Don Friesen
I often find my naivete down around my ankles with regard to money, and so when someone recently told me about a house appraised at $350,000, I was shocked! I would have priced that house at no more than $200,000. I like to think that I have some notion of real estate value, but apparently not!
I had a similar experience some years ago when our church office received a fax by mistake. The fax came from a golf club in the region and listed the annual fees charged by that particular club. The fees were astronomical! I could not believe my eyes! Even the church treasurer, wise in the ways of the financial world, found them too high and Church Council refused to pay the fees on my behalf! Just as well; I hate golf!
Some people call this sticker shock, the reaction you have, for example, when you see a dress you like, take it off the rack, check the price tag and immediately return it to the rack. You may have the same reaction when planning a nice vacation, and after adding up the various costs, including those presented in fine print, the total cost shocks you into accepting a more modest option, like, say, spending a week with your in-laws.
Sticker shock is rarely a problem for the Church, however, for we like to appeal to and be open to everyone! Ten commandments too many for you? We can whittle them down to five your choice. The church budget too expensive for you? No problem; we have people who are willing to tithe-and-then-some! You want programmes for your kids that other people will run? We actually have some of those servant-types right on site!
Count the Cost!
I am well aware that not everyone feels at home in church. Churches may present barriers to those not immersed in church culture. It's interesting to observe people at weddings and funerals. We make a lot of assumptions about how to behave in a church, and not everyone has read the handbook! We don't want to make the Gospel or congregational life in-accessible, but some attempts to make the Church user-friendly are nothing short of ridiculous like the church that placed cots in the foyer for those who claim that Sunday is their only day to sleep in; like the church that distributed "Stamp out Stewardship" buttons for those who feel the church is always asking for money; like the church that planted trees and grass in one corner of the sanctuary for those who like to find God in nature; or like the church that decorated the sanctuary with both Christmas poinsettias and Easter lilies for those who have never seen the church without them. You can try to fashion a user-friendly church, but you may very well end up a few bricks short of Jesus' intent! A discount discipleship, if you will. As comedian Jim Carey says, in mock evangelist-mode, "They're slicin' and dicin' the prices of sin, and all sin must go!"
This Is One Tough Gospel!
Some attempts to make the Church accessible are worthy of derision, but I confess that today's Gospel reading may go too far in the other direction. Today's reading from the Gospel of Luke makes Christian discipleship one hard sell! Jesus' following had gathered some momentum by the time our text rolls around. Luke tells us that Jesus had attracted "large crowds," but if the Gospel reader might expect Jesus to build on this momentum, we know it's not going to happen when Jesus tells the large crowd:
It might be possible to put a positive spin on Jesus' words in this passage, but then Jesus adds, "Whoever does not carry the cross and follow me cannot be my disciple." (Luke 14:27) Oh boy. It might be preferable for everyone if we focus on the pastoral support and encouragement Jesus offers. Let's save the cross-thing until Good Friday, when many of us are out of town anyway.
Jesus lets us off the hook, however, with two cute little stories. He asks, "...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.'" (Luke 14:28-30)
We can work with this. This is Jesus in hard-businessman-mode. He's telling us not to go off half-cocked. Makes sense. We admire organized people. And thankfully, Jesus continues working this theme, saying:
Jesus concludes: "So therefore, none of you can become my disciple if you do not give up all your possessions." (Luke 14:33) Whoa! Whoa! Whoa! That's quite a jump! This one is hard to spin! We might be able to argue a disconnect if it weren't for that pesky word, "therefore".
Not all Recruits Pass Muster
If Jesus started his address with a large crowd (Luke 14:25) in attendance, I imagine it dwindled considerably as he went on. And it doesn't really get any better. Around the middle of the Gospel of Luke we are in the midst of what have become known as the "hard sayings of Jesus" hard sayings that remind us that Christian discipleship is more than a free pass into heaven, and which in all honesty behoove us to be upfront about the cost of discipleship. We may try to bend over backwards to accommodate potential believers or even actual believers but sooner or later they will read the Gospels for themselves, discover these hard sayings, and conclude, "This is one tough Jesus!" Sooner or later they will discover the martyrs of the Church, and no explanation about their death will deter them from concluding, "This is one tough Church!"
Jesus issued a broad invitation to people to follow him, and we know that many were interested, but we also know that some didn't pass muster! Like the three wannabe disciples in Luke, chapter 9 (Luke 9:57-62), who all said, "Sure... Yeah, I'd like to do that; that may help my personal growth, but first... this, ...and that, and the other thing. I have to go bury my father. I just bought some property and I need to get started on the renovations. I just got married; call me but after the honeymoon.
Years ago I lived in a mining town in northern Manitoba, and new recruits arrived daily to work at the nickle mine. The company was always short of workers, so it flew in would-be miners from across Canada, outfitted them with a hard hat, a miner's lamp, and steel-toed boots, and sent them underground. The majority of these recruits lasted less than a week! Many lasted only one day! I don't know what they were expecting! Maybe they thought the work was easy. Maybe they were freaked out by millions of tons of rock above their heads. Maybe they just wanted a free plane ride. I don't know, but they were subject to the same ridicule that the ill-prepared builder and ill-advised king in Jesus' stories endured.
Jesus advised those who wanted to follow him to "count the cost". (Luke 14:28, RSV) When I go through marriage preparation sessions with young couples, one of the exercises I require of them is to write down their responses to twenty stressful things that could happen to them during their married life, everything from financial difficulties to hostile in-laws, a miscarriage, the death of a child, or the inability to have children. The exercise usually takes the bloom off any residual romance, but anyone with even half of his or her wits knows that any marriage worth having is not easy and it is not cheap. It costs a lifetime of effort and it requires a depth of commitment that is sobering. That's one of the reasons the Church's traditional wedding ritual begins with the declaration that "marriage is not to be entered into unadvisedly or lightly, but reverently, deliberately, and in accordance with the purposes for which it was instituted by God." (The Book of Common Prayer) Similarly, any parent knows that there are tremendous physical, emotional, and financial costs to raising children.
Christian Faith Has a Learning Curve
I don't know where we got the idea that faith and church should be so accessible. We never apply the same logic to other things. If you want to study physics, but are a neophyte, it would be ridiculous to come out of your first physics class with your head spinning with talk of dispersion and attenuation, Heisenberg's uncertainty principle, Avogadro's constant, the acceleration of gravity and dimensional analysis and complain about it, saying, "But I thought Physics was just common sense." No! That's why we have Physics for Dummies! That's why we have all of those books for dummies, and they're popular because there are so many of us out there, and we're not embarrassed to admit that we're dummies about a lot of things! Surely then matters of even greater significance, matters of faith and the community of faith, should require a learning curve.
William Willimon, former Dean of the Chapel at Duke University, once got a call from a very upset parent who opened the conversation with: "I hold you personally responsible for this!"
"Me?" asked Willimon.
The father was upset because his graduate school bound daughter had just informed him that she was going to leave her academic path "throw it all away," was what the father said and go do mission work with the Presbyterians in Haiti. "That's absurd!" shouted the father. "A degree in mechanical engineering from Duke and she's going to dig ditches in Haiti."
"Well," replied Willimon, "I doubt that she's received much training in the Engineering Department ...for that kind of work, but she's probably a fast learner and will probably get the hang of ditch-digging in ...a few months." Willimon was one tough dean.
"This is no laughing matter," said the father. "You are completely irresponsible to have encouraged her to do this. I hold you personally responsible." As the conversation went on, Willimon pointed out that the parents were the ones who had started this ball rolling. They were the ones who had her baptized, read Bible stories to her, took her to Sunday School, let her go on trips with the Presbyterian Youth Fellowship. Said Willimon,"You're the one who introduced her to Jesus, not me."
"But," retorted the father, "all we ever wanted her to be was a Presbyterian!" (adapted from William Willimon) All I ever wanted my child to be was a Christian, we might say.
About a century ago a child was born to a young German couple who wanted their son to enjoy the success they enjoyed. The boy's father was a professor of psychiatry and neurology at the University of Berlin. The boy himself became an outstanding student, and at the age of twenty-five became a lecturer in systematic theology at the same University. Like most good Christians he was taught not to "resist the powers that be," but when Hitler came to power in 1933, this young fellow became a leading spokesman for the Confessing Church, the centre of Protestant resistance to the Nazis. He organized an underground seminary for the Confessing Church. He was bright enough and privileged enough that he could have accommodated himself to any regime. Even his theology did not stand in the way. He was taught that salvation comes by grace alone, but he came to believe that grace can be used as an excuse for moral laxity. He came to believe that it was his moral duty to resist Hitler, and when he assisted a group planning the overthrow of Hitler, he was arrested, and a year later hung, at the age of thirty-nine and less than a week before the Allies reached the camp in which he had been held. (adapted from "Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Pastor and Theologian," by James E. Kiefer)
His name was Dietrich Bonhoeffer (1906-1945), and one of his enduring legacies is the book entitled, The Cost of Discipleship (1937), in which he laments the "cheap grace" the Church offers. "Cheap grace," said Bonhoeffer, "is the preaching of forgiveness without requiring repentance, baptism without church discipline, Communion without confession, ...grace without discipleship, grace without the cross, grace without Jesus Christ...." (Cost of Discipleship, page 36) Cheap grace is a little like the man noted for his marksmanship, who, when asked about his prowess said that it was rather simple: "I just fire a round into a large tree and then draw a bulls-eye around it." Many of us want our Christian faith and discipleship to come as easily. We sum up our life, draw a circle around it, and call it Christian.
Jesus refers to this exercise in futility in the verses immediately following our Gospel reading, when he refers to salt that has lost its distinctive flavour, its saltiness. (Luke 14:34-35) Jesus used this vivid illustration to impress upon prospective followers the cost of discipleship. It serves as a warning to potential recruits that Christian discipleship deserves serious consideration. A half-hearted, lukewarm assent to the claims of the Gospel are like useless salt, not even fit, said Jesus, "for the soil (or) for the manure pile". (14:35)
Refresh my Heart with Substance
The New Testament book of Philemon is a letter the Apostle Paul wrote to a fellow believer and leader of the Early Church. It's a very warm letter; Paul writes, "I have indeed received much joy and encouragement from your love, ...the hearts of the saints have been refreshed through you, my brother." (Philemon 7) And later on Paul adds, "Refresh my heart in Christ." (Philemon 20) I should have preached on this passage; it's a little more upbeat! We all need a some spiritual refreshment! The context of Paul's request, however, is that Paul was acting as an advocate for an escaped slave Onesimus and the refreshment he is requesting has to do with changing the nature of Philemon's relationship to Onesimus, formerly a master-slave relationship. Consider also that Paul was writing this letter while in prison and five times in this short letter he alludes to his imprisonment. (Philemon 1, 9, 10, 13, and 23) Nonetheless, the letter is a warm and encouraging message!
A colleague tells of his visit to China in 2002, where he met pastors and church leaders who had suffered greatly during the years of the Cultural Revolution. Their churches had been shut down, and they had been sent away from home and family for years of harsh re-education. Many continue to suffer chronic health problems resulting from the brutal treatment they received during that time. My colleague expected some bitterness from all the years of ministry and health that were stolen from them. Yet none of the people with whom he spoke expressed any bitterness or resentment. None of them held up their personal experience as worthy of special commendation. It was simply the cost they had to bear in their time and place for being a Christian disciple. An older and wise pastor acknowledged that "God used those years ...to help us learn how to be a church of the poor. Before that, we had been a church of the educated, ...the intellectuals. Now we know how to be a church for the poor." (John Thomas, "No Joy for Those Unwilling to Accept the Cost," 2004) One tough Christian, I tell you, who counted the cost of discipleship and didn't find it all that costly set alongside the "pearl of great price!" (Matthew 13:46, KJV)
The continuing popularity of Dietrich Bonhoeffer's book is an indication that people are hungry for a Gospel with meat. People are hungry for substance, and I think we do them a disservice when we dumb down our faith and our church life such that anyone can do it. Even easier than learning to ride a bike! If we feed ourselves for too long on the sugar flakes of costless Christianity, we will simply starve for the sustenance of the Gospel that is the "Bread of Life". (John 6:35) We were designed to crave the Divine, to long for a spirit refreshed and en-fleshed! We need a Gospel that challenges and mystifies us! A Gospel that compels us to abandon ourselves to it, that impels us, as the Apostle Paul put it, to "(grasp) ever more firmly that purpose for which Christ Jesus grasped (us)." (Philippians 3:12, PHL) Ours is a tough Gospel worthy of the tough Church that has stood firm while kings and empires came and went. (The Mennonite Hymnal, #378)
May God's Spirit refresh our hearts, make them tender and true, but also sufficiently tough that we live lives worthy of the Gospel. The New Testament encourages us to "lead a life worthy of the calling to which (we) have been called, with all humility and gentleness, with patience, bearing with one another in love, making every effort to maintain the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace." (Ephesians 4:1-3) AMEN
"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." (Luke 14:26)
Definitions of the family may be changing, but family of whatever shape is still held dear by many, so Jesus' words make the Gospel a tough sell to potential church members. The only way to soften Jesus' words to make them more palatable is to claim that he mis-spoke, or that he was exaggerating. He didn't really mean what he said, ...or perhaps he didn't say what he meant. Or perhaps if we keep the focus on love, it will take the edge off his unfortunate utterance.
"...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?" (Luke 14:31)
This is practical theology. This is a pragmatic faith. Of course you're going to look like a schuzel if you never finish the projects you've started!
All quotations of Scripture, unless otherwise noted, are from the New Revised Standard Version.