September 8: Luke 14:25-35

Teachings on the Way to Jerusalem

Luke 14:25-33

"ALL or NOTHING" 

September 8, 2013

            Though not technically the case, summer is now over, the fall is here and it feels like time to really dive back in together.  Just past the end, what you might call the fall season of Luke, we read the following, “Then Jesus went through towns and villages, teaching on his way to Jerusalem…”

            For the next 3 months we’re going to walk with Jesus through these towns and villages and be taught by him.  Some of these teachings, like the one today, will be shocking while others, like next week will likely be comforting.  But all, it is my hope, will lead us to be more faithful followers of the one who loves us more fully than any other. 

Luke 14:25-33

     25 Large crowds were traveling with Jesus, and turning to them he said: 26 "If anyone comes to me and does not hate his father and mother, his wife and children, his brothers and sisters-- yes, even his own life-- he cannot be my disciple. 27 And anyone who does not carry his cross and follow me cannot be my disciple. 

     28 "Suppose one of you wants to build a tower. Will he not first sit down and estimate the cost to see if he has enough money to complete it? 29 For if he lays the foundation and is not able to finish it, everyone who sees it will ridicule him, 30 saying, 'This fellow began to build and was not able to finish.' 31 "Or suppose a king is about to go to war against another king. Will he not first sit down and consider whether he is able with ten thousand men to oppose the one coming against him with twenty thousand? 32 If he is not able, he will send a delegation while the other is still a long way off and will ask for terms of peace. 33 In the same way, any of you who does not give up everything he has cannot be my disciple. 

     34 "Salt is good, but if it loses its saltiness, how can it be made salty again? 35 It is fit neither for the soil nor for the manure pile; it is thrown out. "He who has ears to hear, let him hear."

            It is coming up on that time of year again, time to nominate people to be elders and deacons.  Let me illustrate how this sometimes goes.

            Ring, ring.  “Hello,”

            “Joe, this is Mary.”

            “Hey, what can I do for you?”
            “Well, I’m calling on behalf of the nominating committee.”

“Uh Oh.”

“Yep, its that time of year and I wanted to let you know (fumbles around for some paper) ‘that after much prayer and discernment you have been selected to be nominated for the office of ruling elder.” 

“Mary, I’m honored, but I just don’t know if I have the time for it right now.”

“Joe it’s not really that much time, just a few hours a month.”

“Yeah, but I also don’t feel like I’m quit a good enough Christian to do it.”

“None of us are Joe, but God’s grace is bigger than us.”

“I don’t know, can I think about it?”

“Sure, but please say yes Joe, cause everyone else has said no and we really just need someone to fill the slot.”

“Okay, I’ll consider it. God bless.”

“Good bye.” 

Now imagine a second scenario.

            Ring, ring, “Hello,”

            “Joe, this is Mary.”

            “Hey, what can I do for you?”

            “I’m calling on behalf of the nominating committee.”

            “Great, was I nominated for deacon or elder?

            “As a matter of fact you were nominated to be an elder.”

            “Wow, I’ve been praying about this and feel like its time I stepped in to do a little more with the church.”

            “Great, we like that attitude, but before you say yes, let me just ask you a few questions, are you ready?”
            “Sure, go ahead.”

            “First, do you hate your parents?”

            “What?  No, of course not.  I love them.”

            “Hmm, well that’s too bad, let’s try another one.  Do you hate your wife?”

            “We have our struggles but I really do love her, surely that counts for something?”

            “Yep, it counts against you.  0 for 2.  How bout your children do you hate them?”

            “Are you telling me I’m supposed to hate them if I want to be an elder?”

            “I’m just following the words of Jesus.”

            “Well I guess I could say there are times when I’m really really frustrated with my kids.”

            “Good enough, we’ll mark it down as ½ a point.  Now you have a brother don’t you, do you hate him?”

            “Oh yeah definitely.”  

“Okay, next question.  If called upon, are you willing to die?” 

“What kind of position is this?  I thought I’d just have to run a committee or something.”

“I’ll put that as a no.”

“Finally, will you give up your house, your car and all of your money?” 

“Give it to the church?”

“Well that would be fine, but the question just says to give it up, it doesn’t say to who.”

“No, I’m not…what is this, some kind of cult?”

“No, but that concludes the questions and I have to tell you Joe that it doesn’t look to good for you.”

            Not being the chair of the nominating committee I can’t with 100% certainty say that either of these conversations have ever happened, but my guess would be no.  But if one were to be more likely, my guess is that it would be the first because the second one is ludicrous, right?  What kind of person asks his followers to hate he parents, his spouse, her kids and their siblings?  What kind of person asks their followers to be willing to die by means of public execution?  What kind of person asks their followers to give up all of their possessions?  And who in the world would ever say yes to such a thing?

            Tell me if the following questions sounds familiar? 

“Who is your Lord and Savior?”    

            “Will you be Christ’s faithful disciple, obeying his Word & showing his love?”

What kind of person would ask this?  Jesus  Who would say yes?  All of those who have been baptized in his name.  So what are we to do with this passage?

Traditional ways this is taught

            Interpretation 1 is that of Ancient hyperbole.  The other night at the dinner table Janie said something like, “I’m so hungry I could eat anything.”  To which Will replied, “Would you eat bananas?” “No (since Janie hates bananas).  Would you eat fish eyes, “No!” Would you eat toilet paper?  At this Erin intervened and explained to our literalist elder son that Janie was using a literary technique called hyperbole which is when someone exaggerates to make a point.  Apparently, not only Janie, but Jesus as well as many others of his day used this technique.  So, when Jesus says we are to hate our family to be his disciples he doesn’t mean we should literally hate them, rather they should just be put in their proper order below God instead of above. 

No doubt there is truth in this interpretation.  Since in other places Jesus tells his disciples that the core of the law are to love God and love your neighbor of which our family is undoubtedly included, then this would be a contradiction.  In 1 John he tells his readers, that “Anyone who says they love God but hates his brother is a liar…”  Clearly Jesus isn’t saying we should literally hate our family.  Therefore the invitation is to get things in the proper order.  This is an interpretation that leans more on grace.  This is one reading.

            Interpretation 2 is that of Radical discipleship.  In this interpretation Jesus is calling his followers to literally leave their families as well as their possessions to follow him.  In addition he is literally calling them to be willing to die for and with him.  This interpretation is supported by the fact that the disciples do leave their families, their nets and boats and jobs and in the end all but one end up dying martyrs deaths.  And so, radical discipleship invites us to do the same.  Some have done this throughout the years.  One version of this is found in the monastics who leave their families to join an order.  In radical discipleship the invitation is to simply do it, no matter how hard.  Jesus was a radical and to be his disciple means we will be as well. 

            I tend to think that both of these interpretations are true to a degree, but I wonder if there isn’t a third interpretation that might help us stand in the middle of the see saw to live in what my friend Dave Hillis calls “the extreme middle.”

 

When all or nothing makes sense.

            To get at that answer, let’s turn this around for a moment.  In this passage Jesus says that those who wish to follow him must hate their mother and father…

            When we traveled to Tennessee we flew which means we had to go through airport security.  When we got to the agent we gave him our boarding passes and IDs.  He looked at the IDs at me and then at Erin and then asked, “Who is Jane?”  She boldly stepped forward and said, “That’s me.”  The agent then asked, “Who are this person?” Pointing at me.  “That is my dad…sometimes.”  “Sometimes?” the agent asked, “what do you mean?”  “Well, he’s only my Dad when he wants to be, all the other times he’s just this guy named Ken.”  Fortunately Janie left off the word sometimes and we sailed through security.  But imagine for a second if she hadn’t, not only would we have likely been taken into a room for questioning, but think of how hurt I would have been.  “Really Janie, you only think of me as your dad sometimes?”  Are we only disciples of Jesus sometimes?

            Those who wish to follow me, Jesus continues, must hate their spouse and children.  I’ve probably done a dozen weddings in my career and in every one there is a place during which the couples make their vows to one another.  So far in every case those vows have sounded something like,

“I Joe take you Alice to be my wife. I Joe take you Alice to be my wife.  

I promise to love, honor and cherish you from this day forward,

I promise to love, honor and cherish you from this day forward,

forsaking all others as long as we both shall live.”   

forsaking most others as long as we both shall live.”   

           Imagine the look on Alice’s face when Joe said such a thing.  Most?  Most others?  “Yeah,” Joe says, “there are over 3 billion other women in the world and I’m forsaking most of them, isn’t that good?”  “Well which ones aren’t you forsaking?”  “Just a few… there’s my old girlfriend and I’d also like to leave my options open with the checkout lady at Fred Meyer, I think she’s into me and then a couple of other people, but that’s all.”  Is there any chance Alice would stand for such a thing?  No, Alice wants Joe to forsake all others for her.  Do we forsake most other gods for Jesus?

            There are times when all or nothing makes sense.  The same can be said for being sons and daughters, brothers and sisters.  Being a parent, a sibling or a child is not a part-time job.  It involves all of us for life.  If such is the case for our human relationships, would it not be with our relationship to our creator?  Jesus wants all of us…all.  Yet, we balk at this and I think I know why.

           

The nature of possessions

At the end of the passage Jesus summarizes his call to discipleship by saying, “So therefore, none of you can become my disciples unless you give up your possessions.” (NRSV) u`pa,rcw is the Greek word translated as “possessions.”  It appears a number of times in Luke (such as 12:15 “...a man's life does not consist of the number of things he possesses.”, 12:33 “sell all that you have...”, 19:8 Zacheus offers to give up ½ his goods…”) and in each case it refers to things that are at one’s disposal (Neuchterlin). 

And this is typically how we think of possessions isn’t it?  They are the things that are mine that I use when I want.  I possess a car so I can get where I want.  I possess a house so I can sleep, have privacy and be safe when I want.  I possess a shirt so that I can wear it when I want.  I possess these things.  But an interesting thing happens with possessions, subtly, so very slyly, our possession can possess us. 

My shirt gets a spot on it and it causes me anxiety or even angry because it is no looks like I want.  The transmission goes out on my car so I have to spend significant money and time repairing it which leads to considerable frustration and anxiety over how it effects my budget.  My house needs the yard mowed, the gutters cleaned, a new toilet installed and I’d like to put a new ceiling in the kitchen… On and on it goes with these things capturing all of my time, attention and resources until that which I thought I possessed is in a way possessing me.  “Where your treasure is,” Jesus says in another passage, “there your heart will be also.”  Jesus wants/needs to be our treasure if this whole thing is going to work. 

Two pictures

            We tend to have one picture of this invitation.  It involves us standing in front of our house, our family, our car, perhaps a boat, our bank account and our calendar while Jesus stands in front of us.  We like Jesus, we want to be on his team and so we begin to offer him some of our stuff to be on that team.  I’ll give you 5% of our income, but Jesus shakes his head and points to the calendar.  We offer one day, but he says he wants two.  He then points to the boat but we shake our head until we compromise to balance our use of the boat with taking needy teenagers skiing once a year.   And on and on the bargaining goes til Jesus has some of our time, our treasures and our talents.  Being a disciple of Jesus is a negotiation, it is painful, we lose things in the bargain, but ultimately it’s like having fire insurance.  But there is another way of looking at Jesus’ call.

            In this second picture we are swimming in a lake, well swimming is a bit of an exaggeration.  We are actually struggling to keep our head above water not because we aren’t good swimmers, rather because we have ankle weights wrapped around our feet.  Not only that, our legs are caught in net.  Not only that we have a cramp in our side.  We are doing all that we can to keep our heads above water to take another breath.  Fortunately, along comes a boat with a person who reaches down their hand and says, “take my hand and I’ll lift you out.”  Shockingly to the rescuer we reply, “Can I just give you one finger?”  “No the rescuer replies, I need your whole hand to pull you out.”  “How about a finger and a pinkie”  “The rescuer is incredulous, “Look do you want live or not?”  And we reply, “Let me think about that for a minute.”  Such a story is ridiculous and yet, this is more like what we do when we refuse Jesus’ invitation to become his disciple.  Yes we are giving something up, but we are receiving life…real life…eternal full life. 

            We hear Jesus call to hate our family, ourselves and be willing to die a painful death and think it is outrageous.  We want to give Jesus some of our life say Sunday mornings from 10:00 to 12:00 or 1 minute before we eat or 5 minutes in the car.  We’ll give a bit, but Jesus says no, I want it all.  Excuse me if this analogy is offensive, but Jesus is like the hooker played by Julia Roberts in Pretty Woman.  When Richard Gere offers her money, a house and even to be his mistress she says no, “I want the fairy tale.”  Jesus doesn’t want a fairy tale, he wants a kingdom tale and we should see this invitation as one into that world.

Kids and Old folks

            Jesus invitation to follow him might seem impossible or at the least very very hard.  But I assure you, that it in fact is pretty simple if not easy.  There are two groups of people who know this very well; the old and the young.

Do you remember the good rainstorm we had on Thursday.  Will had soccer practice that evening and to my surprise the coach did not cancel.  Erin took all three kids to the practice and then I met her there towards the end.  She along with some other parents was standing under covered ground while the kids practiced in the rain.  In between the two was Benjamin in shorts, a t-shirt and Thomas rain boots all soaked because he was not only running around in the grass but also rolling around in it and splashing in every puddle he could find.  What he was not doing was thinking about how his hair looked, the mud on his shorts, whether the stock market was up or if he was going to get into a good pre-school.  Instead, he was fully enjoying God’s gift of rain.  He had given up everything else to enjoy God.  The really young know what it means to let go of everything.  Is this not why Jesus said, “Anyone who will not receive the kingdom of heaven like a child will never enter it.”  (Mar. 10:15)   Children know how to enter God’s kingdom but so do the elderly.

 Over the last week I’ve had conversations with a few folks who are nearing the sunset of their lives.  This sunset has brought about the loss of certain parts of their lives.  First it was driving, then long trips, sometimes reading and then sometimes even walking.  As Tom Loran used to say, “This getting old ain’t for sissies.”  It was in one of these conversations that I had the realization of what is happening in the aging process.   Slowly, bit by bit, God is removing all that we think we possess.  We start losing it physically as early as our 20’s with hair loss, then skin tightness and so on until our hearing our sight and so forth goes away.  But not only these physical things but also relationships, friendships and family those we thought were ours, are taken and on and on it goes until the final thing that we thought was ours our life, is taken as well.  And in our view this is sad, which is true, in one sense.  But not another, for though we have lost all we thought we possess, we will find ourselves found by the one who possesses us.  Every human journey is made toward this destination, sometimes we embrace it while other times we resist, but in either case the destination is the same; full possession by the one who created us.  Our church forebears had a way of summarizing this in the answer to the question, “What is our only comfort in life and death?”  “That I belong – body and soul in life and death – not to myself, but to my faithful savior Jesus Christ…”

The way out… 

            We live, mostly, in between these two times of childhood and old age and so the question really is what will we do with the time in between?  We can live to possess things and people.  Or we can live to be fully possessed by God in a way that leads us back to our brother and sister, mother and father, spouse and children to see them as the gifts that they truly are.  This, I believe, is the path of discipleship with Jesus; to be fully loved by him that we might in turn fully love all that God gives us.