“Counting the Cost”
Luke 14:15-23
Mark 10:26-31
So here’s something you may not know about my worship-planning and sermon-writing process:
Sometimes when I read the lectionary passages for a particular Sunday, my heart sinks. It sinks initially because, when the sayings of Jesus or one of the Hebrew Bible prophets come off as particularly extreme or potentially unreasonable, I’m afraid I will have lost you before I’ve even opened my mouth. That you will close your hearts and minds immediately after hearing the scripture reading.
I hope and pray that’s not what has happened just now—even though I understand why it might. Being told that to follow Jesus we have to “hate” our families and leave our lives and possessions behind sounds cruel and cult-like. It’s the kind of Jesus saying that tempts me to skip over the Gospel reading and look for something a little less off-putting and a lot more uplifting.
But here’s the thing: Because I don’t believe that Jesus really wants us to hate our families, and because I believe the gospel really is good news, scripture passages like this challenge me to dig deeper and pray harder—to listen for where and how God is still speaking through these ancient words. Sayings like this challenge me to try to discern what they might have to say to us here and now.
So, because this passage is so difficult, I consulted more commentaries than I sometimes do. To be honest, I was hoping they would say that “hate” was a mis-translation of some obscure Greek word or other—but they didn’t.
The closest thing I found to “don’t hate, and worry about the cross” was one commentary that suggested that throughout much of the Gospel of Luke, Jesus is using “provocative hyperbole” to get people’s attention and make his point. And still, there’s all that business about giving things up and counting the cost of following Jesus, which suggests that it’s not all exaggeration. Jesus does, in fact, seem to be warning that following his way is serious and potentially dangerous business.
But many commentators—and many of us—have a hard time believing that Jesus really expects us to give up so much of what we hold dear. Surely he doesn’t expect us to leave everything and everyone to follow him, we think. Others suggest that we not get too literal about the words “hate” or “possessions.” A possession can be more than stuff, after all; it can also be the ideas, values, and ambitions we hold dear.
In the end, many commentaries suggest that Jesus must mean no more than that we can’t be overly attached to other people or things or ways of being, we can’t let anything or anyone keep us from loving God with all our heart, mind, soul, and strength.
And, even though that’s not a whole lot easier than leaving it all behind, as soon as we feel an explanation of something is good enough, we tend to stop trying to more fully understand what it means. We sort of let ourselves off the hook.
&p; nbs;A more interesting theory, this one proposed by the theologian and writer Barbara Brown Taylor, says this lecture of Jesus is meant to serve the same function as biochemistry for would-be pre-med majors; it will weed out those who aren’t up to the task. Maybe, Taylor suggests, most of us aren’t meant to be disciples. Maybe the highest calling is only for extremists of the faith—saints and nuns and the like—while the best path most of us can achieve—or might want to achieve—is to be “friends of the disciples,” people who follow Jesus with something less than their whole heart, people who have family obligations and other types of callings that require them to live a somewhat conventional life while also trying to follow Jesus.
That makes some sense to me—but I can’t forget all the times Jesus said he wants us to know the fullness of life. Given that, I have a hard time imagining him suggesting that we settle for anything less.
And that’s part of what I want to say about this passage: Like any other other—every other—part of our scriptures, we must read it and understand it in the context of the whole. And the whole of Jesus, the whole of the gospel, the whole of God . . . is love. Other big parts of the gospel are mercy, kindness, and healing poured out without measure on all people; life restored and renewed; everyone brought into the ever-widening circle of God’s love.
Does that mean that following Jesus is easy? Does that mean there’s nothing to consider?
I don’t think so. I don’t think we should ignore the “counting the cost” part. This is not a foreign concept; rather, it’s something most of us are familiar with. Even Jesus uses an example from the business world. You wouldn’t set out to build a tower, he says, without figuring out how much it would cost and how long the project would take, right? Well then, in the same way make sure you know what you’re in for before you call yourself a Jesus follower.
Don’t forget Luke was writing in the context of persecution of the church.
And part and parcel of this idea of counting the cost is the notion of choice, the reality that sometimes—most often, in fact—we can’t have it all. We have to count the costs, and we have to choose which costs we’re willing and able to pay.
Pursuing one dream, for example, will require us to forsake other paths. Being true to our sexuality or gender identity might cost us, at least temporarily, the love of some family members or friends—even as it brings us a peace and joy we’ve never known before. Falling in love is fantastic—but it carries some risk of heartbreak. And getting serious about living out our faith can—especially these days, and especially here in the Happy Valley—lead some of our friends and family members to leave us.
In the end, I approach these Jesus sayings much as I do other difficult teachings. Because I trust that there is, somewhere within them, some good news, I find it helpful to turn them around a bit. Instead of thinking of them as commands or warnings, I choose to think of them as invitations.
And in this case, I think Jesus is inviting us to figure out who we are and what’s most important to us. At the same time he’s inviting us to consider the potential costs of following his way of controversial, community-building love and the nonviolent resistance of evil. At the same time, he’s inviting us to consider the potential costs of not following him, of letting our lives be ruled by self-interest, greed, control, and alienation from our neighbors and the earth.
Here’s something else you may not know about my worship-planning and sermon-writing process: I sometimes choose to include a scripture reading that is not part of this week’s lectionary readings, often for context or because it deepens and enriches the meaning of other readings.
And that’s what I’ve done today with our reading from the Gospel of Mark. You see, when I was in college, I left the fundamentalist church of my upbringing, which is to say the fundamentalist church of several generations of my family. I didn’t leave Jesus—in fact, I left my family’s church to get closer to Jesus and justice—but the result was the same: My family left me for a time. My parents disowned me for a time.
And during that time this passage from Mark was a comfort to me. Truly I tell you, Jesus says, there is no one who has left house or brothers or sisters or mother or father or children or fields for my sake and for the sake of the good news who will not receive a hundredfold now in this age.
And that was my experience.
You see, friends, the cost of discipleship is only one side of the “follow Jesus” coin. The other side is the blessing of discipleship—grace upon grace, peace that passes understanding, life abundant, beloved community, and joy everlasting.
Let’s count the cost, sure. But let’s also remember to count our blessings.
