Sermon - Proper 18C, September 4, 2016

The Rev. Tommy Thompson

St. Andrew’s Episcopal Church

Luke 14:25-33

Proper 18C

4 September 2016

“The Gospel in A Fine Print World”

In the Name of God: the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.  Amen.

Each day we turn on the tv, we are bombarded with ads luring us to sign up for goods and services without considering the cost.  We live in a fine print world.  They make sure to put what we want to hear in bright, flashing large font… Sign up for our credit card.  You too can stroll the streets making purchases galore, toting just as many shopping bags with a big smile on your face and everyone else giving you looks of envy!  Yes, this could be you!  Zero Percent in all caps…no payments necessary for months…life will be good. Don’t worry with the fine print, just sign up already! 

Whether the ad is for a credit card, a television, an automobile, a mobile phone, or even medication, the truth is that the feel good ads are everywhere.  WE cannot escape them.  It’s the way of American advertising. Exaggeration on steroids.  Evidently everyone has the greatest, the best, that magic ingredient that will make everything not just okay, but great beyond measure.  And this is also why just about everything advertised also comes with pages of extremely fine print.  Who wants to get bogged down in the costly truth!?  Just sign up already! 

In the Gospel Lesson for today, large crowds are following Jesus.  He must be a success! They were following him because they were amazed at the signs and wonders he performed in their midst.  Even as a boy, he left scholars in the temple dumbfounded.  He entered towns and encountered people possessed with demons, and just by saying, “Be silent and Come out of him!” the demons came out...  He preached in synagogues and people were utterly astonished at his level of wisdom.  He healed paralyzed people; he cleansed lepers; he healed a man with a withered hand; he raised a widow’s dead son; he calmed the storm;  he fed 5,000 people with no more than five loaves and two fish!  These crowds were mesmerized by Jesus.  They couldn’t help but to follow him and wait with wonder and awe for the next great sign and wonder.

Anyone in our day, where having a following is as important as it ever has been, would measure Jesus as a huge success story.  He was the best thing going … and he had his followers.  What more could he want? 

Yet every sign and wonder was performed not because Jesus came to be the best circus act the world could ever see, but because of what was announced in the beginning of Luke.  He has come to inaugurate a Kingdom.  He has come to turn things upside down, or better yet, back rightside up.  The mighty are being cast down from their thrones and the lowly are being lifted up.  Every sign and wonder that is performed is only for the sake of revealing something of the heart of the new thing God is doing through Jesus Christ. But the crowds only the see the sign and not the deeper reality to which it points and participates.

If the crowds could see the deeper reality, they would understand that this whole divine mission of putting things to right does not come cheaply.  In Luke 9, Jesus foretold his death and resurrection for the first time.  He looked at his disciples and said, “Don’t get blindsided by the popularity.  I haven’t come to put on a show.  Stay focused!  This kingdom is so alternative, so utterly different from the ways of this empire that my fate and any who follow me is death. And it’s through death that God will overcome the sin of the world by raising me from the dead.  Jesus exact words were “‘The Son of Man must undergo great suffering, and be rejected by the elders, chief priests, and scribes, and be killed, and on the third day be raised…If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross daily and follow me.”

So much for the fine print! Instead of putting popularity, fame, wealth, or well-being in large flashy letters and the cost of following him in fine print, Jesus does the reverse.  He puts the cost of discipleship in the largest most flashy letters he can find.  Following me is risky.  It will demand your very life.  Be sure you’ve considered the cost before committing.  That was Luke 9, and Jesus was speaking to his inner circle of disciples.

Today, in Luke 14, there are large crowds following Jesus. Some assume he’s a great prophet, Some that he is among the wisest of rabbis, and some assume he could be the messiah.  They know what would-be Messiah’s do…they march in to Jerusalem and overthrow Roman authority and set up the kingdom on earth.  They want to be a part of such an establishment.  But they do not understand that God’s kingdom comes not through military prowess or by shrewd manipulation but by humble and self-giving love. 

Jesus senses that the crowd has it all wrong.  He knows he’s marching into a death trap in Jerusalem.  These crowds must know the truth.  He turns around and hushes the jubilant, cheerful crowd.  I’m not going to hide the cost of following me in pages of fine print, I’m going to make it loud and clear.  “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.” 

Wow, those are harsh words to hear from the mouth of Jesus.  When I think of Jesus, I think love.  Why would Jesus demand hatred of his followers?  When we hear the word hate, we think of intensely or passionately disliking someone…abhorring someone or something, or to despise someone or something.

But Jesus is not saying, unless you abhor, despise, or passionately dislike your parents, your wife, your children, yourself, you cannot be my disciples.  That’s the contrary of his message of love. The Greek word being used does not carry the intense emotional connotations as our English use of the word hate.  Rather, it is grounded in the idea of the lack of loyalty or unfaithfulness.  Its antithesis is love; love defined as undying loyalty and faithfulness.  Thus Jesus use of the word here is an intentional hyperbole making the point that you cannot follow Jesus into Jerusalem and ride the fence. Your loyalty must be unwaveringly for the cause of God and God’s kingdom.  You cannot put family or anything else above the mission of God in Jesus.  And when it comes down to loyalty to Jesus over your family, which in Jesus world was hatred, then that’s what you’re going to have to be ready to do.

You see, Jesus is not going into Jerusalem to be crowned in the way the crowds may think he is going to be crowned.  The truth of the matter is that life will be hard before it is ever good.  Suffering will come before newness, death before resurrection. And we are not speaking figuratively here. 

 So Jesus says recalls what he said to his disciples in Luke 9: “Whoever does not carry the cross and follow me cannot be my disciple.”

We have trivialized the cross Jesus speaks of here in Luke’s gospel.  Rest assured this cross is not equivalent to whatever hurdles we must overcome in our daily lives.  Here Jesus is speaking of the cross he is literally walking to Jerusalem to bear.  He loves this crowd…he is not here to manipulate the crowd.  He wants them to consider the cost before they continue following behind him.  So he says, “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."

We don’t have to wonder how many heeded Jesus words that day.  We’ve read the rest of the Gospel.  Even Peter, Jesus’ celebrated disciple, abandoned him.  The cost was simply too much.  Jesus died on a lonely cross between two criminals – one who mocked him, and the other who begged for mercy. 

But the good news of the Gospel is that Jesus’ crucifixion was not the end of his story, and it was not the end of the crowd’s story including Peter and the rest of the apostles.   I’m sure there were some in the crowd that day who looked back towards Jesus and said, “I’ve considered the cost!  I’ll follow you anywhere.”  Which wouldn’t have been too different from Peter’s own claims about discipleship when he looked at Jesus and said, “Even if I must die with you, I will never deny you.”  We all know where Peter was the night Jesus was being led to Golgotha’s cross – warming himself by the fire, denying that he even knew Jesus…then the cock crowed and Peter remembered Jesus foretelling that he would deny him.  Peter went away and wept bitterly. 

But you know one of my favorite passages in all Scripture?  Acts 2. After Jesus’ disciples had been filled with the Holy Spirit on Pentecost, Peter, of all people, was the first to stand up among the 11 and proclaim the good news of Jesus death and resurrection for all to hear.  The one who fearfully denied Jesus now faithfully and boldly proclaims him to the crowds!  And the response of the crowd this time: “Those who welcomed his message were baptized, and that day about three thousand persons were added. They devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and fellowship, to the breaking of bread and the prayers.”

The crowds, this time, devoted themselves to being disciples of Jesus Christ, realizing its cost. 

Today we have heard a tough Gospel.  One of the toughest.  We live in a world where only the positive is lifted up.  Today Jesus has told us up front that the journey is going to be hard.  And we know we are no better than Peter, the rest of the disciples, or anyone else in that crowd that day.  We have and we will be disloyal to our King.  But the good news is that even though, we like Peter and these crowds have abandoned him and will abandon him, He will never give up on us.  Peter became one of the most powerful witnesses to the resurrection in history. 

Just because you may have failed him yesterday, today, or when you do tomorrow, don’t give up.   Jesus will never stop inviting us to follow him.  Now, he will never water the message down just to get us to bite, but his mercy and grace will prove to be sufficient for you just as it was for Peter and for every disciple that has ever followed in the way of Jesus.  It’s not easy stuff – to bring the future alternative kingdom of love into the present!  It will be costly, but God assures us – it will be worth it all.

May we never cheapen God’s grace.  May we consider the cost and commit to serve Christ by witnessing to his life, death, and resurrection in our daily lives.  May God search us, forgive us, and empower us to be bold witnesses to the new thing God has and is doing through His Son Jesus Christ, who died and has risen from the dead, opening the kingdom of God to all who believe in Him. 

Amen.