Thirteenth Sunday after Pentecost

Thirteenth Sunday after Pentecost (Proper 18C)

September 8, 2019

Text: Luke 14:25-35

            It’s almost like Jesus is trying to talk us out of being Christians.  Stop and think about this a minute, He says.  Count the cost.  You know, being a Christian isn’t just blessings all the time.  Not apart from suffering.  And I mean real suffering, here.  Take up your cross and follow Me kind of suffering.  Literally.  “Take they our life, Goods, fame, child, and wife,” as we sing with Dr. Luther (LSB 656:4).  Now, salvation is the free gift of God by grace in Christ Jesus, as the Scriptures say, and as we preach.  But it is not cheap.  It cost Jesus everything, His very life, to purchase our salvation.  And to be a disciple is to follow Him.  That means following Him, all the way to the cross and death.  “Whoever does not bear his own cross and come after me cannot be my disciple” (Luke 14:27; ESV).  The cost of discipleship is your very self.  It is everything.  Everything you are.  Everything you have.  To be a disciple is to give it all up for the sake of Jesus who gave up His all for you.

            This teaches us what Jesus means when He says that unless you hate your own father, mother, wife, children, brothers, sisters, and your very own life, you cannot be His disciple.  We don’t like that kind of talk.  We don’t think it’s very Christian of Jesus to say that.  But He says it, and you can’t soft-pedal or side-step the things Jesus says.  That’s playing fast and loose with God’s Word.  Instead, you have to ask, What does this mean?  To be sure, this is a Hebraism, a Hebrew figure of speech.  In this manner of speaking, to hate someone or something over against someone or something else is to give preference to that someone or something else.  So, for example, God says, “Jacob I loved, but Esau I hated” (Rom. 9:13; Cf. Mal. 1:2-3).  Now, it’s not that God loathes Esau and His descendants.  We know that God loves all people.  He loved the world such that He gave His only-begotten Son, so that whoever… whoever… believes in Him should not perish but have eternal life (John 3:16).  But there is no question that God chose the younger brother Jacob and his descendants over the older brother Esau to be the people of God, to have the birthright and the blessing, to be the bearer of the Covenant and Promises.  From Jacob, not Esau, would come the Christ, the Son of God and Savior of the world. 

            So to hate your family members and your very life in this sense means that Jesus takes first place ahead of them.  Of course you should love your family.  You are commanded to honor father and mother, serve and obey them, love and cherish them.  Husbands and wives are to live together in love and fidelity until death parts them.  Parents are to love their children, provide for them, protect them.  We are to dwell in unity and peace with our brothers and sisters and mutually support one another.  And we are to be good stewards of our bodies and lives.  But!  Whenever there is a conflict between Jesus and your family members or anything else, Jesus wins.  You are to submit to Christ.  You are to follow Him.  Whenever a family member threatens to disown you for your faithfulness to Jesus, you remain faithful to Jesus.  If it costs you a relationship to faithfully confess Christ and His Word, you keep confessing.  And if you are called upon to give your very life for that confession, you give it gladly.  You speak the truth in love (Eph. 4:15), with gentleness and respect (1 Peter 3:15), but you do speak it.  You know, in the Islamic world and in other places and among other peoples, family members are disowned for becoming Christians.  They are treated as if they are dead or never existed.  In some places, they are killed.  What a sacrifice these Christian converts make for the sake of Jesus.  They love their families.  And yet, in this Hebraic sense, they hate their families out of love for Christ.  Which is to say, they give their all for Him.  They bear rejection.  They bear imprisonment and beatings and even death.  They bear their cross and follow Jesus all the way to Golgotha.

            To put anyone or anything ahead of Jesus is to make that person or that thing into an idol.  You must die to this.  Of course we don’t want to suffer.  We don’t want people to dislike us or mock us or reject us for our faithfulness to Jesus.  Especially not family members or friends.  We don’t want to suffer the loss of our good reputation, or our stuff, our freedom, or especially our life.  So we remain silent when we should speak.  We chicken out.  We deny Christ by our silence, or worse, by words and actions that directly contradict God’s Word and our faith, so as to remain popular, liked, politically correct, safe.  Repent. 

            The truth is, when you count the cost of discipleship, you aren’t willing to pay it.  The cost is everything, and you come up short.

            So Jesus gives His everything for you.  He loved not His life even unto death.  He hated His own life, hated all things, for the love of you, to save you and make you His own.  He bore the cross for your forgiveness and life.  Your idolatry, your disordered priorities, your failure to speak, your unwillingness to suffer for the sake of Jesus, all of that, all your sin, is put to death in His body on the tree.  Where you come up short, Christ comes up full.  Christ Jesus is your sufficiency.  At the cost of His blood and death He builds a Tower, His Church, for your protection, to give you a home and a family that will not reject you.  Sacrificing Himself, He wins the war against sin, death, the devil, and your own sinful nature.  And in this way, in losing His life, He gains life.  For Himself: Jesus Christ is risen from the dead.  For you: He will raise you from the dead.  Bodily on the Last Day.  Spiritually already now.  You have eternal life in Christ Jesus. 

            And your life is now hidden with Christ in God (Col. 3:3), as St. Paul says.  That means you can’t see it.  That’s the frustrating part.  It doesn’t look like you have life.  It looks like the enemies are overrunning you.  It hurts when your family and friends reject you.  It hurts to suffer martyrdom and persecution.  But remember, in spite of all appearances, you do have life, now and forever, in Christ.  It’s just hidden, in Him.  But that also means that your life is safe as it is hidden with Christ in God.  That means you can bear your own cross and go after Jesus, you can suffer, confident that whatever is required of you, it ultimately cannot harm you.  In the end, you live.  And all things are yours in Christ.  The Kingdom yours remaineth. 

            In fact, God reorders all things in such a way that the cross and suffering become a blessing to you.  God blesses through the cross.  He won our salvation by Jesus’ cross.  He blesses you through the crosses he lays upon you.  Whatever suffering you endure in faith, as a Christian, God works for your good (Rom. 8:28).  He molds and shapes you into the Christian He wants you to be, the cruciform image of His Son.  He kills your idols.  He crucifies your sinful nature.  He drives you to Scripture.  He drives you to the Sacraments.  He drives you to prayer.  He drives you to Himself.  Because, in the midst of suffering, despairing of yourself and all that is yours, you have only Christ.  Which is exactly what He wants.  That is, in the final analysis, the fulfillment of this Scripture.  Commanded to give everything, you find that you are and have nothing.  Christ is your everything.  Christ is the cost.  Christ is all in all.

            So bear the cross.  Suffer a little.  Go ahead.  Suffer a lot.  Suffer it all.  They cannot take Christ from you.  Be the salt of the earth.  What is the use of salt?  Salt preserves and salt seasons.  To be salt in the world is to preserve it from damnation.  God preserves the world for the sake of His Christians.  Because of your prayers.  Because of your confession of Christ to others so that they become Christians.  Because of your sacrificing yourself for the sake of others, so that they hear of Christ and come to know Him.

            And salt seasons.  You are to season the world with your confession of Christ and His Word.  You are not just a Christian on Sunday.  What you believe and confess here at Church is to be taken with you out into your daily lives.  This is often a hard thing, but that is your vocation.  Christians must speak the life-giving Word of God to our world today.  We must speak life in the face of abortion and euthanasia and the culture of death.  We must speak fidelity and purity and the holiness of the body in the face of sexual promiscuity, unfaithfulness, and perversion.  We must speak for the last and the least, the persecuted and exploited, the weak and the vulnerable.  We must speak Christ in the face of all that is anti-Christ.  Family and friends may reject us for it.  It may get us fired.  It may get us killed.  So be it.  We are called to be salt.  If salt loses its saltiness, it is good for nothing but to be thrown away.  If Christians lose their Christianity, what good are they?  Christ has given you ears to hear.  Hear what He is saying to you right now.

            And rejoice.  You are His disciple.  You will suffer.  You do take up your cross and follow Him to Golgotha.  But what happens after that?  Easter.  Resurrection.  Life.  Jesus Christ is risen from the dead.  And He’s coming back for you!  Nothing can be taken from you that will not be restored on that Day when Jesus raises you.  Fear not.  Follow Jesus.  He is your life.  In the Name of the Father, and of the Son (+), and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen.