Luke 14:25–35

²⁵Now great crowds accompanied him, and he turned and said to them,

²⁶"If anyone comes to me and does 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.

²⁷Whoever does not bear his own cross and come after me cannot be my disciple.

²⁸For which of you, desiring to build a tower, does not first sit down and count the cost, whether he has enough to complete it?

²⁹Otherwise, when he has laid a foundation and is not able to finish, all who see it begin to mock him,

³⁰saying, 'This man began to build and was not able to finish.'

³¹Or 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?

³²And if not, while the other is yet a great way off, he sends a delegation and asks for terms of peace.

³³So therefore, any one of you who does not renounce all that he has cannot be my disciple.

³⁴"Salt is good, but if salt has lost its taste, how shall its saltiness be restored?

³⁵It is of no use either for the soil or for the manure pile. It is thrown away. He who has ears to hear, let him hear."

There is a hymn, much beloved by many, entitled "In the Garden." It describes a wonderful and comforting image of a pleasant day in a garden, conversing with Jesus, a good friend, while walking along quite casually and with no apparent destination or schedule. However, the words of our text present a very different image. Jesus is not a sweet friend but a teacher making clear the demands of being his disciple. Nor is the image that of a pleasant stroll. We are to walk not merely with Jesus but behind him. He tells his disciples to "follow" him. And that demands a cost.

Cost? But no one told me anything about a cost to being a disciple of Jesus. What do you mean by cost? We want to be Jesus' disciples, all right. We want to be just like Jesus. We want to do what Jesus did, to follow his example for our behavior. You remember the now passé What Would Jesus Do movement? Or perhaps it is his power that impresses you. Wouldn't it be nice to be able to do miracles like Jesus. Or be smart enough to confound the Pharisees when they asked him trick questions. There are many things we see in Jesus that we think would be nice if we could be like him or do what he did.

But Jesus gives us a very different picture here. There is a cost; there are demands placed on the disciple. If you are to be a disciple of Jesus there are requirements and a price to pay. First, he says, sit down and calculate what that means to you.

Unfortunately, we humans want to walk in our own way and live our life according to our own rules. But man was not created to be independent and live by his own rules. Man was created to live forever; to be immortal; and to live in communion with God. God was to be our destiny. From the beginning we knew God and trusted him. From the bounty and beauty of creation God supplied all our needs. God was there for the purpose of supplying our needs. God wanted to be with us so that he could pour out his bounty on us; to rain his blessings on us. Psalm 145:16 says: "you open your hand; you satisfy the desire of every living thing."

But instead of living in communion with God and in thanksgiving for his blessing, man loves created things: money, success, family, health. Man no longer loves God with all his heart, mind and soul; man no longer trusts God above all things, now man loves and trusts money, success, family and health.

But such love is the source of many evils. Paul tells us: "the love of money is the root of all sorts of evil." Evils such as hedonistic fatalism: "Come, now, I will test you with pleasure; enjoy yourself," says King Solomon, "but behold this also was vanity."

The evil of insensitivity: Man has become insensitive to the needs and suffering of others. He has grown cold and unloving. When we see someone in pain we too often just don't care. He should learn to take care of himself. It is no business of mine. I don't have the time.

Evils such as idolatry which destroy our trust, love and hope. "Take care," says God, "lest you forget the Lord your God when you have eaten and are full and have built good houses and live in them; when your herds and flocks multiply and all your possessions are multiplied, for then you will forget the Lord your God who brought you up out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery." Today, in an affluent society, where we seem to have everything we need and much, much more, many have forgotten God. They have eaten and are full, they have built good houses, they bank accounts are full and getting fuller every day. They have the luxury to fill their lives with sheer entertainment and pleasure. They live a life of ease and so they have forgotten the Lord who brought them out of slavery to sin and death.

Such love for this life of comfort and pleasure compromises our love of Christ and his kingdom. Such love brings death. That is why three times Jesus tells his followers what is necessary to be his disciples: "If you do not hate your own father and mother and wife and children and brothers and sisters, yes, and even your own life, you cannot be my disciple." And "he who does not bear his own cross and come after me cannot be my disciple." And finally, "if any one of you does not renounce all that he has, he cannot be my disciple."

These are hard words. They condemn us all. They tell us that we must love God above all things; that nothing should get in the way of our love and service to God. None of us can possibly meet these requirements for being a disciple of Jesus. According to these requirements, none of us is a disciple of Jesus and all of us deserve eternal death and punishment.

But Christ was sent into the world by God, his Father. He was sent to walk the way of the perfect disciple of God. He was sent to do the will and works of the Father. Yes, Jesus was the obedient Son, obedient even to the point of death, the shameful death on the cross.

He was obedient: in the midst of his suffering he prayed, "If it be possible, let this cup pass from me; nevertheless, not as I will, but as you will." In the hour of his death, Jesus prayed, "Father save me from this hour, But For this purpose I have come to this hour."

Jesus' obedience was a love for God whole and complete. He emptied himself of all majesty to become the obedient Son. Even to the point of death on a cross. He was the Son of Man who had no place or home. He left all his possessions and all his glory behind to humble himself and become our servant.

And Christ's willing death was the ultimate leaving the world behind to follow after his Master, his heavenly Father.

A poem from the middle ages is a dialogue between Christ and the disciple:

Jesus says to his disciple: My son! I came down from heaven for your salvation; I took upon Me your miseries not of necessity, but out of love that you might learn patience and might bear temporal miseries without murmuring. For from the hour of My birth, until My death upon the Cross, I ceased not from bearing of sorrow; I had much lack of temporal things; I ofttimes heard many reproaches against Myself; I gently bore contradictions and hard words; I received ingratitude for benefits, blasphemies for My miracles, rebukes for My doctrine.

To which the disciple responds:

Lord, because you were patient in your life, fulfilling the commandment of your Father, it is well that I, miserable sinner, should patiently bear myself according to your will, and as long as you will have it so, for my salvation should bear the burden of this corruptible life.

In our Baptism we are united with Christ to walk the way of his death, in order that we may walk in the newness of his life. In Baptism we put on Christ. That is we share in his nature and his example. That means our lives are being shaped and molded into the form of Christ, the shape of the cross. Putting on Christ means we share his mind, as Paul says, "Who has understood the mind of the Lord so as to instruct him? But we have the mind of Christ."

Putting on Christ means we share his humility. Phil. 2:5-8 "Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus,

⁶who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped,

⁷but made himself nothing, taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men.

⁸And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross."

Putting on Christ means we share his way: "Follow in his steps, when he was reviled, he did not revile in return; when he suffered he did not threaten. He himself bore our sins in his body on the tree."

So let us recognize what it means to "count the cost." This is the way of the cross. The way of the cross is the way of death to self. It is dying to lusts and passions. It is putting away our sinful desires and turning from temptations. It is freedom from bondage to temporal goods. The way of the cross is the way of love and sacrifice. It if freedom for human commitments rooted in love and service. Commitments to marriage, children, co-workers, friends and society. The way of the cross is the way of life that leads to God.

Jesus went to the Father by way of the cross. So too, we go to the Father by way of the cross: the cross where Jesus paid for our sins, and opens the door to the Father. Jesus is the way, the truth and the life. Only through him do we come to the Father. Jesus' cross gives us life with the Father.

Jesus says, "Seek ye first the kingdom of god and his righteousness and all these things will be added to you." We find the kingdom in the cross of Jesus. While the world goes about looking for the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow, they will never find it there. The pot of gold is not at the end of the rainbow, but at the cross of Jesus. That is where our true treasure lies. Not in things of this world, not in wealth, friends, family, pleasure, health or fame, but in the suffering and death of Jesus who paid for our sins and who rose again to give us life. There all these things shall be added to us.

Every way has a destination and every path has an end. But the way of Jesus leads to the cross, which is both the way and the destination. For Christ the Crucified is our wisdom, righteousness, sanctification and redemption.

Amen.