I was not in the pulpit this weekend. This is a sermon I delivered three years ago on the 23rd Sunday of Ordinary Time, September 5, 2004, at Genesis Presbyterian Church in Austin, Texas.
Scripture: Luke 14:25-33
Let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable to you, oh Lord, my rock and my redeemer. Amen
Over the last ten weeks of Ordinary Time we have been on the road with Luke as Jesus travels from Galilee to Jerusalem. In this time Jesus has been welcomed and rejected. He has commissioned and he has welcomed back the commissioners. We have been with Jesus as he has taught and healed in the synagogue and in homes. He has welcomed the outcast and rebuked the powerful. We have seen humility and hypocrisy. We have joined Jesus for meetings with Pharisees, publicans, and prostitutes. We have heard him speak of love, grace, and forgiveness. We have seen Jesus in action and we have heard him teach with authority. So by this time it is no wonder that there is a large crowd following him.
Because of the way Jesus turned and spoke to the crowd I will make two assumptions about it. First, I suspect that there were true believers in the crowd, those who believed they were ready, come what may, when they reached Jerusalem. But I am just as sure that there were people who followed because it was a great crowd.
Sensing the time was right; Jesus turns to the mass of followers and announces what it takes to complete the journey, what it takes to be his disciple. He begins by telling the crowd that to be his disciple they must hate their families and their own lives. And he ends by telling the crowd that to follow him they must give up all of their possessions. I can only imagine this must have come as quite a shock to the crowd.
When I entered the seminary, one of the supplementary textbooks for Introduction to the Old Testament was Michael Joseph Brown’s, “What They Didn’t Tell You, A Survivor’s Guide to Biblical Studies.” This book offers twenty-eight “rules of thumb” for seminarians. Some of the information was useful, some wasn’t. But one of the rules has stuck with me like a stone in my shoe. Rule number ten says, “The Bible means what it says, and says what it means. Except when it doesn’t.” Luke’s discourse on hating family proves the value of this rule of thumb.
The original language of the text is an idiom, an expression unique to the culture. Fortunately for us, the parallel in Matthew’s gospel expresses what Jesus said in a way we can better understand. The disciple records Jesus saying “Whoever loves father or mother more than me is not worthy of me.” While it is probable that Jesus said what was written in Luke’s gospel, its meaning is better expressed in English the way it is rendered in Matthew’s.
Either way, Jesus calls for a radical realignment of priorities. What has been acceptable in the past… is no longer. Anyone who is not ready to make the sacrifice Jesus demands… follows at their own peril. The law isn’t changing, but its interpretation in Christ is new and different.
This is an example of scripture meaning what it says, except when it doesn’t. It’s not that we have to hate, loathe, despise, and scorn, our families and our lives. Rather it’s that to follow Christ we must love the Lord our God more than we love our families and our lives. In its place, Jesus put discipleship above all other obligations. We knew all along that Jesus did not abolish the law; but it is difficult to understand that from this passage.
The last sentence in this lesson was difficult for many in the crowd to hear then, and to us may seem even tougher for our culture. Jesus tells the crowd none of them can become his disciple if they do not give up all their possessions. Jesus doesn’t offer any wiggle room here, this is not an idiom. Just as we are called to put Jesus above all human relationships we are called to part from all things for the sake of discipleship. This reading points to a renunciation of all possessions as a part of the radical realignment of our lives. To be a disciple of Jesus, we must put Him above everything.
Jesus goes on in this lesson to warn us about what will happen should we fail. If we cannot bear the cost of discipleship, we stand to be mocked just as the builder is ridiculed when unable to finish building a tower. Downtown, across the street from Republic Square, at the corner of Fifth and San Antonio, stands the skeleton of what was a major construction project. Austinites know this corner; some know it more personally than as just an urban eyesore. It is technically known as AN-2. Locals know it as the “Intel Shell.” What was to be a major player on the city’s high tech scene is now a carcass, an icon for the bursting of the high tech bubble.
But its incompletion is more than a cautionary tale of what can happen when economic conditions go bad. It’s an example that Jesus was right, those who can’t finish what they start will be ridiculed. To make this point, the Austin Chronicle held a contest for what should be done with the empty shell. My favorites include a bird and bat sanctuary/guano factory with observation area. The simplest suggestion came from a man who wants to raise a banner covering the north and east sides of the building, overlooking what would have been a lovely courtyard—overlooking what is now a field overgrown with weeds—a banner announcing “No Intel Inside.”[1] Builders who are unable to finish will loose money and face, but this is not the end of the world.
The other cautionary tale, the one about waging war, is even more dire. Jesus warns that those unable to wage war successfully against another should send ambassadors to discuss terms of peace. While the first example is embarrassing, the results of this one are grim. If peace cannot be made, the advancing force will wreak havoc devastating life and property.
But I skipped one verse, and this sentence is the hinge pin between the two parts of this section. “Whoever does not carry the cross and follow me cannot be my disciple.” We know we have to put Jesus first, above all other people and things. And we are warned about the results of following without being fully engaged in the way. But what does it mean to carry our cross?
Theories abound. Some New Testament language scholars see bearing the cross as the beginning of discipleship. We do in our lives as Jesus does on this journey. Others compare this to taking on a yoke, its mantle representing the horizontal piece of the crucifix. Others attribute this phrase to a popular expression which was originally applied to the zealots and later to Jesus’ followers; perhaps as a sort of curse or rallying cry. Some believe it has militaristic characteristics.[2] But there is one theory I find most interesting.
In ancient Israel, the Greek letter “Tau”, our letter “T.” was worn by some as a cultic marking, a sign of protection and possession. After the crucifixion, the Tau was related to the historical cross of Jesus as a seal of possession in Christ.[3] While scholars do not think that this was in the mind of Jesus, perhaps it was in the mind of the community that wrote this gospel. Now, don’t worry, this is not a call for tattoos for the people of Genesis and the body of Christ. The Tau is a sign, a symbol. Symbols communicate action; they do not perform the action.[4] We use another symbol to communicate this action.
We carry the cross in the waters of our baptism. As some took the Tau was a symbol, we accept the water and living wet as the sign that we rise and die and rise again with Christ. As Jesus called the followers to take up the cross daily, we are called by our confessions to improve our baptism.[5] In our baptism we accept Jesus’ call to faithfulness, rebirth, and covenant into the body of Christ.[6]
This year on a rainy Easter Sunday, the Reverend Doctor Ellen Babinsky began the service of the Lord’s Day by saying that it was a damp Easter morning and that in our baptism we are called to live wet. The morning was rainy and sloppy. We were never promised that living wet would be tidy; on the contrary, living wet is frequently sloppy. It calls us to forsake people and things that we might otherwise be attracted to. But if we do not fully commit to the life of discipleship in the water and the cross we stand to inherit the dangers of ridicule and worse.
In 1993, Honor Books published “God’s Little Instruction Book, Inspirational Wisdom on How to Live a Happy and Fulfilled Life.” What the book does is couple little insights with scripture. I got to admit, a lot of it bothers me. (To repeat one of my professors, “I don’t do cute.”) For example, they write, “There is a name for people who are not excited about their work—unemployed.” This isn’t a pastoral thing to say, especially to someone whose livelihood depended on the completion of the “Intel Shell.”
Another is “the best way to forget your own problems is to help [solve someone else’s].” While this is not inappropriate in many circumstances, this advice would be a disaster for people with mental health issues. Sometimes, trying to help solve someone else’s problems could make matters worse for both.
When the authors remind us “If at first you don’t succeed, try reading the instructions,” I just hope the instructions don’t contain an idiom that has to be interpreted first. This is the problem with aphorisms. These guides to a “happy and fulfilled life” are so glossy that when forced to bear the weight of the cross they dissolve like sand castles. The way of the discipleship is more dear than these simple sayings.
Last weekend in the Olympic Marathon, Cornelius Horan, a defrocked Irish Priest, entered the marathon course in its twenty-third mile and pushed race leader, Vanderlei de Lima, into the crowd. Mr. Horan was wearing a sign which said, “The Grand Prix Priest, Israel fulfillment of Prophecy says the Bible.”
Horan calls himself the Grand Prix Priest because in July 2003 he ran onto the course of the British Grand Prix; staying on the track for more than 20 seconds, nearly being hit by several cars which had to swerve dramatically to avoid hitting him. Eventually he meandered close enough to the edge of the track for an official to grab him and take him away. That day Mr. Horan was carrying a sign saying, “Read the Bible—The Bible is always right.”[7]
As for me, I believe that the bible is always right; it’s me that gets things wrong. There are things we don’t understand and there are things we won’t understand. What we must understand is that we are called to live in community, in the assembled body of Christ, living wet, and bearing the cross.
Fortunately, we have the perfect role model for this relationship. We have the example of Jesus who as a person teaches us how to relate to one another with humility, love, grace, and forgiveness. We have the example of a God who models the perfect relationship; existing as one in three in an eternal dance of being in community. When we live wet, when we bear the cross of Christ, then we are able to follow and be his disciple. Amen.
[1] Intel Building Design Contest Winners, Austin Chronicle, May 11, 2001
[2] Kittel, TDNT, Vol. VII, page 577-578
[3].Ibid.
[4] Lewis, C. S., Screwtape Letters, The, page 125.
[5] Book of Confessions, 7.277
[6] Book of Order, W-2.3004
[7] ESPN.com
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