The Cost of Discipleship
David Orendorff · Luke 14:25-33 · September 16, 2007
The story goes: One Sunday morning during Sunday morning worship a 2000 member congregation was surprised to see two men enter, both covered from head to toe in black and carrying submachine guns.
One of the men proclaimed, “Anyone willing to take a bullet for Christ remain where you are.”
Immediately, the choir fled, the deacons fled, and most of the congregation fled. Out of the 2,000 there only remained around 20.
The man who had spoken took off his hood, looked at the preacher and said “Okay Pastor, I got rid of all the hypocrites. Now you may begin your service. Have a nice day!”
And the two men turned and walked out.
I call the story provocative because it makes me, the hearer, wonder, “Would I be one of the 20 or would I flee?” I know of all kinds of rationalizations I can make for fleeing and at least one of them I actually believe. But the question goes deeper for me is “What would I be willing to die for?” What is so precious, so powerful, that it would be better to die than betray it?
Dietrich Bonhoeffer wrestled with this question in Nazi Germany. Bonhoeffer was a Lutheran pastor and theologian. While much of his church supported the authority of Adolph Hitler and backed his holocaust policies, Bonhoeffer had serious doubts. He wondered in his writings and lectures whether Hitler could indeed be supported by Christian folks. Because Hitler had such broad appeal to an angry and fearful nation Bonhoeffer’s questions made him the target of accusations of being unpatriotic and even seditious. It was more than being unpopular that threatened him. The Nazi’s and much of the German nation wanted his death. Bonhoeffer had to decide the price he was willing pay to be a faithful disciple of Jesus. Ultimately, in 1945, he was executed by a firing squad, choosing to voice Christ’s call for justice, tolerance and peace over blind and obedient patriotism, his family, or even his life.
Am I willing to place my faithfulness to Christ above my nation, my family; would I be willing to take a bullet for Jesus?
Jesus doesn’t get us off the hook, in fact he sinks the hook deeper in today’s lesson from Luke saying, “ If any one comes to me and does not hate his own father and mother and wife and children and brothers and sisters, and yes, even his own life, he cannot be my disciple. (Luke 14:26)”
I don’t like this saying. I can’t imagine and don’t want to hate my parents, my children, my wife in order to follow Jesus. I can’t imagine how hating can help me love even my enemy as Jesus has called me to do.
In an attempt to avoid the harshness of this passage I went to the original text to see if the Greek word for hate could be softened somehow. It can’t be. The Greek is just as harsh as the English.
So I went to some New Testament scholars to see if any of them had found a way around this passage, some explanation that could help me. But there was no help there either.
Funk and Hoover, in their publication of the Jesus Seminar’s work titled “The Five Gospels: What Did Jesus Really Say?”1 Robert W. Funk, Roy W. Hoover, and the Jesus Seminar, The Five Gospels: What Did Jesus Really Say?, (A Polebridge Press Book, Macmillan Publishing Co., Toronto, 1993) place Jesus’ hateful words in red meaning that the Jesus Society unanimously voted that these are indeed the real words of Jesus. Now the Jesus society does not award red letters very often and for this very liberal group to be certain that Jesus said “hate your own father, etc.” is to doom my search for a way to avoid this saying. Again, I am confronted with the question, “What price am I willing to pay to be a disciple of Jesus?”
However Funk and Hoover do help in understanding the context in which this saying is given when they comment:
The severity of this saying can only be understood in the context of the primacy of filial relationships. Individuals had no real existence apart from their ties to blood relatives, especially parents. If one did not belong to a family, one had no real social existence. Jesus is therefore confronting the social structures that governed his society at their core. For Jesus, family ties faded into insignificance in relation to God’s imperial rule, which he regarded as the fundamental claim on human loyalty.2 ibid. 353
The gunmen, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, and Jesus all challenge me to consider where my first loyalties lie. Who is really God of my life? Is my love of nation more important than my love of Jesus and so I swing along with the national moods of patriotism rather than follow Jesus to the cross? Do I love my family more than I love my God and so place my parents, children, and spouse before my hunger and passion, my desperate seeking of God’s reign in my life? Is my desire for personal safety more important than God and so that when threatened I flee God?
I confess to you that if masked men armed with submachine guns entered our sanctuary I would probably encourage all of you to leave then follow you out. A part of me says it is foolish to die when I have a chance to live and love another day. And a part of me says that denying Christ under threat of death is just what Peter did and regretted.
And I confess to you that I am often a quiet dissenter of what I see as a mindless and heartless patriotism. I want to speak out and resist the temptations of fear wrapped in national pride; I want to speak for the oppressed regardless of what you or my government might do to me. But I know that it is simpler and safer to keep my mouth shut because I don’t want to offend some of you, and I want all of you to like me.
And I confess to you that I cannot bring myself to hate my parents, my children, my spouse or any others in my family. I love them, not because like in Jesus’ day they are the governing structure of my life, but because God is love to me. I can’t even bring myself to hate my enemies. I don’t really hate anyone.
So with this confession, am I not a Christian? Maybe I’m not. But then I confess to you that I am willing to die for Jesus, to take a bullet for Jesus, if I am asked to betray Jesus’ love. More important to me than my life, my nation or my family is God. Not God as an idea, but God who is love. I will die for love. I will be shunned for love. I will leave my family if that is what love requires. There is no doubt in my mind about this. I believe that God is love and that there is no life worth living, there is no nation worth having, there is no family worth serving, that is not of love. God is love and love is my God.
I don’t mean by love a good feeling for all. There are folks I simply don’t like so well, and some of these have very similar genetic codes to me. What I mean by love is the love that Christ taught. A love that is compassionate even with enemies; a love that serves another even when it is inconvenient; a love that will pick up whatever cross is laid upon it and march to its own death praying for the forgiveness and salvation of the soldiers of evil. This is the love I will die for.
Fortunately my belief has not been tested in a big way. But in small ways my soul conviction to the love known to me in Creator, Christ and Holy Spirit is tested daily. And daily I am mostly loving. Sometimes I am not. When I fail to behave as a faithful follower of Jesus; when I am not a servant of love, then I pray for the forgiveness of God and all of you. I pray that I am forgiven my weak and cowardly faith and that I may be healed so that I might be ever more like Jesus.
Today we receive communion. To come to the communion table is to declare at least two things:
- To declare that you want to above all else serve God who is love. To accept the invitation to this meal with Christ is to proclaim God as the creator, sustenance, forgiveness and healing of your life.
- And secondly, it is to declare that you know that you have failed God, but that God in everlasting mercy, forgives you and improves, perfects, you in love. After sharing in this Holy Communion you are a new person in Christ.
So, take this meal as if you were willing to die for love. Take this meal as if you are ready to stand against fear and country, family and friend for the sake of the Good News of Jesus compassion. This meal and all it represents is the most important thing you will ever do and it worth dying for. Shalom and Amen.