|
|
Are You All in for the Gospel?
Luke 14: 25 – 33 |
|
|
|
||
|
Summary
Are You All in for the Gospel? Alex McManus is a church consultant who holds training events for people who sense a call from God to launch new communities of faith. For several years now, he has promoted those events with this invitation: “Heroes wanted for a quest to save the universe. Safe return doubtful.” In that statement, McManus captures two elements of Jesus’ central message: mission and cost. Those two elements are present in Jesus’ words about discipleship in our reading, but to really hear and understand what Jesus was saying, we have to remember that Jesus was on his way to Calvary, death on the cross and resurrection from the dead. Without that understanding, we simply hear Jesus’ words as a call to a life beyond our reach or maybe even to an undesirable one. Is there anyone here who wants to embrace a view of life where family members, including spouses and children, are hated? Is anyone here who can imagine what it would mean to completely renounce and give away all of our possessions? Yet if we walk away from this passage today with only these two questions in our mind, we will have missed the true strength of Jesus’ words. That’s because in these passages Jesus reminds us of the Gospel’s call to the only true life worth living — a life of full commitment to God’s mission as a follower of Jesus. Counting the cost The main focus of Jesus’ words in our text is the cost of being a disciple. Verses 28-32 contain two parables that Jesus uses to help his audience recognize discipleship for what it really is, and that is a truly transformative experience. The parables call Jesus’ hearers, and us as well, to take a new look at their understanding of wealth, family and self-preservation. The parables expressively communicate the riskiness of following Jesus without making a full assessment of the cost. The assumption is that no one wants to be a builder whose grand design ends in mockery for lack of preparation. No one wants to be a king whose supposed military power wilts in the presence of a greater force and ends in surrender. So the next question is “How do we fully prepare to be a disciple of Jesus?” When we ask ourselves that question, we will hear this scripture passage as an invitation to a bold and daring new way of life. The answer is challenging and one that undermines our cultural norms for attaining advancement and security. Jesus’ words must be understood in light of his journey to Jerusalem. Verse 25 tells us that Jesus is traveling. But Jesus is not simply going about his itinerant ministry around Palestine. His movement is intentional and has an end in mind. Since Luke 9:51, Jesus has been on the road to the cross. In the NRSV Luke 9:51reads “set his face to go to Jerusalem, in the King James it reads “he steadfastly set his face to go to Jerusalem, the NIV reads, “he resolutely set out for Jerusalem.” In other words there ain’t nothing getting in his way. So his words about discipleship are spoken with the cross looming ahead. In the text today, verse 27 declares that disciples by definition are cross-bearers. So, to live as Jesus’ disciples, we need to embrace the cross as a central value in life. This does not mean wearing a cross as jewelry or as a tattoo or displaying stylized crosses as pieces of art. We must resist all attempts to romanticize the call to bear the cross or to spiritualize it in terms of some form of self-denial. At its core, Jesus is reminding his would-be followers that God’s mission is advanced by women and men who embrace the cross as a call to die upfront so that they can follow him into places where only “dead” men and women dare to go. God’s mission through Jesus is a bold and daring one. There can be no mistake on the part of his disciples that it is a life-altering and future-transforming call. Our culture screams, “Look out for #1. Protect your own interests. Market and promote yourself.” Jesus’ call is the opposite: Embrace the cross. Find life by willingly giving your own away for the sake of God’s mission in the world. Renouncing of allegiances Jesus fleshes the cost of discipleship by describing a new personal identity for disciples, an identity rooted in the challenging language of hatred for family. In Jesus’ day, your network of family and clan represented your primary set of allegiances in the world. The call to follow Jesus, however, cuts against this understanding of life. Jesus’ disciples are marked by an all-encompassing allegiance to Jesus the Messiah that transcends all other relational bonds — including family, ethnicity, socioeconomic status, political affiliation and social connections. So, the language of “hate” is not literal in the way that we commonly employ it in our day. For Jesus’ audience, to turn your allegiance from family was the same as to hatred. Finally, Jesus concludes our text with a statement about possessions. Preacher Robert Tuttle is known to say, “The last part of a person to be converted is his or her wallet.” A person’s possessions tell much about how a person understands status. If we are to count carefully the cost of following Jesus, we must embrace a status void of possessions. I am not condemning owning things. But Jesus’ disciples are not defined or limited by the size of their bank accounts or the amount of stuff that they possess. This text calls us to relinquish freely any appearance of status for the sake of God’s mission. Arguably, the status that we embrace establishes the limits of our ability to reach others with the Gospel. Appearances of superiority or class may puff us up, but they negate our witness as followers of Jesus. A concluding call In sum, this text asks us, “Am I all in for the sake of the Gospel?” If you’ve ever met a true surfer-fisherman, you have likely observed their commitment to and passion about fishing. Surfer-fisherman love to fish. They will cut class, take vacation days from work, or call in sick for the chance to wade out into the surf for the chance to catch a really big one. Yet one of the most common questions asked of surfer-fisherman by fisherman is not, “How was the fishing?” but “Aren’t you afraid of getting attacked by a shark?” It’s a natural question; anyone who has ever dipped a toe into the ocean or watched the movie Jaws has probably at least fretted for a moment over the possibility of encountering a shark. But given the obvious fun that surf-fisherman have, the question about sharks misses their point of fishing. Surf-fisherman fish because it is intrinsically satisfying. When a person hooks a really big one and feels the power of the fish for the first time, he or she will never be the same again. Surf-fisherman don’t worry about sharks because they are more interested in catching the next fish than they are in worrying about a potential meeting with a sharp-toothed predator. Our text today calls us to a similar counting of cost versus gain. Following Jesus Christ into the world on a mission is the highest expression of human life. It is the life that each of us was created to live and experience. But this calling and mission has costs. It demands that we reassess and realign our values, our priorities and our very lives with those of the Gospel. Our highest calling is no longer defined by allegiance to family, clan or culture. Our reason for living is not simply to survive. Our worth is not measured by our bank accounts or possessions. These all become secondary to God’s mission. This text reminds us that God’s call is to live for a kingdom bigger than ourselves. It begins with the decision to follow Jesus Christ. Ask yourself: What if following Jesus Christ were the only true way of living the life that I was created to live? What is keeping me from being “all in” for the Gospel? |
||
