Counting the Cost

Counting the cost 090813

Psalm 139; Luke 14:25-33

Tough text—large crowd following: can you imagine what happened to the size of that crowd after he says this!  Fear of preaching this—it’s uncomfortable, and I can’t imagine Jesus asking this of us.  Even if it’s hyperbole (exaggeration to make a point), it’s still shocking to me. And after all, as it says in a book called “Under the Overpass” by Mike Yankowski: “regular church attenders come to worship to feel good, not be hit with the unfamiliar, the uncomfortable, the threatening.”

Leads me to ask tough questions:  take up? Turn my back on? give up? It’s not Lent is it?                                                                Which in turn leads me to a tough observation: Today’s Church offers cheap grace.  We have lulled ourselves into a nice religion called Christianity, and long forgotten radical discipleship as a way of life.  Part of my task on our DCOM is to read papers of young applicants for ordained ministry.   This week I read one who said, I wonder if Christians really want to be disciples? Discipleship can be dangerous and dirty and full of rejection.                                                                     Many of us will remember Bonhoeffer’s book “Cost of Discipleship” where he used the metaphor of grace sold at the public market, where consumers  get something that doesn’t cost them much.  And cheap grace leads to a cheap Jesus. Ouch.

Brings me back to the tough text: cost of following Jesus. Clearly although God’s grace is absolutely free, living it out, which is what we’re called to do once we have that grace, isn’t cheap.  It costs us, just like it cost Jesus.  It wasn’t cheap for him to heal and suffer, to confront the systems of power that distort the faith, to live out of a deep spirituality, to love so much he’d “carry another’s burden of sin and forgive” (Preaching Peace website)—and he calls us to do the same!    That’s what it means to live the way of Jesus: to give up, to let go, to turn things around.  In a world of instant gratification Jesus asks for sacrifice?  Yes why not?   many of us are already sacrificing:      we give up weekends for travel soccer,                                                 sacrifice church for football tryouts,                                                                      forget family time for career climbing                                                                    give up relationships for income.  

Why?  Because they’re important to us.  We sacrifice according to our priorities.                                                                                                           Christian discipleship calls for the same.                                                               Like anything else worth doing, the abundant meaningful life of discipleship takes time, commitment, energy, yes, sacrifice.  We’re called to give it our best, our all.                                                                                                                           Jesus asks us this morning to look at the big picture of our life-family, work, finances, time management.                                                                                       And it has to lead to changed priorities  - the                                                               reason for our priorities is meaning—if it’s important to us, we will make sacrifices

Way of Jesus also costs like other priorities because it also offers meaning, depth, as some of us have indeed found:                                                                                 the cost it takes to be here while an unsupportive family stays home and laughs at you, because the depth of community support sustains us, or                                                                                                                                the cost of bringing unwilling teenagers to church and youth programming because we want them to have a chance to become more whole, well rounded adults                    the sacrifice it is to be involved with time-taking ministries, 

the day by day deepening of our prayer lives to sustain us on this tough way.                                                                                  

 If it’s meaningful, it becomes a priority, and it costs. So Jesus asks, and expects, greater things of me: cut loose, and find your true self, your ID, as a follower, an apprentice, of the Jesus way.  That’s our true identity and calling.  The way of Jesus, bringing about the kin-dom of God here and now, has to be THE priority that affects all the others—like our wheel image.   The Way isn’t just one spoke, it’s the axle that turns them all.

And it’s a way, not a location, it’s a process not a place.  We’re called to be disciples/student followers/apprentices in a way of living, a life of following – continuous present participles

…following something more radical, more meaningful, more whole-making, more intentional, than anything else we can do, so that it will impact and deepen everything else we can do

So what:  choose next step— Next steps on the journey may be different for each of us.  This tough text tells us that only honest self-examination, or family examination, or budget or calendar examination, will move us forward even one step.

                      ask yourself some (or even just one) of the tough questions.                      What priority inspires all the others?

what do I need to give up,                                                        

 or take up,                                                                                   

or turn my back on                                                                             

 in order to reorder my priorities into God’s way?                           

And what if WE, fumc, asked those questions of each team, each ministry? How might we move from a place of cheap grace to full life as disciples?

Do I have what it takes? No.  Do you?  No, but together, with each other, together with the God of psalm 139 who knows us inside out and outside in, who loves us and calls us into the depth and height of full abundant life, yes we can!