Sunday, September 4, 2022 | 10:00 a.m.

The Challenge and Cost

Shannon J. Kershner
Pastor, Fourth Presbyterian Church

Psalm 139:1–6, 13–18
Luke 14:25–33

In his most recent book entitled Do I Stay Christian: A Guide for the Doubters, the Disappointed, and the Disillusioned, professor and former evangelical pastor Brian McLaren patiently walks his readers through a guided conversation. It is a conversation that honestly wrestles with wondering if what we know as institutional Christianity bears any resemblance to the movement that God in Jesus began, known in its infancy as the Way, implying that discipleship is more a way of life focused on a journey rather than on a destination.

Over the course of the book, McLaren begins to shift the question from “Whether or not I can stay Christian” to “How can I stay human.” He does not offer any answers, per se, but he does speak to the challenge of being a follower of Jesus Christ when the religion of Christianity has so often been coopted by violence, power, greed, and hypocrisy.

Throughout the book, he brings into the conversation the first-person stories of pastors, congregants, and others who paid a genuine cost for their intentional questioning of the Christian traditions that had formed them. And while I imagine most feel the cost was worth it, their struggles exacted a cost on their lives and their spirits nonetheless. Many lost friends, family, jobs, and whole communities of support. Their questions, their open struggles, were viewed as heretical at best, dangerous at worst.

Yet I doubt Jesus is surprised. Following Jesus on the Way has always included challenge and cost, especially when we begin to move outside our expected lane of existence, when we, like the religious pilgrims about whom McLaren writes, step out of our place. We hear both challenge and cost in this portion of Luke’s Gospel today. Now, since we have not been in this Gospel for the last couple of weeks, let’s reorient ourselves as to where Jesus is on his journey.

At this point in Luke, Jesus has already turned his face towards Jerusalem. He has already begun to actively challenge the authorities that would eventually condemn him to death. He has started to teach his closest disciples about the suffering and pain their journey of following him would entail. But in today’s text, Jesus is no longer talking only to his closest friends. Rather, he has turned to face the large crowd who had begun to be curious about who he was and what he was about.

As biblical scholar Scott Spencer has written, at this point of Jesus’ journey, “Jesus refuses to equate mere accompaniment with discipleship, curiosity with commitment” (F. Scott Spencer, Luke: Two Horizons New Testament Commentary, p. 373). Spencer goes on to say, “In this present situation, Jesus sharply demarcates between genuine and pretentious disciples. Before the crowds go any further with him, Jesus wants them to know the hard line they must cross and the heavy load they must carry. Journeying with Jesus Messiah is worth everything they might long for, but it will come at a cost, demanding everything they have” (p. 375).

Indeed, just listen to the harsh language Jesus uses: “Hate your family. Carry the cross. Give up all your stuff.” That is quite a bit to take in. Just consider his first challenge to “hate” one’s family. Now it is useful to know that many, if not most, commentators quickly point out this kind of speech is typical Jesus hyperbole, exaggeration. One of Jesus’ rhetorical strategies was to shock people into listening. We see that often in his parables.

Furthermore, it is useful to know that the word we translate as “hate” did not mean the same thing in Jesus’ day as it does now. Professor Justo Gonzales writes that to “hate” the family did not mean to harbor evil sentiments for them. Rather, the word used for hate meant “to turn away from, to detach oneself from” (Justo Gonzales, Belief: A Theological Commentary on the Bible—Luke, p. 183). Perhaps that’s better? “Turn away from, detach oneself from father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters, yes, even life itself.”

Lutheran pastor and former seminary president David Lose offers an even more nuanced interpretation. Lose argues Jesus preached that for disciples the Reign of God and the way Jesus lived out that Reign of God is to be the priority in our lives. That implies that anything or anyone that keeps us from honoring that priority must be set aside or put in proper perspective (David Lose, “The Cost of Discipleship,” www.workinpreacher.org). Jesus is trying to help us adjust our priorities, Lose might argue.

We also want to remember that in the time of Jesus, family and household were the primary determinants for one’s identity and status (John Carroll, Luke, p. 307). As Fourth Church friend Laura Cheifetz has preached, in that day and time “family or tribal affiliation was everything. Everyone was ‘son of’ or ‘daughter of.’ Entire families converted or [they] didn’t. Families provided access, security, inheritance rights, a way to make a living” (Laura Cheifetz, sermon, day1.org).

Therefore, in its original context, this call that Jesus issued to follow him and to detach one’s self from one’s family was “a radically impractical choice, not simply an emotionally difficult one. . . . [Furthermore, it was a] nearly impossible act in a cultural setting in which [both] contemporary definitions of freedom as individual self-assertion and many contemporary forms of economic support outside one's family system did not exist” (Carson Brisson, Interpretation, 1 January 2007).

Finally, at the time when Luke wrote down his Gospel, people really did have to make a choice between either living peacefully under the Roman Empire or living dangerously as a new Christian (Justo Gonzales, Belief: Luke). Because of that danger, family tensions were inevitably high when one person in the family chose to follow Jesus while another person in the same family simply did not want to make waves. Thus, given all these very real barriers to becoming one of Jesus’ disciples, perhaps his words were not all that hyperbolic after all—either to the original crowd or, even, to us.

But as we consider this passage in its entirety, we might also wonder if Jesus was pointing to something beyond detachment or priority setting, as dangerous as those decisions were to those original followers. What if Jesus was also speaking about our struggle with idolatry: the worship of, the cleaving to, something or someone other than God? What if Jesus was pointing out that we need to be very cautious about the priorities that relationships, comfort and ease, and our stuff have in our lives?

For whenever we cling to something or someone so closely that it blinds us from seeing or loving or caring about anything or anyone else, including God, then we have fallen into the trap of idolatry. We have made that possession or that relationship or that way of life or that job into the thing that defines us, that tells us who we are, and that dictates to us what we are to be about. That is nothing less than idolatrous, because for those of us who continue to try and be Christian, our baptismal identity proclaims to us that only God and God alone defines us, tells us who we are, and shows us in Jesus what we are to be about.

Now, I must admit to you that I cannot wrestle with this text without wondering how Jesus might have phrased this kind of warning against idolatry in our day and time, particularly within the context of our current national milieu. If Jesus stood among us at this moment, might he have said, “Hate your partisan identity or, even, your nation. Carry your cross. Give up your possessions.”

I say that because I do think that we Americans are once again struggling to put our political and national affiliations in proper perspective. We are often allowing them to not only define who we are and what we are to be about, but to define the ways we interact with others, too. We spoke about this last week when we considered what it meant to create a spiritual home with each other that encompassed and welcomed peaceable difference.

Yet as I continue to see the way white Christian nationalism in particular is gaining momentum across our country, I cannot help but hear Jesus’ warnings against idolatry and misplaced priorities screaming in my ears, for that ideology, that theology, runs completely counter to what Jesus taught, preached, and embodied on his Way.

And lest you think I am only speaking this way due to my more progressive perspective, self-identified conservative evangelical Christian Michael Gerson put out an editorial in the Washington Post on Friday that raised the same concerns, though he stated it much more starkly. His editorial was all about the ways that Christian nationalism—a worldview that claims, as Gerson himself phrased it, “this Christian country is mine. You are defiling it. And I will take it back by any means necessary”—bears no resemblance to the teachings of Jesus.

And in response to that very real threat, Gerson asked what might happen if those of us who do try to follow Jesus had an “outbreak of discipleship.” Although this is lengthy, listen to what he wrote: “What might an outbreak of discipleship look like? It would not bring victory for one ideological side or to one policy agenda. Christ did not deliver a manifesto or provide a briefing book. [Rather] he called human beings to live generously, honestly, kindly, and faithfully. Following on the Way is not primarily a political choice, but it has unavoidable public consequences.” Jesus would say it carries a real cost.

Again, Gerson:

Imagine if today’s believers were to live out the full implications of their faith: Instead of fighting for narrow advantage, they would express their love of neighbor by seeking the common good and rejecting a view of greatness that makes others small. Instead of being entirely captive to their cultural background, they would have enough critical distance to sort the good from the bad, the gold from the sand. . . . Instead of being ruled by anger and fear, they would live lightly, free from grudges and ready to offer forgiveness—thus preserving the possibility of future reconciliation and concord.

Instead of turning to violence in word or deed, they would assert the power of unarmed truth. They would engage in argument without slander or threats. . . . Instead of being arrogant and willful, they would approach hard issues with humility, recognizing that even the most compelling principles are applied by fallible [human beings].

. . . Instead of ignoring the cries of the ill, poor, and abused, they would honor the unerasable image of God we see in one another. . . . Instead of giving into half-justified despair, they would assert that there is hope at the end of a twisting road. Even when their strength is drained by long struggle and the bitterness of incoming attacks, they would live confidently rather than desperately, with faith in God’s mercy and hope for a tearless morning.

And then he ends in this way, offering a challenge to all of us who identify as Christian:

Are churches failing to teach an authentic Christian vision to Christian people? Have pastors domesticated the Christian message into something familiar, unchallenging, and easily ignored? Do the dark pleasures of resentment and anger simply have a stronger emotional appeal than the virtues of compassion and self-sacrifice? (Michael Gerson, “Opinion: Trump Should Fill Christians with Rage. How Come He Doesn’t?” Washington Post, 1 September 2022)

I must admit I never thought I would quote so liberally from a Gerson editorial, but I cannot help but hear echoes of Jesus’ challenges to those of us who want to go beyond just being admirers of his, who want to be disciples of his; to those of us who, despite all its flaws and real brokenness, still see in the institution of church the possibility for healing, new life, and flourishing; to those of us who feel called to be both Christian and lovingly, compassionately human.

The truth of our current struggle is that we cannot allow for anything or anyone to try and assert itself as our ultimate concern except for the one we call our Creator, Redeemer, and Sustainer. Not our relationships, not our desire for comfort and ease, not our stuff, not our political identity, not our national identity. God is the only one who defines us, who tells us who we are, and who, through Jesus, has shown us what we are to be about.

Being committed to following Jesus is a costly endeavor. It requires courage and determination. It requires a clear-eyed view of all that might separate us from remembering who and whose we are. And yet, to use words from disciples as recorded in the Gospel of John, to whom else shall we go? For those of us committed to being Christian, Jesus is our way, our truth, and our life, worth every cost. Amen.