Crucial Choices
March 14, 2010 – Douglas Scalise
Luke 14:25-33
Meaningful things in life usually come with a cost; including being a student or disciple of Jesus. You can’t be a disciple of Jesus without making some crucial choices that come with a cost. Listen to Luke 14:25-33.
“Now large crowds were traveling with him; and he turned and said to them, ‘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.
Whoever does not carry the cross and follow me cannot be my disciple.
For 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?
Otherwise, when he has laid a foundation and is not able to finish,
all who see it will begin to ridicule him, saying,
‘This fellow began to build and was not able to finish.’
Or 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 who comes against him with twenty thousand? If he cannot, then, while the other is still far away, he sends a delegation and asks for terms of peace.
So therefore, none of you can become my disciple if you do not give up all your possessions.”
[powerpress]Have you ever made a commitment to an organization or committee without first finding out all that would be expected of you? Of course that has never happened to anyone here at BBC. We don’t want to make the mistake of making following Jesus sound as if it is a superficial, easy commitment. “Now large crowds were traveling with him.” In today’s scripture, Jesus is speaking to a large, enthusiastic crowd who seem totally unaware that he is going to Jerusalem and to the cross. Jesus is saying to those who would follow him, “Think about what you’re doing and decide if you are willing to stay with me all the way.”
Jesus wants his followers to be clear about what being his disciple truly means. Following Jesus as his disciple is a crucial choice we all make both at one key time of surrender and commitment, and untold times after that in our daily living. The dominant emphasis in this passage is found in the three times Jesus basically says, “Whoever does not…cannot be my disciple.”
Jesus says redefining our family relationships, bearing one’s cross, and forsaking our possessions are part of following him. Discipleship requires redefining or renouncing who we are and what we have. Let’s look at each of these three demands by Jesus.
‘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.
Jesus is saying is that following him takes precedence over and redefines all our other relationships. Let’s be clear, Jesus’ ethic of love makes it unthinkable that we should hate or despise our own family. “To hate is a Semitic expression meaning to turn away from, to detach oneself from. There is nothing of the anger or hostility we experience in the expression, ‘I hate you.’ If that were the case, then verse 26 would cancel all the calls to love, care, and nourish especially one’s family (1 Tim. 5:8) found throughout both Testaments.”[1] What Jesus is getting at is the fact that if we are followers of Jesus that will influence and impact all our relationships, including those in our family. “In the book, The Aladdin Factor, Jane Nelson tells the story of receiving a call from a frantic single mother who was caught in a real power struggle with her fourteen-year-old daughter. The mother had found a six-pack of beer in her daughter’s closet, so when her daughter came home she said, “Okay, Maria, what is this?”
“It looks like a six-pack of beer to me, Mom,” her daughter answered.
“Don’t get smart with me, young lady. You tell me about this,” said the mother.
“Well, I don’t know what you’re talking about,” the girl replied.
“I found this six-pack in your closet, young lady. You’d better explain,” her mother continued. Maria thought fast and said, “Oh yeah, I was hiding that for a friend.” “You expect me to believe that?” asked her mother.
Maria gets mad and stomps off to her bedroom and slams the door.
Does any of this sound familiar to any of you?
When the mother called for advice, Jane Nelson asked,
“Why were you so concerned with finding a six-pack of beer in her closet?”
“Because I don’t want her to get into trouble,” the mother answered.
“I understand that,” Nelson replied, “but why is it you don’t want her to get into trouble?” The mother replied, “Because I don’t want her to ruin her life.”
“I understand that,” Nelson replied, “but why is it you don’t want her to ruin her life?” Finally the mother got it. “Well, because I love her,” she said.
“Do you think she got that message?” Nelson asked.
The answer is, “Of course not!”
“What do you think would happen,” Jane Nelson asked, “if you started with that message? If you were to start with, ‘Honey, I love you so much that I got scared when I found this six-pack of beer in your closet because I’m afraid you could get into trouble. Could we talk about this?”
In this approach, you start by being vulnerable instead of conducting an inquisition that inevitably leads to denial. Starting from the position of love and vulnerability is more likely to evokes closeness and trust, so that the other person can open up and work together with you on some kind of solution.”[2]
God starts a relationship with us through Jesus from a position of love and vulnerability to evoke closeness and trust. We love because God first loves us. Because God loves us, we can trust Jesus will not lead us astray.
Jesus’ love for us is revealed in how he speaks to us and the concern Jesus has for us that we faithfully live out the life God has given us, rather than squandering or ruining it. A growing relationship with Jesus makes us more loving, kind, and patient with others and may actually improve our relationships with our family members, but there may also be a time of challenge as well.
Following Jesus is a crucial choice in which our relationship with him takes precedence over and redefines all our other relationships.
The second “Whoever” in Luke 14 is, “Whoever does not carry the cross and follow me cannot be my disciple.” There is often some confusion around what Jesus means by carrying the cross. Carrying a cross is not so much things like a chronic illness, painful physical conditions, or difficult family relationships. These are more like trials that we have to cope with and respond to in faith as best we can. Carrying our cross is what we do voluntarily as part of our commitment to Jesus. Cross bearing involves deliberate sacrifice and exposure to risk in order to follow Jesus. As disciples we follow another person and learn a new way of life recognizing that following Jesus is a marathon, not a sprint. Like a marathon runner or cross country skier, a Christian’s discipline requires long, lonely work done in all seasons, with little attention from others. There are quiet personal battles that go on unseen everyday.
Watching the Winter Olympics a couple weeks ago, Jill and I were amazed at how the cross country skiers would push themselves to the point of utter exhaustion, often collapsing to the ground as soon as they crossed the finish line. You could see it all over their faces and in their posture as they climbed the last hill before the downhill toward the finish. Bent over, mouths gaping, muscles aching, yet they pushed on. All of us are going to hit our own hills when our cross feels too heavy to go on another step. In the Olympics, the cross country skiers at least have the benefit of knowing when they are going to have to face a hill. They also had coaches and supporters at key points on the course – cheering and yelling encouragement. In life, unlike an Olympic ski course, we don’t know exactly when we will turn a corner and find ourselves staring up a hill that we’re unsure if we can climb.
When the hill is whipping us, when we need encouragement and confidence, we can remember God is with us, we’re following Jesus who has set the pace, and there is a cloud of witnesses cheering us onward. The two parables Jesus tells in Luke 14 explore the questions, Are you sure you wish to follow me? Is the price more than you are willing to pay? Consider in advance what the commitment requires. A farmer deciding whether or not to build a tower in a vineyard to watch against thieves and foraging animals has a similar decision as a king trying to determine whether he should go to war or negotiate a peace. Rich and poor, powerful and peasants, Christians and churches have basically the same decision to make when faced with a major expenditure of time, money, property, or life itself: Does this cost more than I am willing to pay? In discipleship, the enthusiasm for beginning may be there, but do we possess the resilience and resources to carry through to the finish. Jesus says, “Whoever does not carry the cross and follow me cannot be my disciple.”
Finally, Jesus says, “So therefore, none of you can become my disciple if you do not give up all your possessions.”
Basically that means, everything we have must be given up to Jesus for his use. No possessions may possess us more than our commitment to following Jesus. For some people a redirection of time and energy is required, for others a change in the conduct of our personal relationships, in vocation, or a commitment of financial resources; but for each of us the call to discipleship is all consuming. Jesus wants those who are completely sold out to following him, working with him and for him, struggling onward no matter how difficult the challenge may be. Jesus wants followers who trust him enough to say, “You are my leader, I trust you and will follow you in my relationships, in whatever cross you have shaped and chosen for me to carry, and in surrendering all that I have and all that I am to you and to your service.”
At some point we all have to choose whether anyone or anything is going to influence us more than our commitment to following Jesus. Once there was a war between animals and birds. Bat was on birds’ side. In the first battle the birds were badly beaten. As soon Bat saw that the battle was going against them, he crept away, hid under a log, and stayed there until the fight was over.
When the animals were going home, Bat slipped in among them. After they had gone some distance, they saw him and asked one another: “What’s this? Bat is one of those fought against us!”
Bat heard them and said: “Oh, no! I am one of you; I don’t belong to the birds. Did you ever see a bird with double teeth? Go and look in their mouths and see if they have. If you find one bird with double teeth, you can say that I belong to the birds. But I don’t; I am one of your own people.” They didn’t say anything more; they let Bat stay with them.
Soon after, there was another battle; in that battle the birds won. As Bat’s side was being beaten, he slipped away and hid under a log. When the battle was over and the birds were going home, Bat went in among them. When they noticed him, they said: “You’re our enemy; we saw you fighting against us.”
“Oh, no,” said Bat, “I am one of you; I don’t belong to those animals. Did you ever see one of them who had wings?” They didn’t say anything more; they let him stay with them. So Bat went back and forth as long as the war lasted. At the end of the war, the birds and animals held a council to decide what to do with Bat. Finally they said to Bat: “From now on, you will fly around alone at night, and will never have any friends, either among those that fly, or those that walk.”
Bat’s failure was the inability to make a commitment and to stick by it, regardless of the cost. In Luke 14, Jesus makes it clear he doesn’t want part-time disciples or partial commitments. Following Jesus is a crucial choice in which our relationship with him takes precedence over and redefines all our other relationships. Following Jesus is a crucial choice in which we choose to take up our cross and carry it through to the finish of our life. Jesus says no possessions are to possess us more than our commitment to following him. We have to choose if we are going to listen to and follow Jesus above everyone else, or not.
C.S. Lewis wrote in his classic Mere Christianity that, “Every time you make a choice you are turning the central part of you, the part of you that chooses, into something a little different from what it was before. And taking your life as a whole, with all your innumerable choices, all your life long you are slowly turning this thing into a Heaven creature or into a hellish creature: either into a creature that is in harmony with God, and with other creatures, and with itself, or else into one that is in a state of war and hatred with God, and with its fellow creatures, and with itself. To be the one kind of creature is Heaven: that is, it is joy, and peace, and knowledge, and power. To be the other means madness, horror, idiocy, rage, impotence, and eternal loneliness. Each of us at each moment is progressing to the one state or the other.”
Be careful about the choices you make.
[1] Fred Craddock, Luke, Interpretation Series, John Knox, Louisville, 1990, 181.
[2] William J. Bausch, A World of Stories for Preachers & Teachers, Twenty-Third Publications, Mystic, CT, 1998, 228-229.