Sixteenth Sunday After Pentecost, 09/08/2013

Sermon on Luke 14:25-33, by Allison Zbicz Michael

Now great crowds accompanied him, and he turned and said to them, "If anyone comes to me anddoes not hate his own father and mother and wife and children and brothers and sisters, yes, and even his own life, he cannot be my disciple. Whoever does not bear his own cross and come after me cannot be my disciple. For which of you, desiring to build a tower, does not first sit down and count the cost, whether he has enough to complete it? Otherwise, when he has laid a foundation and is not able to finish, all who see it begin to mock him, saying, ‘This man began to build and was not able to finish.' Or what king, going out to encounter another king in war, will not sit down first and deliberate whether he is able with ten thousand to meet him who comes against him with twenty thousand? And if not, while the other is yet a great way off, he sends a delegation and asks for terms of peace. So therefore, any one of you who does not renounce all that he has cannot be my disciple. (Luke 14:25-33 ESV)

Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. Amen

I can tell you the cost of a piece of pizza at three different restaurants here in town.

I could tell you the cost of a matinee movie ticket.

I can tell you how much it costs to get a candle out of the toilet plumbing, and how much it will cost to fix the child-sized hole in the screen door. Count those under: "things I've learned this week."

Given the right data, public policy experts can run a cost-benefit analysis to determine whether a large public building project is financially worth the investment under current conditions, or corporate consultants can run a cost-benefit analysis to determine the best location for a new store.

But the cost of following Jesus? The cost of this life of faith? Who can draw up a nice list of two columns and plug in numbers to figure out just what it is going to cost us?

Without getting caught up in "what ifs" and conjecture about the future, it is nigh impossible to say with any certainty what this life of discipleship will cost us personally.

Who can truly count the cost?

Jesus makes it clear, of course, that discipleship will be costly and that Love of God is to come before all other earthly loyalties. The costs will touch our relationships, our pocketbooks, our standing in society. We are called to love Jesus more than family, more than friends, more than money, more than honor, more even than this precious and fragile life that is all too fleeting.

For many of us, though, costly discipleship is an abstraction that doesn't much bother us. We've heard the sermons, and the stories of bold and brave Christians. We can talk about Christians fed to lions, or about those who died in concentration camps for hiding Jews in their homes. We can imagine ourselves to be steadfastly faithful in the face of terrible persecution in much the same way a child can imagine himself to be the hero in a game of pretend-such imaginary games are relatively easy since we don't really expect it to happen, and our imaginations are not vivid enough to paint a realistic picture of what terrible persecution is really like.

Though even they cannot know the future either, I expect our Christian sisters and brothers in Egypt right now have a clearer understanding of discipleship's high cost than we do, as many of them are facing destruction of their houses of worship, their homes, their businesses, enduring torture, and even being murdered for their faith. We shake our heads sadly, but instead of thinking "that's what following Jesus should look like," we think to ourselves, "how tragic-but I'm glad that doesn't happen here."

Except Jesus doesn't say anywhere that being an American should make discipleship any cheaper for us than it is for persecuted Christians, as if there's a discipleship exchange rate and the dollar is up against the Egyptian Pound. There is no discipleship blue-light special that comes with our nationality. If, by the grace of God, we follow Jesus into the future, this faith will be costly to us in ways we cannot now fully understand and comprehend. No matter where we are. If it isn't costly, it is only because we have chosen lesser gods.

Still, knowing only that this life of faith will be costly leaves many questions about the future unanswered. The crosses that each of us bear are not all exactly the same. Who can truly count the cost?

We baptize many infants who haven't the tiniest inkling of what God might require of them. We confirm teenagers who have almost certainly never known someone martyred for the faith. We confess the creeds as adults at various stages of life who have no idea what sort of sacrifices will be asked of us in the remaining years of our lives. The future eludes our understanding.

I have no idea if I will someday be called to spend my life's waning years tending the failing health of a loved one. I have no idea if you may someday be called to bear witness in the midst of a painfully debilitating illness. I have no idea if following God will cost me my livelihood or my freedom. I have no idea if someday you might be called to martyrdom. None of us can know what hardship our own life of discipleship might hold.

We can guess, and we can wonder. We can take seriously that there will be costly sacrifices to be made for the life of faith, expecting that if we truly want to follow Jesus, we must know that it will bring us hardship. We can pray for the grace to remain faithful when the cross we bear weighs heavily.

But beyond that, who can know what the future will hold? Who can truly count the cost?

There is One, and only One who perfectly counted the cost of self-giving love, and the cost he counted was steep indeed. For Him, it would be torture, abandonment, rejection, and death-all at the hands of those he loved and desired to save. As Jesus was offering this hard admonition to us to join in his life of suffering, he knew that the passing of days and hours brought him closer and closer to the final confrontation with death.

Jesus tells his followers that this path will wound families and strike deeply at our most cherished human relationships. As he speaks these words, he draws ever closer to the piercing of his own mother's heart and soul with a sword of grief, as her beloved Son suffers and dies.

He warns his disciples that theirs will be a life of poverty, in which earthly goods will count for nothing, just as every day is bringing him closer to the total poverty of self-emptying on the cross, giving his own flesh and life up to the grave.

Jesus tells a parable of a man intending to build a tower, who lays out his plans, knowing fully what it will cost him, just as he, Jesus, offers himself as the strong tower of refuge where the righteous may run in and be saved (cf. Prov. 18:10).

Jesus tells a parable of a king going to war, who fights only when he knows that his forces are such that the victory will be his. God counted the cost, and in His overwhelming love for us, He deemed that cost worthwhile. He sent out only the best to wage war on that imposter king, the prince of darkness. The beloved Son, Jesus Christ, was the only certain victor in such a confrontation. The cost was counted, and the victory assured.

The irony which runs through this passage is that when we are asked to count the cost of discipleship, we do so in the knowledge that the greatest self-emptying sacrifice has already been endured, the most secure tower has already been built, and the war has already been won. When we called to count the cost of our salvation, we are actually counting the cost paid by Jesus, and only secondarily do we consider the burdens we will bear by virtue of our relationship with Him.

It was once reported that after a fiery speech calling for a unified Italy, a young man approached Garibaldi and asked him "If I fight, Sir, what will be my reward?" Swiftly came Garibaldi's answer, "Wounds, scars and perhaps death. But remember, that through your bruises Italy will be free." Whether or not the cost of following Jesus is worth it to us depends on whether or not we truly believe that the victory is assured. He's asking for faith. The young man believed Garibaldi's assurance that Italy would indeed be free-that the risk to his own life was worth it. And he fought for that cause.

The cost asked of us, then, is not the cost of fighting a war on our own, nor is it the cost of building our own tower up to heaven that we might reach God. In the Bible, we have stories of men who waged war without waiting for God's help, and a story of men who set out to build their own tower to heaven. These projects in self-sufficiency do not end well. Nor are we being asked to give our lives for a losing cause. Jesus is not calling his disciples to senseless waste of human life and efforts.

Instead he is calling us to trust that the victory of life and salvation is assured, the mightiest fortress-tower has already been built, and the war has already been won. He's asking for faith. If we trust in him, and join in on that winning side, we will still suffer "wounds, scars, and perhaps death," the marks of the cross, but we will also rise with Him and share in his conquering resurrection. In calling us to follow Him, Jesus is inviting us to participate in that victory, in his own life of self-giving love, a costly love, but one that pours joy, healing, grace and peace into the life of the world.

+ In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

Rev. Allison Zbicz Michael
Seward, New York
E-Mail: zbiczmichael@gmail.com

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