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Sept. 5, 2010
Luke 14: 25-33

May the words of my mouth and the meditations of all our hearts be acceptable to you, O God, who sent your word to live among us. Amen.

There’s one word in today’s Gospel that certainly has jumped out at everyone I’ve talked with about it this week.

See if you can pick it out.

“Whoever comes to me and does not hate father and mother, wife and children, bothers and sisters, yes, and even life itself, cannot be my disciple.”

Let me give you a clue. It’s not the word “disciple” that causes trouble here. But what word does?

Yeah, "hate." We generally don’t think that it is such a good idea for Jesus to tell us to hate our families, let along to hate very idea of being alive.

I’ll work on that word “hate” a bit, but first let me suggest that the really important word in this gospel is “disciple.” Jesus sets some awfully high standards for those who want to call themselves his disciples.

They are standards that seem pretty far out of reach. And they don’t seem to be particularly good recruiting tools either – hate your family, give up your possessions and be ready to die. Any takers our there?

More on that in a few minutes.

It’s important to start with that word “hate” precisely because it makes us so uncomfortable. Perhaps the first thing to realize is that we have a translation issue in play here.

The principal meaning of “hate” is an intense or passionate dislike of someone. That’s how we hear the word. It’s not a feeling we like to associate with family members, no matter how annoying they may be on any given day. And when relations in a family are so bad that real hate does surge up, no one thinks that is a good thing.

Yet it’s the word the translators for the New Revised Standard Version of the Bible that we use chose for this passage. It’s the word used in a lot of other translations, from the old King James Version to the brand new, hot-off-the press Common English Bible.

But it does not really convey the meaning many scholars attach to this passage. “Hate” is a word that sets up a sharp contrast in the text and it may have made some sense in some eras and in some cultures. It’s a word calculated to get our attention.

The original Greek word used here translates better as “to love less.” That has a different connotation than “hate.”

Listen, then, to this translation from the Contemporary English Version of the Bible: “You cannot be my disciple unless you love me more than you love your father and mother, your wife and children, and your brothers and your sisters. You cannot come with me unless you love me more than you love your own life.”

That has a whole different tone to it. But it doesn’t mean we are off the hook, that now it is simple to be a disciple of Jesus. It just solves a word problem.

One more thought about that passage dealing with loyalty to Jesus and loyalties to family. I know there are a number of people here who have had struggles with their families over religion.

One of the characteristics of this society is that the once tight bond of family and faith is much more fluid. People have chosen to follow Jesus in the way that makes the most sense to them even at the cost of some harmony in their families. For some folks here, this passage may have some very real resonance.

The real message in this passage is that if you want to be a disciple, you have to put Jesus ahead of loyalty to family – or anything else. You have to be willing to risk death – even a painful death on a cross. And you have to give up your possessions – even your source of income.

Once again, let’s put this in the context of what Jesus was doing. He was nearing the end of his time on earth. He was heading toward Jerusalem, where there would be a showdown with the religious and political authorities that would lead to his crucifixion. Big crowds were following him now, impressed by his teaching, wowed by his miracles, drawn in by his celebrity.

He was offering a couple of messages. Follow me if you like, but if you want to really be a disciple – one of the closest followers – then you to really make a commitment.

And since this was an itinerant group moving around the countryside, realize you are going to have to leave behind family, job, possessions and that you are heading into a confrontation where you will be risking your lives.

OK, fine. But what does that mean for us here this morning?

Jesus is setting a pretty high bar for being a disciple. It may be a bar that none of us can truly achieve – at least not on our own.

When we count the cost, the way the builder and the king did in those little stories Jesus told, we may decide we cannot give up everything. That does not mean we need to give up on following Jesus. It just means that we recognize that at this moment, anyway, we are not ready for that deeper commitment.

Just a quick side note on those stories that relates to Memorial. The story of a builder miscalculating the cost and winding up with just a foundation is exactly what happened to this congregation in 1930 when our forebears started to build a new church on East Johnson Street behind what is now Bethel Lutheran Church.

They got the foundation, the basement, but then the Depression hit and there was no more money, so they capped the basement and for the next dozen years, worshiped underground. You can imagine passersby saying, “These folks began to build and were not able to finish.”

But that was just a setback along the way for the folks of Memorial. They did not give up, even though they went through some hard times. They had to wait a while to reach their goal. I think there is something we can draw from that in the context of the movement toward discipleship. It can take a while.

When I think about our congregation now in relation to this passage from Luke, I think of how we are really at different stages along the way.  

I think the common denominator here is that we all consider ourselves followers of Jesus. There is something about his life, his message that has touched us. We are in that crowd that has decided to at least look further into what it means to be on the way with Jesus.

Most folks here have decided to take a bigger step on that journey. We have become formal members of this congregation, saying we seek to grow in faith and understanding of what it means to be a disciple, to show love and justice and to witness to the work and word of Jesus and to be part of the life of this congregation.

We have attached ourselves to a community that we hope will nurture us along the way and through which we can multiply our efforts toward shaping a world to match God’s vision of it.

The next step is really much more individual one. It’s how we begin to move from being a follower and a church member to becoming a disciple, to become one of those who try to put Jesus and his message truly at the center of our lives.

Think about those three things Jesus said are required of those who would be his disciples –
- commitment to him above all else,
- a willingness to take the risks represented by the cross
- and a spirit of generosity that leaves behind a clinging to possessions.

I don’t think becoming a disciple is an instant thing for most people. I think it is something we can strive for, work towards, even as we may do so in fits and starts along the way.

Remember that Jesus’ closest followers had plenty of stumbles along the way, even fleeing when the going got very rough as Jesus was led to his death. But they came back and kept working on what it meant to be a disciple. They did not give up just because the building was not completed.

What do we do, then, if we want to move from follower to disciple?

First, consider this question. Where are you in that crowd that was following Jesus in today’s story?
Are you one of the curious ones?
Are you looking what you can get out of this for yourself?
Are you wanting to be more deeply committed?
Are you looking for a way, as one author put it, to use Jesus as a rock to stand on as you put your shoulder to the wheel of the world?

If you want to make some moves toward discipleship, you might explore something called faith practices – the things we do to shape and deepen our commitment to Jesus.

There are many different lists of faith practices out there, but here are some common elements –
- daily prayer,
- weekly worship,
- regular Bible reading and study of the Bible with others,
- giving of time, talent and resources to a community of those committed to Jesus and to the wider world,
- inviting others to join you on this journey,
- a sharing of stories,
- a sharing of meals and celebrations,
- and then working for a just and loving world.

Those all help shape us into more than followers, more than church members, but into a disciples. That all sounds pretty gentle. But, of course, it’s not.

Scripture scholar R. Alan Culpepper takes us back to Jesus’ words about counting the cost:
“The cost of discipleship is paid in many different kinds of currency,” he wrote. “For some persons a redirection of time and energy is required, for others a change in personal relationships, a change in vocation, or a commitment of financial resources, but for each person the call to discipleship is all-consuming.”

Soon you find yourself traveling to Biloxi to work on a devastated city
or serving a meal to a homeless family
or sitting at a crisis line talking with battered women
or testifying before a county committee in defense of the disabled
or standing with Muslims as they face a torrent of hate
or helping a former prisoner re-enter society…
doing one thing after another that moves you out of your comfort zone.

Jesus is asking his followers to hate – yes, I really used that word – to hate that comfort zone … in other words, to love him more than complacency, to move out of those comfort zones, to become disciples.

He is asking us to make the kinds of changes that will make our commitment to him and his message something that consumes our lives.

We are all itinerant people on that journey with Jesus. That’s what brings us here on a day like this. It’s up to us to figure out where we want to go next.

So we trust in God to be with us along the way, we lean on each other when the going gets tough and we gather around this table to be nourished as we travel.