What Would Happen If?

Text: Luke 14:25-33

Focus: Community

Function: to help people learn the value of interdependence

²⁵Now 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. ²⁷Whoever does not carry the cross and follow me cannot be my disciple. ²⁸For 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? ²⁹Otherwise, when he has laid a foundation and is not able to finish, all who see it will begin to ridicule him, ³⁰saying, ‘This fellow began to build and was not able to finish.’ ³¹Or 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? ³²If he cannot, then while the other is still far away, he sends a delegation and asks for the terms of peace. ³³So therefore, none of you can become my disciple if you do not give up all your possessions.

Good morning to the beloved Children of God.

I am going to try to wrestle with this very difficult passage of scripture. I wonder what would happen if we took it literally? So, I am going to try to point out where Jesus takes literary license and exaggerates to make a point.

Jesus is speaking to us about our commitment to him and what we historically in the Church of the Brethren have called: “The Cost of Discipleship.”

I have a dear friend in the Church of the Brethren who is pretty modern, like me, in her thinking, but she still wears the head covering and dresses in plain clothes. I asked her about it and she said she was raised in the strict tradition and when she was baptized, to her, it was a part of her vows to dress in a fashion separate from the people in the world around her.

“Count well the cost” was the phrase that she reiterated often as she spoke of what it meant for us to follow Jesus in a world that celebrates selfishness and greed as positive virtues contrary to the teachings of Jesus, the Christ.

I have always wrestled with the translation of the word “hate” in the 26^th verse because we are called to love everyone, even our enemies and the idea of hating them is foreign to the believers ideal living. Don’t take the word hate literally, it is an exaggeration intended to make a point.

And I hope you understand that it is hyperbole. Jesus is speaking about our attitude toward following him in relationship to others and he is telling us to place our devotion to his teachings over our own personal passions and beliefs. He wants us to rethink things through the lens of his teachings.

He wants us to reorientate ourselves to his way of thinking and in order to do that for some of us we have to break with the concepts of selfishness and greed that the world teaches us. We have to allow those beliefs to die inside of us. The concept of dying to worldly values explains the harsh language in the passage.

One cannot successfully follow Christ and idolize one’s own possessions. We have to remember that even when we are blessed and successful because we have worked hard all of our lives and have been frugal, it was God who gave us the ability to do that. God wants us to be humble and believe that God is the one who has given to us our increase.

As believers who pray regularly for God to provide our daily bread, we remember that all that we have comes to us from God. So, to hoard our wealth to the harm of others is sin.

God wants us to be generous with what God has blessed us with.

I see this passage as an attitude check to help us understand a divine perspective about living by faith.

When Jesus tells us in perspective to love his teachings more than our own lives. Again, he isn’t telling us to hate ourselves or anyone else. The whole faith that we have is based on love, not hate. It isn’t: “love in contrast to hate” where we ourselves have to fight evil in a cosmic battle. No, it is love overcoming hate by love’s irresistible power. We believe the cosmic battle is already won and Jesus already defeated sin’s power to destroy and has set us free to love and prosper.

And Jesus said that we love him by following his command to love others. (John 14:15) That is why I say love his teaching instead of loving him. Loving him without following his teachings seems meaningless. Amos 5:21-24 tells us that worship without caring for the least of these is abhorrent to God. If we love God, we will love others also.

I believe that counting the cost of discipleship is an ongoing process and requires us to live lives full of change and redirection toward the divine calling of love.

When I came to Christ, it was through the promise that if I invited Jesus into my heart, I would have a relationship with the God who loved me.

It was a simple answer of faith done on July 4, 1961 by a 4 year old and I when I was telling my parents about it, I realized that I felt Jesus inside of me.

No one told me that I was committing to be a martyr. I didn’t think of taking up my own cross. The idea of making a commitment to allow myself to be martyred for my faith wasn’t something possible for a 4 year old to understand, imagine and consent to.

At 4, what I knew was love, especially from my mom when she kissed away the pains that 4 year-olds feel.

When I came to Christ, I came in order to know and experience the love of God. And my experience has been that God’s love for me and for others and for the whole world has become a life long journey where I see the circle of whom God loves just get bigger and bigger.

So, this is a passage not so much about sacrifice as it is about gaining a perspective on what is important.

I find that in living by faith and placing that one supreme command that Jesus gave in John 13:34 to love others reminds me that God will indeed take care of us.

When the passage concludes he phrase with give up all your possessions, he isn’t speaking of financial stupidity, he is speaking of living by faith in the fact that God is the one who provides no matter what our circumstances are.

Let us rest in God.