Sermon for the Fifteenth Sunday after Pentecost
Proper 18 C Lectionary 23C
September 5, 2010
Texts:  Deuteronomy 30:15-20; Psalm 1; Philemon 1:1-21; Luke 14:25-33

I have to confess
That when I looked at this Gospel text from Luke earlier in the week,
I shuddered.

The idea of preaching about hating your mother and father,
And about carrying your cross,
Just doesn’t seem in tune with a holiday weekend.

Many people here this morning
Are in a light-hearted mood,
Ready for picnics, family gatherings, or fun on the water.

But the text for this morning, in addition to being hard,
Is one of the more confusing ones in Luke,
And pairing it with Moses’ final sermon in Deuteronomy doesn’t make it any easier.

These statements about hating your family, along with your life,
And carrying crosses,
Are among the most misunderstood,
And actually abused Biblical statements.

How is it that elsewhere in the Bible,
Jesus tells us to love God and neighbor,
And here tells us to hate our parents?

What do we make of Moses’ command to choose life
While in this text from Luke,
Jesus tells us that we must hate our lives?

Like anything else in the Bible,
We can’t look at Jesus’ statements,
About hating your family or carrying crosses, out of context.

To understand what Jesus is saying,
You have to think about what was going on,
Why he might have said what he did,
And how the people around him would have understand his words.

In this case, it is important to take into account
What would have caused Jesus to say these extreme statements.

One key to Jesus’ behavior is found in the first line of the Gospel reading:
“Now large crowds were traveling with him.”

The picture you should have in your mind
Is that the Jesus groupies have come out in full force,
From the houses, the towns and the by-ways.

People are following Jesus,
As if he were the Pied Piper.

In these circumstances, Jesus probably used a bit of exaggeration,
To make this large group understand
That just because they chose to gather around him
And wander a bit with him,
That did not necessarily make them one of his followers.

To be a follower or disciple of Jesus takes commitment.

To really follow Jesus means making choices
About what is important and what’s not.
It means realizing that being a disciple is not a “cakewalk”.

A text like this calls you to think about what it means to follow Jesus,
What discipleship looks like to you,
And what choices you make with the almost infinite array available.

Jesus is saying if you want to follow me,
You have to make some choices,
Some of which won’t be easy.

Jesus isn’t really telling people to hate their families or themselves.

Instead he is saying if you want to follow me,
You can’t let other commitments distract you.

His “hate” word,
Would have been heard by his Hebrew listeners
As meaning “liking better”.

It is a word that implies strong preference for something else
Not necessarily psychological hate or despising.

Jesus is saying, in this exaggerated way,
If you want to be my disciple,
You have to love me even more
Than you love your families, yourselves and even your own life.
Jesus then followed this priority statement
With a comment about needing to take the cross to follow him.

This is one more way of describing the kind of life,
Jesus wants us to live.

But, because this line has often been misused to promote
Not very Christian behavior,
I would also like to talk about what it does not mean.

This statement should not be used to justify slavery
Or abuse of other people,
By telling them that it is their cross to bear.

It should also not be interpreted to imply
That we are to go out looking for pain or hurt for ourselves
Just so we can be just like Jesus.

Rather, taking the cross should be understood
To mean living a life in the shadow of the cross,
Knowing what Jesus has done for us,
And changing our own priorities
As a result of Jesus’ gift of his life for us.

Taking the cross is another way of describing discipleship,
Not a way of condoning abuse of self or others. 

In a sense, Jesus is saying something very similar to these crowds
As Moses was saying to the Israelites in his farewell sermon,
In our text from Deuteronomy this morning.

Moses tells the people of Israel to choose carefully. 

Choose life, by following God’s laws.
Don’t turn away from God by putting other things first.

When you follow God’s ways,
You choose life,
When you turn away from God,
You choose death.

An analogy might be to consider
The kind of choices you would make
If you found out you only had a limited time to live.

Knowing that you are going to die,
And in some sense that is the state we all live in,
Has a way of crystallizing choices.  

If you have ever been privileged to walk alongside someone
Who has been diagnosed with a terminal illness,
You have probably seen a change in the person’s priorities.

Typically spending time
On business accomplishments, acquisition of stuff,
Or attaining status symbols
Simply becomes less important.

Instead, doing things you always wanted to do,
And being with family or close friends
Often become priorities.

These two themes play out
In the movie, “The Bucket List”.

Two unlikely hospital roommates,
Who have both been diagnosed as being terminally ill,
Chuck their responsibilities
And head off to do the list of things they always wanted to do.

The movie closes with one of the men returning home
For a huge dinner with his close knit family,
Just prior to his death,
And the other man being re-united with his estranged daughter.

Impending death has way of clarifying what’s important.

It is this clarification of priorities
That Jesus is trying to accomplish
With the crowds who have become his hanger-ons,
And that Moses is trying to encourage
Among the Israelites, just prior to his own death.

Although Jesus said these words about priorities to first century Palestinians,
They still give direction to those of us,
Who are trying to be living, faithful disciples of Jesus in this time and place.

What do choosing life,
Loving Jesus even more than life itself,
And carrying the cross imply for our life as Christians?

How do we “carry the cross”
If it means living a life
Shaped by the events of the cross?

What commands, gifts, and promises are conveyed to us by the cross?

God gives each of us life,
Along with a set of assets and resources
To be used while we are on this earth.

These gifts include time, relationships, physical and financial resources,
And the freedom of choice.

You can use this freedom of choice and these assets
To do things which honor your relationship with God,
Or you can use them to do things that are focused on self,
And draw you away from God.

Your life can be shaped the cross and what it means,
Or your life can shaped by the myriad of other influences,
Including  the media with which you are bombarded.

You can choose to scramble for all the things that advertising promotes as the good life
Or you can choose to use your time to help someone in need.

You can swear at God when things don’t go the way you want them to,
Or you can pray to God for help in dealing with those same things.

You can choose to run around
Making sure your kids or grandkids participate in loads of activities,
That will give them an advantage in this life,
Or you can carve out time
To honor the promises you made at their baptisms,
To share with them the Scriptures, teach them the Lord’s prayer
And bring them to worship. 

You can give in to our consumer driven culture,
Making sure you have the latest of everything,
Or you can dedicate financial assets to God and to helping others.

Discipleship takes many forms.
It means recognizing the many gifts that God has given to you,
And using them in ways
That are worthy of your relationship with God.

As a Christian, you live under the shadow of the cross,
You live, knowing that you have been baptized,
Into Christ’s death and resurrection.

The good news of Jesus Christ
Is that you don’t have to do something extraordinary to “take the cross”,
Jesus has already given it to you.
It was imprinted on your forehead in baptism.

You have already been given the opportunity
To live a cross-shaped life,
As a disciple, united with Christ.

So what does this mean for your priorities?

Amen