Trinity XIV – September 9, 2007

All Saints’ Church – Thomasville, GA

Proper 18C

Deuteronomy 30:15-20

Psalm 1

Philemon

Luke 14:25-35

I’m certain that many of you have Bibles in your homes that have titles above different passages of scripture.  In some ways these titles are helpful because they are usually a one sentence synopsis of what that pericope of Scripture says.  In looking at our passage from St. Luke this morning, almost every Bible that I consulted, which had these headings, titled this passage, “The cost of discipleship,” or something of the like.

What is it going to cost us to follow Jesus as His disciples?

The words of Jesus in today’s passage are hard to hear because they do not sound like they should come from His mouth.

Why do I say that?

Hear again what discipleship costs us:

“If any man come to me, and hate not his father, and mother, and wife, and children, and brethren, and sisters, yea, and his own life also, he cannot be my disciple. And whosoever doth not bear his cross, and come after me, cannot be my disciple.”  Jesus uses a very strong word when he says that we must “hate” those closest to us.  I have mentioned before and will say it again now, one of the most important components of Hebrew/Israelite/Jewish life was the importance of the family.  The family unit was critical in their identity, and now Jesus was telling them to hate a piece of their very existence.  As hard as that was for them to hear, that was exactly the point.

He was saying that placing their identity ahead of its very source and essence was the same as standing in violation of the first three commandments.  Discipleship meant laying that aside for something even greater, even though many could not see what that was.  St. Matthew’s Gospel has a parallel to this passage in which he does not use the word hate, but rather says, and I paraphrase, you cannot be my disciple if you love your father, mother, siblings, etc., more than you do me (cf. Matt 10:37).  St. Luke wants to make it clear that Jesus, in his words to the great crowds that were following him, following him to Jerusalem, will accept nothing but first place in our lives.

Jesus was in fact on his final journey to Jerusalem.  He was going to Jerusalem one last time, knowing that the very reason for His life on Earth was about to reach its climax.

Heaven and Earth were going to collide in a manner that can only be paralleled by Creation and the Incarnation.

In Creation, God reached down, and made out of nothing everything that is before us now.  He made us after His own image, and breathed into our nostrils, the Breath of Life, that only He alone could give. 

In the Incarnation, Heaven came to Earth, in the form of a child, and “God became man, so that man could become God.”[1]  This is a concept known as theosis or becoming like God and the theologian St. Athanasius was one to champion its use and acceptance.  If the words, “becoming like God” sound familiar, they should.  After all, the serpent used those same words in the Garden of Eden when he tempted Eve with the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.

There is one critical difference between the two concepts.

The tempter twists God’s commandment not to eat of the fruit or she will surely die with a promise of being like God.  Satan also tells Eve that she would not truly die if she ate of it.  This twist was to put into Eve’s and our heads that being like God gives us permission to push God out of His rightful place.  We could become like God so that God would be relegated to a position of no longer being seen as necessary.  St. Athanasius on the other hand says that God assumed humanity that we might become God, not of our own doing, but rather, through Him.  Our becoming God or becoming divine only occurs through the indwelling of the Holy Ghost,   Not that we might push God aside, but so that we might know what God intends for our lives.

So that our lives might mirror the perfect image of Father in His son Jesus Christ.  As St. John records Jesus’ words, “He who has seen me has seen the Father.” (John 14:9)

So that we might be restored to right relationship with God as it was before the fall.

So that our lives will be transformed into His image and likeness.

Jesus’ life led him to this point and it pointed straight at the cross.  Jesus is very intentional about telling the crowds that in order to follow him we must pick up our cross and come after him.  This means that it will involve dying to self and our will.

As Dietrich Bonhoeffer said, “When Christ calls a man, he bids him come and die.”[2]  I mentioned at the very beginning that the title given to this particular passage of Scripture in many Bibles is “The cost of discipleship.”  Dietrich Bonhoeffer wrote a classic work by that same title.  One of the overarching themes throughout is the difference between cheap grace and costly grace.  Being Jesus’ disciples requires understanding both terms.  We must reject the first, and embrace the latter.  Cheap grace is what the world is selling, and unfortunately many churches are as well.  It’s grace that requires nothing and expects noting in return.

Costly grace is what led Jesus to the cross.

Hear these words from Bonhoeffer:

“Cheap grace is the grace we bestow on ourselves…grace without discipleship….Costly grace is the gospel which must be sought again and again, the gift which must be asked for, the door at which a man must knock….It is costly because it costs a man his life, and it is grace because it gives man the only true life.”[3]

There are always occasions when we are presented with a situation, and the first question that comes to mind is…

What’s it going to cost me?

When it comes to being one of Jesus’ disciples the answer is quite simple.  It is going to cost us everything.  It’s a simple answer, but one that takes a lifetime to embrace.  It will cost us everything, but the rewards will last for eternity.  Jesus bids us to follow him, take up our cross, and know that it will lead to Golgotha.  Even though true discipleship leads to Good Friday, we know that Easter is the promise that lies beyond the tomb.

We have been called by Jesus to come and die.

When we do just that, we receive the Breath of Life and that is what we need in order to truly live.