The Thirteenth Sunday after Pentecost - September 7, 2025

St. Pauls - Proper 18 - September , 2025

So who wants to be a disciple of Jesus? He certainly doesn’t pull any punches about what it takes. First, Hate your father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters, yes, and even life itself. Second, Carry the cross and follow [him]. Lastly, Give up all your possessions. (See Luke 14:25-33, Proper 18C)

It’s that simple and it’s that difficult. Jesus’ words don’t just sound black and white. They are black and white. It is all or nothing. We are either in or we are out. His words are likely not the first thing that comes to mind when we consider our faithfulness or what the Christian life looks like. We don’t often talk about the demands and sacrifices required by the Christian path. Too often we turn Christianity into a set of beliefs divorced from a way of being and acting.

I’m not talking about salvation, the future, heaven or hell. This is about who we are and how we live right now, here, today. So what do we do with today’s gospel, this so called good news? I suspect the first temptation is to soften the text, to explain it away, to reinterpret it to fit our lives. That temptation, however, is just another symptom of the consumerism that infects much of our society, church, and faith.

Too often church and faith are treated like a big buffet. We take as much of what we like and want but leave behind what we do not like, what’s too hard to swallow, what we disagree with, or what does not fit our personal opinions and beliefs. That’s not how the gospels portray Jesus or the life of discipleship. To the degree we have done that we have deceived ourselves and each other.

Sometimes we need to have demands and expectations placed upon us. This is what Jesus is doing in today’s gospel. His demands and expectations call us to be different, to be fully alive, to be like him. It is the same choice Moses set before the Israelites, the choice between life and prospretity, and death and adversity (Deuteronomy 30:15-20). It is a choice we make multiple times a day, every day of our lives. That’s the choice with which Jesus confronts the crowds in today’s gospel.

The crowds have been gathering around Jesus since early in his ministry. Jesus was the new buffet for them. He offered healing, exorcisms, teaching, hope, life, good news, bread, freedom, and a new vision. He had what they wanted and they gathered around, surrounded, and pressed in on him. 

It was as if they could not get enough. The crowds grew in numbers, increasing by the thousands. Something changes, however, with today’s gospel. They are no longer just gathering when Jesus is around; they are now traveling with him.

There is more to discipleship, however, than simply traveling with Jesus. Discipleship is more than grazing at the buffet of divine life. That life cannot be bought but it will cost us everything we have. Hate your family and your own life. Carry the cross. Give up your possessions.

Those three things, the cost of discipleship, shaped Jesus’ own life and ministry. They are to shape ours as well. Jesus is not asking us to do anything he did not do. To the contrary he makes it possible for us to do what he did.

Let’s talk about the word hate as it is used in this passage. The Greek word means to hate, yes, but it also means to have less preference for or to set kind of in a lower space. In other words, this is not the emotional, feeling based way we tend to think of hate today. For Jesus, hating another is about reordering relationships and loyalty. When 12 year old Jesus had a conflict with his parents in the Temple, and he said, Why were you searching for me? Did you not know that I must be in my Father’s house’” Jesus is not rejecting Mary and Joseph or their love and presence in his life. This is not about rejection but establishing new priorities. For the disciple no one and no relationship can take precedence over the relationship with Jesus; not father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters, or life itself.

In that sense Jesus hated his own life. He carried his cross and gave precedence to his Father’s will and our salvation. Again it is about priorities. He set aside his will and preferences in favor of love for and obedience to God.

What about Jesus’ possessions? The birds and animals of this world have more possessions than Jesus. Foxes have holes, and birds of the air have nests; but the Son of Man has nowhere to lay his head, Jesus says (Luke 9:58). Again, Jesus is giving primacy to his relationship with God not his relationship with things. It’s a question of priorities.

Jesus is asking us to do and be what he did and who he was. That’s what a disciple is. A disciple is a learner, one who learns to live, act, speak, and think like the teacher. The disciple integrates the teacher’s life and teachings into his or her own life.

No one, no cost, no thing is to take precedence over or interfere with our relationship with Jesus. Nothing is more important because it is our relationship with Jesus that shapes, defines, determines, and characterizes all our other relationships, all other aspects of our lives, who we are, what we say, and what we do.

Discipleship, learning to be and live like Jesus, is ultimately what unifies our life. So often we live fragmented and compartmentalized lives. We have a work life, school life, family and home life, internet life, recreational life, political and civic life, church life. This fragmentation allows us to place each of those different aspects of our life as the priority depending on where we are, who we are with, and what we are doing. That fragmentation is one more symptom of a consumer oriented, buffet driven world.

Jesus’ demands and expectations change all that. There can be only one priority and it is to inform and shape the whole of who we are and what we do. Think about some of the implications.

• It means we are to be the same person with the same values, principles, and beliefs regardless of where we are, who we are with, or what we are doing.

• It means politics is no longer governed by party agendas or loyalty but by commitment to Jesus and gospel agendas.

• It means personal opinions and preferences give way to love of neighbor and one’s enemies. Imagine how that one thing would change some of the postings and comments on Facebook and other social, and our private as well as public conversations.

• It means business is not a capitalist venture to gain money, power, or leverage over another but a resource to care for, support, and satisfy human needs.

• It means the environment is not a commodity to be used, polluted, and stripped, but a sacred gift entrusted to our care, a gift that manifests and reveals God’s own beauty and holiness.

• It means everything we say, do, choose, and are arises from and reveals our life in and love of Christ.

If we choose to live like that there are costs to be paid and sacrifices to be made. We shouldn’t be surprised. We know that’s true for other parts of our lives. We sacrifice years of study for an education. We sacrifice long hours and weekends for a successful career. We sacrifice time, money, and other opportunities to make sure our kids get to camp, activities, and sports games. We sacrifice dessert for a healthy diet and sleeping in for time to work out. We know how to make sacrifices and pay the cost. We do it because these things are important to us. They are priorities for us. There’s nothing wrong with any of those things. They are good and important aspects of our lives but we cannot avoid the obvious question to which this leads. What costs are we willing to pay and what sacrifices are we willing to make to be disciples of Jesus?

I don’t know what your answer is. The answer will be different for each of us but I am sure each answer will involve reordering our priorities. Our learning to be like Jesus is not just another priority, one among many; it is to be the priority and it has consequences for our relationships, time, money, work, energy, and effort. No part of our life is left untouched. If we want to know what our priority is, what orients, drives, and directs our life, we need only look at the choices we make, what we choose to say and do, and the ways in which we spend our time, money, and energy. What do those choices say about us? Do they reflect discipleship, learning to be like Jesus? What new choices might more closely align our life with Jesus’?

I think we need to ask ourselves…..What version of Christianity am I selling?  Clearly, I hold a leadership position within the Church.   The Church which is, of necessity, a human institution even as it is also the Body of Christ.  Whether we like it or not, those of us invested in the institution must care about its survival.  We have to care about numbers.  We have to care about attracting newcomers.  We have to care about the bottom line.  But how do these concerns jibe with the hard sell Jesus insists on in this week’s lectionary?  How do we package discipleship in a culture that insists, It’s mine.  I paid for it?  What do we lose every time we trade the cross in for a low-cost, low-risk, You can have your cake and eat it, too, version of Christianity?

To return to Jesus’s own metaphor, we lose the opportunity to invest in a tower worth building.  A holy community worth living and dying for.  A resurrection worth the weight of the crosses Christ will gladly and graciously help us bear.  The question is..WILL WE LET HIM?…