesus
illustrates this step with two brief parables or illustrations. The first has
to do with building a tower. If you’re going to build a tower, you first have
to determine the cost. Otherwise, you’ll run into problems later on in the
project. The second parable has to do
with the decision to go to war. If you go to war, you should have a good plan
for it. Wars are expensive ventures, both in terms of human lives and money/resources.
If you’re going out to face an enemy that has 20,000 soldiers under arms, and
you have 10,000, what is the likelihood of success? Though, if you’re defending
your own country, you might hold off a larger force, at least for a while
(consider Ukraine). In any case (Mr. Putin, are you listening?), if you are
planning on going to war be wise in your planning. Mr. Putin isn’t the only
leader who miscalculated. Consider that the United States went to war in Iraq
in 2003. Many died or were wounded in this war. Billions of dollars were spent
in this war. Although the last combat troops were withdrawn in 2011, the country
remains unstable. We went into Afghanistan shortly after the 9-11 attacks. We
ran the Taliban out of power, but after many years of failed governments, the
Taliban returned to control of the country in 2021. These are the very definitions
of a quagmire. Apparently, we didn’t count the costs! Thus, doing the math
might help in such situations.
So, what are the costs of being a
disciple of Jesus in 21st-century North America? What challenges do we
face? For Luke’s community, even if death wasn’t likely to occur, there were
certainly choices to be made. To follow Jesus likely meant being cut off from
family and friends. In that culture being cut off was like death. What kinds of
suffering will we endure for our confession? I hear a lot of warnings that
Christians are being persecuted by a secular culture, but last I checked the
only “persecution” being experienced seems to be things like bans on teachers
leading their students in prayer in a public school or the inability to discriminate
against LGBTQ people in one’s business. Oh,
and there are the claims made that Christians are being put upon because
Walmart requires their employees to say Happy Holidays instead of Merry
Christmas. Fortunately, the Supreme Court has now ruled that a football coach
can pray before the game at mid-field. I could go on, but you know the drill.
For those of us living in a land that guarantees freedom of religion, as long
as that freedom doesn’t impinge on the freedoms of others (is that not the crux
of the matter, people are upset because they can’t impose their religious
beliefs on others?), then the costs of discipleship are pretty small.
At the same time that American
Christians complain about being put upon by restrictive rules and demand religious
liberty, there are lots of Christians who do face real persecution and
suffering for their faith. We see this in places like China, Syria, Turkey,
Libya, Iraq, and Iran. There are significant costs incurred by the faithful. I’ve
heard stories, for example, of Christians who have lived for centuries on the
Nineveh Plain in Northern Iraq. Many have to choose between forced conversions,
flight, or death. This is only one space where such concerns are present.
So how might we attend to this
passage in 21st-century North America, where the preferred message
for many churches is a dose of self-help messages and feel-good music? Where is the cost involved? Hey, as a
preacher, I’m very happy comforting the comfortable!! It makes life a lot
easier when even the “prophetic” message is received positively (because it
speaks to those other folks, the unrighteous ones).
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