Sept. 9, 2004 (Jimmie Johnson)


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 one 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 the terms of peace. So therefore, none of you can become my disciple if you do not give up all your possessions.

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President Thomas Jefferson once wrote his own version of the New Testament. He didn’t believe in miracles. Since he didn’t believe in miracles, he had a problem with many of the accounts in the New Testament. So, what he did was edit out all the miracles. He took his scissors and cut out all the stories of Jesus and miracles and published a “miracle free” New Testament. He didn’t believe in Jesus as a miracle worker. He was a good Deist. A belief in miracles would violate his assumptions about God and nature.

Well, the truth of my soul this day is that as much as I am intellectually uncomfortable with a supernatural, interventionist God, who seems according to some texts to reward faith by pulling a rabbit out of the hat, and as troubled as I am by the miraculous events in the gospels, I can much easier believe in a miracle-working Jesus than I could ever believe myself capable of the kind of discipleship called for by Jesus in these verses from Luke. Hate my family, give away all my possessions? There is no way I am ever going to do such things. I’ve spent my whole life around the belief of prioritizing my family first. I’ve spent my whole life with the belief that a parent provides for the needs of his or her family. I’ve spent my adult life running from the poverty of my childhood. I know from firsthand experience there is nothing good or desirable about being poor.

Turn my back on my family, give everything away. No way. No, I am not capable of ever doing either. I’d rather edit this kind of text out of the accounts of Jesus. As intellectually challenging as miracles are, that difficulty dwarfs compared to the difficulty of me believing I could ever do anything like what Jesus teaches in this text from Luke.

Oh, there are easy solutions. Preachers know the tricks of the trade. One trick is to skip over these hard sayings. Never read them in worship. Pretend you didn’t see them. Just focus on the texts that present a Jesus that makes us more comfortable. Present the Jesus who talks about abundant life. Use the abundant life texts like in John 10:10. Yeah, everyone likes to hear Jesus say, “I have come that you might have life and have it more abundantly.” Everyone likes the teachings of Jesus which make us feel good and comfortable.

Another approach is to deal with these texts by spin doctoring them. Preachers simply spin the words of Jesus to make him sound less radical and extreme, to make him sound like a Jungian therapist, or to make him sound like a spiritual director who really doesn’t mean what he says.There are tricks that preachers know when it comes to passages like this one. They can make him sound like he is doing therapy with a dysfunctional family system. There are ways to spin the words so that Jesus is not a tiger with claws but a tame tabby.

But, the problem for me is: I believe he meant what he said. And if I am to have any self respect and deserve any respect from you, then I’d better tell you Sunday in and Sunday out what I believe the truth is whether or not I want to say it or hear it. It would be so much easier to preach the “abundant life Jesus” or the “John 3:16 Jesus” sent by God to love and save the world and give everlasting life. But the truth is Jesus also said a lot of things I can never do or believe if by believe you mean the walk and not the talk. Now I can do “Jesus talk” all day. I can hold my own if faith is simply “Jesus talk.” But if faith is Jesus walk, then no, I don’t follow him very far before I start falling way back in the crowd.

Did you notice the story opens with Luke stressing the size of the crowds that were showing up at church. It sounds as if the church wasn’t big enough. Luke tells us they could not count everyone in attendance because there were too many people in the service. Their television and newspaper ads, the wonderful programming for children and youth, the loveliness of their buildings, the ability of their preacher to tell a good story, the ability of the choir to put on a good show, the well-known community leaders who went to that church, the church’s location in a growing area--it all was working. There were large crowds.

Then Jesus goes and knocks it all down by telling us to turn our backs on our families and give away all we have. And then he tells two short but blunt stories about counting the cost before we so easily say “Yes” to him and his cross. If taking up my cross means abandoning my family or taking the vow of poverty, then I am going to tell you the truth of my soul—I’ll never do those actions. I’ll never have such allegiance and loyalty to Jesus and his mission. This text will always stand over against me.

The only one I know capable of such behavior was Jesus himself. He left his family to go to the far country to find us. He set aside the relationships, the extended family of origin and the inner circle of friends. He gave away everything he had in order to be lowest on the totem pole. He descended into hell. I believe he did all that for us, but I believe I never will follow him that closely.

I’ll never choose to bear that cross if it means leaving behind all my loves and all I have. Why not just tell the truth rather than pretend or spin the verses or ignore the verses? Here’s my one response to these hard sayings of Jesus: “Lord, I believe you meant what you said. Lord, have mercy. Christ, have mercy. Lord, have mercy.”

Next time someone tries to “save you.” Next time people try to get you to ask Jesus to come into your life, ask them if they turned their backs on their families, ask them if they have given away everything in order to follow. Tell them “Sure, I’ll get ‘saved’ like you say, but one thing first, show me the balance in your checkbook.” If it is zero and they show a lot of checks written to help the poor, you might want to go ahead and listen. As for me, I’ve never met such a cat. I know what is true for me and I suspect true for all of us. On our very best day of putting Jesus first in our life, we are still 9/10's fake, including all those people trying to “save us.”

When the journey of Jesus ended, when Jesus finally arrived at Jerusalem, how many people were standing at the foot of his cross? The correct Jeopardy answer is: What is “zero?” Uh-huh, Jesus was all alone. The large crowd had disappeared. Only he is capable of living up to his talk with the walk.

No, thank you, I’ll never think the Christian life is about my decisions for Jesus. The Christian life for me is always and only about what God decides to do in Jesus for us. “Lord, have mercy. Lord, have mercy.” If there is not more mercy in God than sin in me, I have no hope of ever being a Christian.

Jesus’ words to us this morning are not intended for mentally ill people who hear the words about hating and assume literalness, who hear the words about giving away and find themselves hooked up with a con man. Jesus’ words are for crafty, cunning, calculating, cautious guys like me who need to be shaken to the core by a Jesus in our midst who brings the threat of newness, deep change, and massive transformation.

 

 

 


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