brothers and sisters, yes, and even life itself, cannot be my disciple.

Transcription

1 Luke 14: Now large crowds were traveling with him; and he turned and said to them, 26 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. 27 Whoever does not carry the cross and follow me cannot be my disciple. 28 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? 29 Otherwise, when he has laid a foundation and is not able to finish, all who see it will begin to ridicule him, 30 saying, This fellow began to build and was not able to finish. 31 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? 32 If he cannot, then, while the other is still far away, he sends a delegation and asks for the terms of peace. 33 So therefore, none of you can become my disciple if you do not give up all your possessions. 1

2 Go Ahead and Give Up One of the neat tricks you learn in seminary is to go through a Bible passage with different-colored highlighters and highlight all the words that are repeated. If you see a word repeated several times, that should draw your attention. Repetition is not an accident or a sign of a limited vocabulary. It s an indication that the speaker or the writer (or both) is trying to draw our attention to some word, phrase, or idea. In passages with many repeated words, all the different highlighters can make your Bible look like an art project, with splashes of blue, green, purple, yellow, and orange. Yet things are simpler in today s passage because only one word is repeated. That word is disciple, [SLIDE] which appears three times in three different verses. Unsurprisingly, it s these three verses where Jesus is most provocative. What does Jesus say to people who want to become his disciple? Wonderful! There s just three things you need to do if you want to follow me: 1. Hate your family 2. Carry your cross and be ready to die 3. Give up all your possessions Really? Is that all? Presented with such an offer, many of us would say to Jesus, Thanks, but no thanks. What an awful spokesman for Christianity Jesus is! What kind of a sales pitch is that? Who would sign up for such a thing? A much better strategy for winning people over is to tell them what they want to hear. That s what salespeople do. That dress is you! You look ten years younger. That s what politicians do. We re going to build a wall, and we re going to make Rome pay for it. That s how you sell product. That s how you win elections. That s how you build a following. Speaking of building a following, Jesus appears to have already done that. If you remember last week s passage, Jesus ate dinner in the home of a Pharisee. In today s 2

3 passage, which again comes from chapter 14, Jesus has moved outside, and as he moves outside his audience has grown [SLIDE]. We read in verse 25 that large crowds were traveling with him (Lk. 14:25). Jesus is a popular guy! And why not? Just look at what he s done. He s healed the sick, the lame, and the crippled, he s given eyesight to the blind, he s raised the dead, he s forgiven sins, and he s fed thousands. What s not to like? Who wouldn t welcome someone who was giving such things? But as Jesus turns to the crowds, he is no longer giving. Now he s demanding something from the people who have been drawn to him because of all that he has given them. If you want to be my disciple, he says, there are certain things you must do. The first is related to your family [SLIDE]: 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 (Lk. 14:26). Ouch! What on earth is he saying? Hate your family? But isn t Jesus ministry all about love. He teaches love of neighbor, even love of enemy. How can you love your neighbor but hate your father and mother? How can you love your enemy but hate your wife or husband? How can you tell a parent to hate their children? This is madness! Is he trying to chase away the crowds that are following him? I ve said it before and I will, I m sure, say it many times again in the future, but Jesus often speaks in a way that is intended to shock his audience. The gospels offer many examples. Jesus reinterprets the Hebrew scriptures, telling the crowds, You have heard it said love your neighbor and hate your enemy, but I tell you to love your enemy and pray for those who persecute you. He challenges the holiness of the religious authorities, telling the Pharisees, Prostitutes and tax collectors are entering the kingdom of God ahead of you. He stands on the steps of the temple and says, This temple will be destroyed and rebuilt in three days. These words are shocking, offensive even. 3

4 Here in Luke 14 we see yet another example of Jesus intentionally disturbing his audience by telling them that anyone who wants to be his disciple must hate their family and even life itself. Does he really mean what he says? Does Jesus really want us to hate? As for the answer to that question, I have good news and bad news. The answer is no, of course not, and well, yes, kind of. No, Jesus is not telling us to hate our family in the way that we think of hate, meaning an emotion that expresses intense dislike. He s not speaking of emotion here at all but of preference. In the Bible we sometimes see the word hate used in this way. It s used not to convey emotion but to show preference. In Genesis 29, Leah, Jacob s first wife, laments that she is hated by her husband, who prefers her sister Rachel. By hated Leah does not mean that she is disliked. Her complaint is that Jacob prefers Rachel. In the contest for Jacob s affection, she comes in second. Secondly, Jesus is using hyperbole. Hyperbole, which is a really fun word to pronounce, means extravagant exaggeration. Jesus uses hyperbole because he wants to underline that becoming his disciple means that all of our other allegiances, even the bond of family, become secondary. A few weeks ago we heard Jesus say that he came to set father against son and son against father, mother against daughter and daughter against mother, mother-in-law against her daughter-in-law and daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law. What he meant was that those who became his disciples would face division within their own families. The Gospel of Matthew makes it even more clear. In Matthew Jesus says, Whoever loves father or mother more than me is not worthy of me, and whoever loves son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me (Mt. 10:37). So the issue here is not hatred in an emotional sense. Jesus does not demand that we dislike our family. But he does mean that to become his disciple is to give up the idea that our greatest loyalty is to family. That s a pretty radical idea, whether you live in first century Palestine or twenty-first century Korea. We don t have to think 4

5 hard to find examples of how much Korean culture emphasizes the idea of family. There s the importance of the family name. Parents pour their life savings into their children s education. In return children are expected to bring honor to their parents. Jesus challenges all of that. Now, he doesn t say that it s wrong to love family. He doesn t say that you have to abandon your family to follow him. But for disciples of Jesus, devotion to Jesus and his ways is a higher calling than devotion to family. As disciples of Christ, our ultimate allegiance is not to family but to Jesus Christ. This shouldn t come as a surprise. Jesus focus was never the family. As I say that I can t help but think of a Christian organization in the United States called Focus on the Family. That s an ironic name for a Christian organization because Jesus never focused on the family. Jesus focused on the poor, the sick, the blind, the outsider, the unwanted. They were his family. We heard as much last week when Jesus ate dinner in the home of the Pharisee. Do you remember what Jesus told his host? When you host a dinner, don t invite your friends or family or rich neighbors. Instead, invite the poor, the lame, the crippled, the blind. For Jesus, the poor, lame, crippled, and blind are family. Jesus doesn t define family as we do, by shared blood. For Jesus, family is defined by his blood, which would be shed for all for rich and poor, for the healthy and the sick, for the insider and the outsider. Jesus demands that his disciples give up their idea that their highest loyalty is to family. That s not all that he tells them to give up. If the command to hate family wasn t strong enough, Jesus follows that up with something even more personal [SLIDE]: Whoever does not carry the cross and follow me cannot be my disciple (Lk. 14:27). Now Jesus is addressing us as individuals. And he s not mincing words. He tells the crowd that discipleship is about sacrifice and self-denial. Jesus knows that the cross awaits. He knows that he will be asked to sacrifice himself for the sake of the world. He asks something similar of his disciples. 5

6 Our cross, of course, is metaphorical. But the self denial that the cross represents is real. To be called as a disciple of Jesus Christ is to be called to self denial. What does self denial look like? It will look different for each of us. Only we can answer that ourselves. It could mean turning the other cheek and denying yourself vengeance when you re wronged. It could mean extending forgiveness and denying yourself the satisfaction of holding a grudge against someone who has hurt you. It could mean something as radical as loving your enemy and denying yourself the temporary satisfaction of thinking the worst of someone. It could mean loving those whom Jesus regards as family the poor, the sick, the hungry, the stranger, the prisoner and denying ourselves the peace of mind that comes when we justify doing nothing in the face of another s suffering. Thus far Jesus has identified two obstacles that get in the way of people becoming his disciple: family and an aversion to self-denial. He mentions a third possessions [SLIDE]: None of you can become my disciple if you do not give up all your possessions (Lk. 14:33). Many fellow Christians maintain that the Bible must be read literally. God says what he means and means what he says. There s no need to interpret. The Bible is crystal clear always. I wonder if they ve read this verse, because outside of monasteries, I don t see Christians giving up all their possessions. Do you remember the story of the rich young man? This man seeks out Jesus to ask him how he might inherit eternal life. Jesus tells him to obey the commandments, which the man says that he has done faithfully. Then Jesus tells him that he needs to do one thing more. He needs to sell all his possessions and give the money to the poor. Then he will be ready to follow Jesus. The man despairs because he is wealthy and doesn t want to give up his fortune. I mention that story because it s sometimes confused with the verse we re now looking at. The story of the rich young man is often interpreted in this way: Jesus tells the man to give up his possessions because that s what that particular man 6

7 needed to do. He was rich and overly attached to his possessions. Therefore, Jesus lovingly tells him to give up his wealth, which is what stands in the way of him following Jesus. The implication is that this command to sell all his possessions is solely for the rich young man. It doesn t apply to us who, while we may be comfortably middle class, are far from rich. That s a convenient interpretation. The only thing is, here in verse 33, Jesus is not addressing the rich young man. He s addressing anyone who wants to become his disciple. He s quite clear in what they are to do: None of you can become my disciple if you do not give up all your possessions. As with his warning about family, Jesus words here are profoundly disturbing. They re intended to shock. Jesus wants to seize our attention. If these words stung in Jesus day, when there was no middle class and people were either rich or poor, how much more do they sting today in our capitalist economy that s filled with all manner of consumer products? Have you ever watched one of the home shopping channels? You can buy just about anything: an exercise bike, dress shoes, cosmetics, suits, underwear, and even 삼계탕 (chicken stew). And it will all be conveniently delivered to your doorstep within a day or two! We are awash in an endless ocean of things to buy. If Jesus really means that his disciples must give up all their possessions, then we re in deep trouble. At the risk of softening Jesus words, I think he is again speaking in hyperbole. Obviously, there are some things that we do need, possessions that are essential for life in the modern world. Although, if you really think about it, the list is not a long one. Most of us could do with a lot less than what we have, and we wouldn t suffer for it. But, no, I don t think that Jesus is demanding that we rid ourselves of every single possession. But Jesus is challenging the way that we relate to our possessions. What Jesus is calling us to do is to love people and use possessions, but so often we do the opposite: we love our possessions and we use people. We lavish attention on our things, especially technology like our phones and tablets, and we ignore the 7

8 people whom Jesus calls us to love and serve. As disciples of Christ, we must give up this fundamentally flawed way of relating to things and people. Jesus fully recognizes that he is telling his would-be disciples what they must give up [SLIDE]. He wants them to give up a family-centered view of the world that draws a line around who s in the family and who isn t. Jesus doesn t make such distinctions. He wants them to give up their obsession with self: self-absorption, selfcenteredness, and even self-preservation. Jesus lived a life of sacrifice and he calls on his disciples to do the same. He wants them to give up their unhealthy relationship to possessions and trust that he will provide all that they need. When you add all these things together, that s quite a lot to give up. But if we didn t know it already, Jesus reminded us today: becoming a disciple of Jesus Christ may be free, but it s not cheap. The cost is high. That s why Jesus tells his would-be disciples to calculate the cost. To take on the role of disciple, we must give up our old ways and take on Jesus way. Discipleship begins in giving up. So go ahead and give up. What do you have to lose? 8