Trinity Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.)

Sermons 

Frankly, this is one of those passages

that preachers hate to deal with.

It is so … demanding.

So forceful.

This isn’t the gentle friendly Jesus

that we are more comfortable with.

It’s not even just the "Jesus who makes you think twice,"

like he did last week when talking about

where to sit at the table,

and whom to invite when you give a party.

No, this is a fierce Jesus,

who demands all or nothing.

Either you renounce everything you have,

hate anything and anyone standing in your way,

pick up your cross, and follow,

or you might as well just forget it.

There’s no sense in starting something

that you don’t intend to finish.

I don’t like this passage!

And yet I know, as you know,

that there’s an awful lot of truth in it.

It reminds us that there is a lot more

to being a disciple

than simply believing in Christ.

True discipleship means following Jesus.

It means acting,

not just believing or speaking.

And that is demanding.

I think part of the reason

Jesus’ words sound so harsh

is that the church today and through history

has nearly always placed more emphasis

on what you believe than on what you do.

In the days when it was still fashionable to kill heretics …

you were condemned on the basis of

what you believed and said,

not what you did.

You could be a faithful churchgoer,

a generous almsgiver,

a model parent …

but if you questioned the virgin birth,

well, into the fire with you!

We’re certainly not that extreme today,

and yet we still are much more interested

in how a person thinks

than how he or she acts.

Think for a moment about the ordination questions asked

to elders, deacons, ministers,

that we hear every year when we ordain and install:

Do you believe in one God,

Father, Son, Holy Spirit?

Do you believe the scriptures?

Do you accept our church’s confessions?

Do you accept our church government?

I wonder how it would affect church membership,

much less our willingness to accept an office of any kind,

if, instead, the questions were,

Do you renounce all that you own?

Do you hate your family, and friends,

and even your own life?

Will you carry a heavy burden

that might belong to someone else?

Will you lay your life on the line

every hour of every day?

I think Jesus is the only one

who could honestly answer yes

to all of those questions.

And yet –

they are addressed to all of us.

Now I know,

that we are not saved by

our good works or actions.

That’s what the Protestant Reformation was all about.

Our salvation comes by grace, through faith.

But if our works do not show our faith,

then we need to question

how serious our faith really is.

It’s not enough to believe in Christ.

We must also follow him.

And that can mean many different things.

Three of them are mentioned

in this passage from Luke …

I’ve already touched on them.

One is,

to hate anything that stands in the way

of our giving over our lives to God.

Jesus uses the example of family

because, in his culture,

family obligations and attachments

would have been the most likely stumbling block

for most new Christians.

To choose a religious tradition to follow

that was not the "faith of your fathers"

would be clearly seen as a rejection of your family,

not just of their beliefs.

For us, the biggest obstacle might be our work.

Or it might be family.

Or success, or security,

or anything else important that clamors for our attention.

And to hate those things

doesn’t mean necessarily an attitude or an emotion

of strong dislike …

It means being willing to set them aside

when they get in the way of our following Jesus.

That sounds kind of ruthless!

And sometimes it has to be.

Most of the time,

our discipleship and our other obligations

can peacefully exist side by side.

But when one has to take priority,

we know which it had better be.

A second thing that Jesus says we must do

in order to follow him

is to renounce all that we have.

Most of us get caught up short right there!

Now I realize that Luke, of all the four gospel writers,

has the most radical attitude

toward wealth and possessions.

Luke seems to take a particular delight

in reporting the times that Jesus says

"Sell all that you have," or similar words.

But even if we take Luke at his most moderate,

we still find Zacchaeus,

who gives half of everything he owns to the poor.

How many of us can claim even that?!

An important point, though:

To renounce all we have

doesn’t necessarily mean

to go out tomorrow morning and give it all away.

It means, get over our attachment

to the things we have,

to realize that they are, ultimately, unimportant,

and to be prepared to part with them if and when the need should arise.

And then,

the third thing we must do to follow Jesus

is to take up our crosses,

and go after him.

The cross must be something

that we choose to bear.

Life’s everyday hard knocks don’t count.

Anything that is not a choice

is not a cross.

You’ll sometimes hear people say, for example,

"Well, my hearing seems to be getting worse,

but that’s just a cross I’ll have to bear."

No, it’s not.

It may be a tragedy; it may be a burden;

but it’s not a cross.

A cross must be something

we have freely chosen to take up,

and can choose to lay down.

A burden that we decide to assume,

not one that we have no control over.

Recall, if you will,

all the fuss that’s been made in the media

about former Dallas Cowboy Everson Walls

choosing to donate one of his kidneys

to former Dallas Cowboy Ron Springs.

That is a cross borne …

an obligation taken up

that could have been turned down.

Just as Jesus chose the path to his own cross,

knowing he could have avoided it,

but choosing not to.

Our crosses must be chosen.

Following Jesus is not easy.

It’s not always safe.

And it’s certainly not always popular.

Several years ago I came across an article

that I have saved all these years.

In it, the author tries to evaluate his own life and discipleship

by asking himself a series of questions.

I find them rather unsettling,

maybe because they hit awfully close to home.

And yet, I’ve kept it,

because it reminds me of some things

I need to be reminded of.

See what you think:

If I’m following Jesus,

why am I such a good insurance risk?

If I’m following Jesus,

why, when I have done my giving,

have I so much left over for myself?

If I’m following Jesus,

why do my closets bulge

when so many are unclothed?

If I’m following Jesus,

why do I have so many friends among the affluent,

and so few among the poor?

If I’m following Jesus,

why do I have so much privacy

in a world that is starved for love?

If I’m following Jesus,

why am I tempted to overeat

in a world where so many beg for bread?

If I’m following Jesus,

why am I getting on so well

in a world that marked him out for death?

I guess maybe Jesus is right

when he talks about counting the cost

before you get started.

I wonder how many of us would be in the church at all

if we had stopped first to count the cost.

If you had told me,

back when I was eleven

and went through confirmation class,

If you had told me,

"Julie, some day you’ll be a minister,"

I would have said,

"Uh … no thanks!"

and walked right out of there!

We may not always know the full cost

when we get involved for the first time.

But we should at least

count the part of it that we can see.

I guess another reason

that preachers dislike this passage so much

is that it reminds us that, most of the time,

we don’t do any better at following Jesus

than most of the people in the pews.

We haven’t renounced our possessions –

in fact, we live rather comfortably.

We might bear a cross now and then,

but it’s often one that we’re paid to bear.

We’re real good at believing in Christ –

after all, we spent a few years in seminary

learning exactly what to believe and what not to believe!

But when it comes to actually following Jesus,

we fall short.

Way short.

Like just about everybody else.

Can we be his disciples?

I think so,

provided we know what a disciple ought to be,

confess our failure to be that,

and accept God’s forgiveness and guidance

as we keep trying.

Praise be to God,

whose kingdom includes

even unworthy creatures like us.

Amen.

©2007 Julie Adkins (e-mail: DrJAdkins@trinitypresdallas.org