Luke 14:27-33
“Whoever comes to me and does not hate father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters, yes, and even life itself, cannot be my disciple. Whoever does not carry the cross and follow me cannot be my disciple. For which of you, intending to build a tower, does not first sit down and estimate the cost, to see whether he has enough to complete it? Otherwise, when he has laid a foundation and is not able to finish, all who see it will begin to ridicule him, saying, ‘This fellow began to build and was not able to finish.’ Or what king, going out to wage war against another king, will not sit down first and consider whether he is able with ten thousand to oppose the one who comes against him with twenty thousand? If he cannot, then, while the other is still far away, he sends a delegation and asks for the terms of peace. So therefore, none of you can become my disciple if you do not give up all your possessions. Salt is good; but if salt has lost its taste, how can its saltiness be restored? It is fit neither for the soil nor for the manure pile; they throw it away. Let anyone with ears to hear listen!”
This is the entire quote that Jesus spoke to “the large crowds that were travelling with him”. He has been speaking for a while now on a different way of life – a way of humility, of hospitality, of faith, of repentance, of fruitfulness, of generosity and care toward the poor and suffering. Now he turns to these masses who have been following him and kind of lays it out for them. They are expecting Jesus to bring some sort of new kingdom, to restore Jerusalem to its place of power and as a result they will receive physical freedom from Rome, authrority and power in their own nation. They haven’t been listening! Jesus is bringing a kingdom, but it doesn’t look like the people are expecting. Indeed, Jesus has just been explaining what his kingdom is like – but the people havne’t been listening! It’s a kingdom of that different way of life – of caring not just for friends and those who care back, but for the outcast, the poor, the suffering.
In this passage Jesus is drawing a line. He’s saying don’t call yourself my followers if you aren’t willing to do all that it entails. He goes into an explanation of “counting the cost,” giving a couple examples of building a tower and going to war. But what strikes me as facinating are the bookend statements he makes in this “counting the cost” passage:
At the beginning he says, “Whoever comes to me and does not hate father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters, and yes, even life itself, cannot be my disciple.”
At the end he says, “None of you can become my disciples if you do not give up all your possessions.”
What!?! Are you serious? Is this literal? Or is it simply an alegory to say that following Jesus is serious? Could it be both? When I looked it up in “Zondervan’s Handbook of the Bible” they tend to view it as completely alegorical – particularly the first of those two, that it doesn’t mean hate, but simply you must love Jesus more. Is that the case? I don’t know. What I do know is that Jesus is serious. He’s using these statements to draw a line in the sand, creating a separation, a distinction between his disciples and those that follow him. Jesus is serious. If you want to follow him, you’ve got to give stuff up. You can’t have everything. What’s the saying, ‘you can’t have your cake and eat it to’?
Wait, let me say that again as a question. Is there can be a difference between following Jesus and being his disciple? Absolutely. The multitudes followed Jesus. The few were his disciples. Yet what Jesus wanted his disciples to do was to go and make more disciples – the value is placed on discipleship, not on following. I wonder if we, the church here in America, were to be in that story, if we would find most of us as part of the “large crowd” that wasn’t discipleship minded, but just wanted to follow Jesus for what he was going to do for them. I wonder if we have started building (maybe we even knew the cost), got part way and decided that it’d be better to use those resources elsewhere. And the building stopped. Then we wonder why our building doesn’t look pretty. Are you kidding!
Jesus is calling us to a seriousness of discipleship. He is calling us to recognize that his kingdom is different, his kingdom is serious, and his kingdom has a cost. Don’t call yourselves my disciples, Jesus is saying, if you aren’t really willing to count the cost, if you want the world and me.
My King and my God, I want to follow you with all that I am.
My deepest desire is to be with you, to love you, to be in relationship with you.
Forgive me for holding back, for not giving all.
Reveal to me that areas of my life that I hold back, that I keep from you,
That I may follow you in all my ways, in all my thoughts, in all my life.
Amen.