I spent most of Labor Day weekend at family camp, but I returned home to preach Sunday morning at Christ the King. This week’s readings are Deuteronomy 30:15-20 and Luke 14:25-33. Sources I found helpful are cited in the sermon text below.
You can watch the full livestream of the service, or listen to just the audio below.
How many of you went to a parade this summer?
The only one we made it to was the Fish Days parade. I appreciated the shoe car, although I have to say, compared to small town Iowa parades, there was a notable lack of tractors and combines. But it was still fun—Micah loved seeing the firetrucks and cars.
Most of the time, parades are on holidays, but sometimes they’re held in honor of someone coming back from an achievement, like soldiers returning from war, or a football team coming back from winning the Super Bowl. Sometimes there’s something like a circus parade to get the whole town excited for a special event.
In today’s gospel reading, there seems to be a bit of a parade going on following Jesus, but I’m not sure the people involved really know what kind of parade they’re in.
Jesus at this point is on his way to Jerusalem, where he knows that lurking beneath the adoring, cheerful crowds are enemies looking for an excuse to silence him. I don’t know if he knows the details of what’s coming—betrayal, arrest, crucifixion—but he knows the danger.
He knows the end of his earthly ministry is near. He knows what’s waiting for him in Jerusalem, and he’s even warned his disciples.
Five chapters ago, he told them bluntly, “The Son of Man must undergo great suffering and be rejected by the elders, chief priests, and scribes and be killed and on the third day be raised. Then he said to them all, ‘If any wish to come after me, let them deny themselves and take up their cross daily and follow me.’”
But even so, the crowds don’t understand what’s coming. They’re following him with joy and enthusiasm, because he’s been working miracles, healing and feeding people, proclaiming the good news that God is at work in the world. Jesus is a celebrity, and his fame’s spreading!
A few of these followers have been with him for the long haul, like the 12 disciples and some of the women in the group, but most of them are probably only with him for part of the journey. They’ll follow him from one village to another, then go back home for the night. For most of them, this trip to Jerusalem feels like a circus parade. Only Jesus knows it’s the beginning of a funeral procession.
Most of these people have given no thought to the cost of following Jesus, and in this bit of the story we have today, he tries to clue them in. If you really want to follow me, Jesus says, you need to hate your family, even hate life itself, in comparison to me. Following me, he warns them, means taking up a cross. It means abandoning your life for my sake.
Whatever you might say about Jesus, he doesn’t sugarcoat his message in order to make it more popular!
This isn’t something to get into half-heartedly, he cautions, because if you follow me all the way, your life will change. He’s trying to warn them off.
In a very practical illustration, Jesus points out that if you start a project, you need to be prepared to see it all the way through. Before declaring war on your neighbor, figure out if you have the strength to win.
And in case they still don’t get it, he says becoming a disciple, following him all the way, requires giving up all your possessions. When you really want to scare people off, hit them in the pocketbook!
Following Jesus is a big commitment. Being a disciple isn’t something you can do part-time, just on the weekends. There’s a cost to coming on this journey of faith with Jesus.
Dietrich Bonhoeffer, in a book called “The Cost of Discipleship” put it this way: “When Christ calls a [person], he bids them to come and die.” That’s pretty blunt.
The road Jesus is on will lead him to Jerusalem, where he will be killed. From what we know from history and tradition, all the disciples but John will eventually be killed for their faith.
I don’t know how much you know about Dietrich Bonhoeffer himself, but he’s probably the most famous Lutheran of the 20th century.
As a pastor in Germany, he became increasingly concerned with the Nazi rise to power, and when much of the Lutheran church sadly accommodated Hitler and tried to work with him, Bonhoeffer broke away from the main church and was a leader in the “Confessing Church” movement.
He wrote this statement about Christ bidding a person to come and die in 1937, as the Nazi agenda was becoming more clear. In 1939, he traveled to America where he had previously studied, but amazingly, he left on the last scheduled ship to cross the Atlantic as war broke out, going back to Germany to, as he put it, “share the trials of this time with my people.”
From the safety of America, Bonhoeffer wrote in a letter to Reinhold Niebuhr:
“I must live through this difficult period in our national history with the people of Germany. I will have no right to participate in the reconstruction of Christian life in Germany after the war if I do not share the trials of this time with my people… Christians in Germany will have to face the terrible alternative of either willing the defeat of their nation in order that Christian civilization may survive or willing the victory of their nation and thereby destroying civilization.” (source)
Back in Germany, Bonhoeffer became active in the anti-Nazi resistance movement, and in 1943, he was imprisoned. He was hanged in 1945, just two weeks before his prison camp was liberated, executed for being involved in a plot to kill Hitler. There is a cost to following Jesus.
Most of us will never be called to the kind of radical public action Bonhoeffer engaged in. But if we’re going to follow Jesus on this journey, we should realize it will change us. Following Jesus changes our priorities, our goals, how we see other people, and how we see ourselves.
The first reading from Deuteronomy describes a choice set before God’s people, a choice between life and death, blessings and curses. The call is to choose life by following the Lord’s commands.
And that’s the right choice to make. Choosing to follow the Lord’s commands, choosing to follow Jesus as a disciple ultimately leads to life, eternal life, the blessings and prosperity Deuteronomy describes. It sounds like a pretty clear, obvious choice.
But, Jesus warns, that choice has a cost. Jesus doesn’t want to be just a small part of your life on the same level as going to work, or school, extra-curriculars, remembering to tune in and watch when the Badgers or Packers are playing. Faith is not intended to be just another entry on the calendar when you have time.
Being a disciple means putting Jesus first. When Jesus starts saying being his disciple—being his follower—requires carrying a cross, we need to pay attention. Remember, a cross is not just a symbol—it’s a literal instrument of death. Carrying a cross means you’re a criminal on your way to your execution. It means you’ve done something that’s made someone upset enough to want to kill you.
Jesus says the cost of choosing to follow him is your life. Discipleship is not something you can do in moderation—it changes who you are. You’re not likely to be killed today for being a Christian, but it will consume your life. We sang earlier, “Lord, I give you control; consume me from the inside out.” Do we really want that?
Following Jesus means not following our own path. Giving up all our possessions to follow Jesus means, well, not having possessions.
It means recognizing that everything we have, everything we think we’ve earned, everything we think we’re entitled to, is really a gift from God, trusted to us to be used in doing God’s work.
I heard a Jewish parable this week that connects to this story (source): A large, multi-cabined ship sets sail across the ocean. A passenger whose cabin is on the lowest level of the ship decides to dig a hole in the floor of his cabin. Sure enough, the ship begins to sink.
When the other passengers realize what’s happening, they rush to the man’s cabin. “What are you doing?!” they yell. The man looks up from the hole and says, “It’s my cabin. I paid for it.” And down goes the ship.
Following Jesus as disciples means letting go of the things we think we own, the things we think we deserve. It means letting go of everything we cling to that is not of God. Following Jesus means being part of the body of Christ, putting others ahead of ourselves, loving and serving our neighbors, even when that requires sacrifice, recognizing that we’re in the boat together.
Choosing life in Jesus means rearranging your priorities, your desires, your whole life, letting God be the God of all our days, not just some of them.
There are times when answering “yes” to Jesus’ call to discipleship means saying “no” to something else. Following Jesus means saying no to everything else that demands first place in your life. Maybe it means saying no to a particular career, or a chance to be on a team, or to going to a particular party, or to watching certain shows. Discipleship means saying no to hatred, to judging others, to loving money, to seeking power.
What is it for you? What is Jesus calling you to say no to, to leave behind so you can follow?
The first time I preached on this reading six years ago was also my first time doing a baptism as a pastor, and I half-expected them to listen to the reading and the sermon and say, “Never mind. We’re not sure we want to go through with this. It’s too much to demand of us or our daughter!”
And if they’d said that, they would have been right. It is too high of a standard. None of us can live up to this kind of discipleship. There’s hyperbole here, but we have to take Jesus seriously and recognize that the only way we dare even attempt following as disciples is by relying on the promise that the Holy Spirit is at work in us. When we fail, when we put ourselves first, when we get caught up in the busyness of everyday life, God forgives. The Holy Spirit keeps on working.
The One who calls you to follow is faithful. God’s love for you does not depend on the strength of your love for God. And you’re not on this journey alone. May you know God’s presence with you every step of the journey of faith, and may God give you the strength to choose life, following wherever Jesus leads.
Amen