Sermon 17th March 2013

Today, Ben Hughes preaches - based on the reading from Luke 14 verses 25-33.

The Cost of Discipleship

I think that today’s reading is one of those, ‘Have you seen my pet tiger?’ kind of stories. The elephant in the room story, a scorpion in a shoe story, a wasp under the vest, a hippopotamus in your luggage, a tic under the skin, a mouse in your glove-box, a whale in your bath, a snake in your handbag, a stonefish in the fruit bowl, a giraffe in the fridge, a cat in your engine.

It’s one of those stories that you read in the Bible that is inconvenient in the least, and outright ‘salt in a wound’ at worst’!

It is the kind of story that as comfortable Christians you might not wish to hear!

Or you could say on the other hand – it is Jesus is at his best … turning the world upside down, as Cameron illustrated last week … Jesus making himself most unpopular with the authorities of the day.

Hate your parents, though – ‘did I hear that right?’ you might ask.

Just to be really clear: Jesus probably didn’t hate his family or reject or abandon them.  We heard last week from the passage in John’s Gospel that Jesus instructed John to take care of his mother. Jesus would not have said this if he hated his family.

Jesus is talking about something else, and I think it is right to say that the word hate as we might understand is not the point that Jesus is making. I hope that is clear. I wouldn’t want you to leave today with the idea that it is right to hate anyone especially those that you should honour and love!

Even so it is still a challenging passage to read and a tricky one to understand so here goes!!

The cost of discipleship!

Have you ever started something that you cannot finish? I know I have!

There was a great article in the Guardian where people wrote in about their procrastination. My favourite was woman who started painting her kitchen. Fifteen years later it was still half painted with the pots and brushes still left out. Another man in work-avoiding an essay had learned to play the trumpet, play golf, read the collected works of Shakespeare. He still had not written the essay and had failed to his degree in the process!

You probably have your own stories your own experiences of procrastination. I know I have!

Jesus says if you’re going to follow me, do not give up half way!

That is the quite straightforward bit to understand.  It’s the other bit in our reading about the things that we love and particularly Jesus’ command about our families that is the tricky one and is the challenge.

Let’s just say: your life is all going to plan. You have it all under control and you believe you have it sorted. You’re a good person, you go to Church, you are a pillar of the community; you pay your taxes, love your family and do everything that is right for them. You keep all of God’s commandments and obey his laws and you have prospered well and you feel safe! Nobody can touch you! 

Then Jesus comes along and says to you, ‘Sell all you have and follow me’.  And he goes further still, and  says … ‘If you love anything or anyone greater than you love me … even your own family, then I am afraid – like salt that has lost its saltiness - you are useless to me’!

And that dear friends is what the Church calls – ‘the cost of discipleship’.

Or is it? Is that what Jesus really means? Are we to take it to take it literally? Hate your parents, your family? Give up everything in an apparently irrational way?

Perhaps we can read it as: being prepared to give up everything? Or does it mean … just those things that are binding you and blocking your spiritual growth, like an addiction perhaps? Or does Jesus mean those things that you think you have control over? Your family? I.e. those things that we think we control are in fact controlling us? Or is it about those things where we say to God: ‘That’s far enough – you do not cross that line please! This is my jurisdiction!’

You see, when we are presented with such a passage as this we do begin to scratch around looking for ways out, we procrastinate because we are uncomfortable and it is pretty strong, and partly because we want to understand what Jesus is really saying to us. There is a lot to lose!

The first thing we might learn, that wherever we are in our faith the best thing to do is to keep going. Stick at it, don’t give up.

Giving it all up? The cost of discipleship!

Well, to walk away from everything you hold dear and love is a very hard thing to do. And it is not a decision to be taken lightly.  To sell all you have in a sudden random way is unworkable, unrealistic and impractical. If you have ever attempted to de-clutter, it takes time and planning to strip a life of its possessions. Yes, you could suddenly lose everything in an unfortunate gas explosion or war as the poor Syrians are suffering at present; but that is not the same as making a planned decision to completely change your life direction. 

I have met people who have given up prosperous careers, sold houses and even gone against their parents’ advice to serve Jesus. For example, I met a city banker who after becoming a Christian left his job, his penthouse flat, sold his Ferrari to work with street orphans in Nairobi and Kampala because that is what God told him to do.

I still know a lady called Pauline who gave up her job as chief radiographer at the Middlesex hospital, gave her house to St John’s church, Ealing and now works as a missionary in the Middle East. She is really happy and fulfilled. It was her calling and God gave her the means to fulfil it.

But you might say, ‘Great stories Ben, that‘s not for me’. Fair enough! ‘That is not my calling’, you cry! ‘I am still waiting to hear – From God?’  Fair enough.  In the meantime then … what do we do? Well, we wait in expectation!

The second thing we might learn is that cost of discipleship starts with being prepared and listening!

Jesus also says: ‘understand that what you are taking on in serving me. It will mean trouble and persecution for you, do not be under any misapprehension, you will be rejected and like me’ he says, ‘and have to face what I faced.  Be prepared to go to your own Calvary. Prepared to chase your own cross!’

But as I said earlier, Jesus is God’s son and God is love – Jesus is love, tough love maybe, but it is the love that counts.

The cost of discipleship seems harsh, but in Christ it is measured in love and you have to look to eternity to see its real end.  And in the meantime, as many of you know, might be unbearable in the moment but as God’s promises hold, the reed may bend but it will never break. God will not allow that and in Christ His son we have a voice to plead on our behalf. And in that … be ready to keep going.

We are also flesh and bone.  God knows that, He made us in his image! – He knows that you need to eat, you need to be warm, and you need education, you feel pain and God knows that we will pass away. You need His protection and love beyond that. I must reiterate Jesus is not saying hate anyone. Jesus is telling us to put God first and be prepared to lose everything in this life to gain eternal life in the next.

The thing that Jesus wants us to do is place everything at God’s feet including families and friends, possessions and worries … How do we do that … prayer and covenant? God cares about all our needs and knows what they are before we ask! If objects become a burden, give them away! Don’t let anything come between you and the eternal gift of life!

So the third lesson might be to keep praying at all times.

Also we need to remember that when Jesus says hate your parents he is saying it in the context of the cost of discipleship.  He is also having a massive dig at the Pharisees and their love for hierarchies and inherited status. Jesus is rocking the pillars of their temple again. He is saying, ‘You’re not automatically saved through your mother’s blood … you’re not saved through your birthright! On the contrary you must hate where you come from if your identity is to be in God. You cannot be born of both flesh and spirit. It is the birth in the spirit and not the flesh that is the beginnings of real life!’

‘Birth in me’, Jesus says, ‘Not your blood line’. Give that up he warns if you want eternal life!

You see, Jesus says you cannot buy eternal life, you cannot earn it, you are not it, in fact you are nothing in yourself, and neither can your greatest achievements save you. Only by grace can you enter, only by grace can we be saved! You cannot bat both ways – love me and the world will hate you for it. This is the cost today, but persevere because the prize is eternal life in Christ. And what a prize that is!

So our fourth lesson! It’s so worth it: eternal life in Christ forever!!

Finally I feel I have to say this on Jesus’ point regarding family!

Sadly for some of us … families are not always happy places. Not necessarily happy memories … or pleasant experiences. Some children’s experience of home and family is so bad it is unmentionable.  Jesus is unique in what he says about the realities of family life. I cannot think of any other religion, political creed or adult organisation that does not speak of the family as an ideal or Holy Grail or some kind of perfection! But who is there then to speak up when it goes wrong we ask?

Jesus of course! That is one of the reasons I personally believe!

When you have suffered, been hurt and broken by the experience of home and parents! Where can you turn, who is there to help, who is on your side, who can listen?

Jesus of course!

When things go badly wrong and the world cannot help. We call on God to help in prayer, acknowledging our weakness, He can then move into our lives in a way no one else can. 

His Power made perfect in our weaknesses!

And in these times where we call on God becomes the process of rebuilding, reforming that is slow making of us as individuals in Christ – separate and independent from your earthly families.  And of course it is often painful. The pain of reforming and re-branding in God.  Like the refiner’s fire … will involve certain disassembly and recasting. And that process continues as we walk in Christ – more banging, melting down, filing and shaping to forge us in the people God wants us to be! It is a cost but what an end result!

Now like many of you, I am a parent and know that I will make dreadful mistakes. My children might need to hate me so that they can find their own faith and independence. I hope not – but if that is what is necessary then I will have to trust God hard as that might be. As Christians the cost is always apparently high and the risks apparently great! But God is a God of love and we have to always hold onto that hope.

At the start of this sermon I posed some possible interpretations of this challenging passage. I think the one that I want to emphasise and conclude with, is this: that we should be prepared to lose everything to Christ in joyful expectation. We must be prepared to hear his call. It might not happen but if we are prepared and ready, so be it. It very well might be a hard mean time – the in-between time as such but God will one give us the means by his Spirit and Grace to forbear any calling and He will honour us for anything that we have given up or sacrificed in His name. 

The cost of discipleship in Christ therefore is forbearance, preparation and a willingness to follow Christ even unto death. On the other hand not to is even more painful and ultimately it is terminal to live for yourself. So being on the path of righteousness … is to keep going, stick at it, pray constantly and be ready for Christ’s call on our lives each day, now and for evermore. Amen.