Jesus first?
No way! – Luke 14:25-35
Sermon for Pentecost 15 C
Daniel John Ruff
If
I could juggle– and I can't– I would show you just now what the American family
looks like these days. Picture a juggler with a half dozen balls in the air,
spinning several plates on poles. Oh, and while we're at it, let's toss in a
bowling ball to make things interesting. Got the picture? That's a lot to keep
up in the air. And that bowling ball...it's big, it's heavy, and how do you
keep everything else going when you have a surprise like that added?
But its what we do, isn't
it? We have our work or our classes to focus on, we have our families, we have
our homes, we have our friends, we have to take some quality time for
ourselves, we have those jobs – big and little–to get done around home, and
bills, and sports, and vehicles to maintain, and kids to cart this way and
that, and...and...and...is that a plate falling down?
When stuff gets really
hectic, you know what typically is the part of our lives that we let fall
first? I’m just going by survey data here: God. We quit reading the bible, we
quit taking part in Bible study, we quit going to worship services, we even
start forgetting to pray. Why is that? We don’t have time. We’re too busy.
Jesus' words this morning
shock us. They challenge us. They convict us. Because they tell us that God and
Jesus do not simply want to be first in
our lives. God wants to be our lives.
Read what Jesus tells the
gathering crowd of would-be disciples: "If anyone comes to me and does
not hate his own father and mother and wife and children and brothers and
sisters, yes and even his own life, he cannot be my disciple. Whoever does not
bear his own cross and come after me cannot be my disciple. ...So therefore,
any one of you who does not renounce all that he has cannot be my
disciple."
Before we go any further,
let's talk about that difficult word "hate." Hate our families. Hate
our own lives. Even more harsh than a few weeks back when Jesus said he would
bring division in families. What does he mean by this? We probably need to get
past this if we are to understand the rest of what he is telling us.
For me it sounds like an
example of Middle Eastern hyperbole. Hyperbole is exaggerated language to
express strong feelings. It is very common in the Middle East. For that matter,
it is not uncommon in our culture. For example, a teenager describes a concert he has been to: "The whole
town was there!" Or a woman looks
in her wardrobe and says: "I have nothing to wear!" In both of these
cases we don't take them literally, do we? It is hyperbole.
When Jesus says his
followers must if necessary be prepared
to "hate" loved ones and "hate" our own lives, he is
trying to convey the utter primacy of God.
He is not a half-bored philosopher reading a carefully prepared paper to
students. This is shock language. Jesus is a passionate man caught up in a
vision of God's new world, yet already aware that it will cost him loved ones,
friends and life itself.
Please notice that unlike
many hyped-up evangelists, he does not attempt to rush people into making such
a decision. This young rabbi from Nazareth warned them against hasty decisions.
He wanted them to make sure they were willing to take the plunge and see it
through. It is an extreme commitment that he is asking them to consider.
Therefore they should think carefully before jumping in.
The two little parables that
follow are not the words of a slick, religious salesman wanting quick converts.
First there is the man setting out to build an impressive tower. First sit down
and calculate the cost. Can you afford it?
Don't start something you cannot finish. Secondly the parable about a
king going to war. First sit down and work out whether his army is large enough
to win against the enemy. Don't start something you cannot finish.
Becoming a disciple of this
Messiah who has an absolute passion for God is a costly venture. Count the
cost. The disciple must be ready to go
the whole way with the Master. It’s not simply going to church. It’s giving your
life. It’s not even about giving God an hour on Sunday. It’s about being Jesus’
disciple 24/7/365.
The trouble with saying that
God is first in our lives means he is first among many other priorities we have
in life. Life being the way it is, sometimes our priorities shift. And Jesus is
no longer first. I'm busy with work, so I'm sorry Jesus, I'm going to have to
let you go for a while. This appears to have been the case when not a few CEOs
who professed to be Christian have been convicted of some major crimes as their
corporations have defrauded many other employees and stock-holders.
Or let's say you are a
student and you didn't have time to study for a test or prepare a paper and so
you decide that it will be OK to "leverage some answers" or download a
paper (aka. cheating). Oh, it's OK, everybody does it. And what's so wrong
anyway, as long as you don't get caught?
I go through this with
confirmation-age kids who are engaged in the other great American religion,
called athletics. Athletics are more important than everything. All else gets
called off, confirmation class, Sunday School, worship, because sports are one
of those things we put above so much else. Of course, what's more important, a
sport one will participate in for perhaps 8 years, or one’s spiritual growth
and development which will stay with you for life?
I've been reading a book
called The Deserter's Tale, a first-person account of a patriotic
Oklahoma boy who enlisted in the Army, who supported the Iraq War, went to
fight, and was utterly repulsed by the bullying tactics and the out-and-out
savagery of American troops directed toward civilian Iraqis. One of the lessons
he learned in basic training was this: Army first, God second, family third. No
room for Jesus' kind of discipleship here. There was no room for God when the
Army told you to kill civilians. As the title implies, he walked away.
Deserted. His values could no longer allow him continue what the army was
demanding that he do. He died to his unit, his country, and a good number of
his family and hometown.
Discipleship will not settle
for Jesus being on equal footing with family, work, sports, and so forth.
Discipleship demands all. We need to demolish the popular clichés that are
mouthed with virtually Gospel-like authority in "church" circles. The
truth is that the Bible does not summon us to put God first at all; it summons
us to put God only. There is a big difference between putting God first and
putting God only. To understand what I'm talking about, devote some time and
thought to Matthew 6:33, Luke 12:31, and Matthew 4:10
Jesus should not be the top
priority in our lives, Jesus should rule over all our priorities. We
usually encourage people to prioritize so that God is first then make the list
from most important to least important. Rather than prioritize things in our
lives that are important: God, family life, daily work, government, education,
church activities, eating, using money, leisure activities, we need instead to
allow Jesus to rule over all our priorities. We need to let Jesus' way of life
rule in all our priorities – in all of our life and livelihood.
At a wedding years ago I
used an illustration that I caught a little criticism for. I don’t really
understand why. It involved a plate that was sectioned off, so that each part
of the meal had its own partition and the foods couldn't run together. I
proceeded to assign a part of our lives to each section: spouse, family, work,
church, recreation and so forth. Then I said, you will notice that I did not
assign God a section. Because he is not just a section of the plate. He is the
plate. I think that if every marriage, as well as every work-place, school,
home, sports team, and whatever else makes up your lives, remembered this, we'd
have a lot better marriages, families, work-places, athletic programs, and
school systems. Because then they would be guided by a spirit of service and
sacrifice, not by our ego-driven selfishness.
This whole section has
stressed what makes one unable to be a disciple: not hating family members; not
bearing one's cross; not "counting the costs"; not giving up
possessions. On one hand, Jesus makes it very difficult to be his disciple. It
will cost us everything and we need to know that before "jumping" in.
On the other hand, might Jesus be reminding us how impossible it is to be his
disciple on our own abilities? When we confess, "I can't," then we
are open for God's "I can." With human power it is impossible. But
with God, all things shall be possible.
So what would happen if we let Jesus rule over each and every part of our lives? Might we actually start living like Christians? Then the world would know we are Christians by our love—the love of Christ living in us and working through us.
Amen.