Luke 14:25-33, a segment that extends to verse 35, contains sayings around the theme of the conditions of discipleship. Jesus urges people to consider the cost of discipleship.
In context, three times the conditions for discipleship are set forth, and three times the same refrain follows, "cannot be my disciple" (vv. 26, 27 and 33). The disciple must "hate" or he "cannot be my disciple." He must "carry the cross and follow me" or he "cannot be my disciple" (v. 27) and he must "give up" all his possessions, or he "cannot be my disciple" (v. 33 NIV). The corollary in Matthew, "is not worthy of me" (10:37-38), is the equivalent in Luke and, unlike the Lukan record, appears twice rather than three times. Both expressions may have a common Aramaic source rendering this phrase familiar, if not difficult, to the ears of his listeners. In any case, the willingness to give up family ties, face radical self-denial, and abandon possessions constitutes what Jesus calls the "cost" of being his disciple.
25 Now large crowds were traveling with him. In context, the travel narrative continues with the pointed observation that "large crowds were traveling with" Jesus, yet another signal to the reader that Jesus is in mid-journey on a relentless pilgrimage to Jerusalem -- begun and first noted in 9:51.
He turned and said to them, in a saying from Q involving hating one’s family, 26 “Whoever comes to me, which the large crowd had done, and does not hate father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters, yes, and even life itself, cannot be my disciple. In Mediterranean societies, a persons' primary loyalty was to blood relatives, especially parents. The failure to honor parents meant the loss of face, of honor, and led to ostracism. Coming to Jesus is not the same as discipleship. The point of Jesus is decisive. Jesus puts family, friends, self in subordination to discipleship. One can understand the severity of this saying 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 existence in the eyes of society. 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. In terms of the context, aware of the throngs, Jesus turns to them and utters a hard and enigmatic saying that can have no other effect than to diminish the ranks of potential disciples in the crowd. It seems incredible that Jesus could counsel one to participate in hatred of any kind. In Matthew, we read another version in 10:37. There the account reads, "Whoever loves father or mother more than me is not worthy of me." His words in Luke, which sound stern and uncompromising, have a relative meaning. In Genesis 29:29-33, we can note the movement from Jacob loving Rachel more than Leah to Leah saying that Jacob hated her, in the sense of loving her less than he loved Rachel. If presented with a choice, love of family must not come before love of Jesus. This is not the only time where Luke presents family as a potential obstacle to participation in the kingdom. In the text immediately preceding this unit, the parable of the great banquet (vv. 15-24), one person uses the excuse that he has just married and cannot come to the banquet. Likewise, earlier in the chapter, Jesus advises those who host banquets not to invite friends and family who can repay them the honor, but to invite those who could never return such a favor (vv. 12-14). Furthermore, in Luke 8:19-21, Jesus redefines family, “My mother and my brothers are those who hear the word of God and do it” (8:21). This redefinition of family places the will of God first and reconfigures all relationships based on this priority. We see this prioritization of the rule of God most clearly in the difficult sayings of 9:57-62 in which Jesus tells a would-be follower to place the proclamation of the kingdom before the burial of his father or even before saying farewell to those at home. He then proclaims to the one who hopes to follow, “No one who puts a hand to the plow and looks back is fit for the kingdom of God” (9:62). We must read the difficult saying of hating one’s father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters in 14:26 in light of these other sayings on family. Jesus intends the sayings to be harsh. Jesus intends to cause any would-be follower to stop and consider the full costs of following Jesus.
We must not press these words beyond their proper sense. We should not give words that had a specific direction in this moment a universal significance. Yet, we must also be willing to see the distinctive and concrete ethical direction is present. “Hate” does not mean emotion aversion, hostility, contempt, or repugnance. We should not take it psychologically. Such a statement is not a universal rule for all human conduct. Yet, within these limits, we must not tone down the saying. The divine command can in fact acquire the character of a commitment that literally says Jesus says here. Some situations demand this sense and direction.[1]
The point for us today is that Jesus does not play a secondary role to other commitments. Re-ordering commitments is a central moment in our discipleship. Here, Jesus is saying that discipleship means strengthening our faith ties to Jesus. A true disciple will value a relationship with Christ over other relationships. If we are not literally hate family, we are not to worship them either. A disciple knows his or her vocation or mission in life. Motivational speaker Tony Robbins encountered Mother Teresa in Mexico, and asked her, "What gives you total ecstasy?" "It's to see people die with smiles on their faces," she answered. The lesson here: "You've got to know what drives you," Robbins says. "What your purpose is in life."[2] A disciple has faith-ties that give purpose in life and follow the call of Christ regardless of what family members think.
Then, in a saying from Mark and Q involving carrying one’s cross, Jesus said, 27 Whoever does not carry the cross and follow me cannot be my disciple. Does the saying assume the Christian view of the cross? One of the considerations that historians bring to a saying like this is that the image of the cross appears here as a Christian symbol. Can language of this sort mean anything other than a reference to Jesus' crucifixion? There is, however, nothing else in the material common to Luke and Matthew that would lead us irresistibly in this direction, were it not that we still tend to read the document with everything else in mind that we already know about early Christianity from other texts. In other words, a Jewish teacher could have used the image of the cross to express the cost of faithfulness, given the Roman use of the cross to punish rebels.
In the sayings about the discipleship of the cross, Jesus required his disciples to bear his cross, but only as far as they were to bear their own. That is, their cross meant the consequences of the special calling and sending they received from God. Sharing the cross and death of Jesus thus means subjecting all else to the specific divine calling that each of us receives just as Jesus himself subjected all else to his own sending by the Father and for the sake of it was willing to go even to death.[3] Jesus offers the condition of discipleship as that of self-denial and of walking behind Jesus. Evoking the image of the prisoner condemned to death on a Roman cross and compelled to carry the patibulum, or crossbar, of his own personal cross to the site of his execution, he drives his point even closer to home. What might an alternate reading be? Epictetus said, "If you want to be crucified, just wait. The cross will come. If it seems reasonable to comply, and the circumstances are right, then it's to be done, and your integrity maintained." He is rehearsing one of several possible consequences of adopting and living in accordance with a certain philosophy. He would likewise graphically depict the cost of assuming an analogous way of life. One can conceive of such a fate as imagined here because of the social challenge and outrageous behavior in which Jesus seems to have participated. Bearing one’s own cross is no easy burden. Luke’s gospel portrays Jesus’ foretelling of his imminent death in 9:21-27 and then resolutely setting forth to go to the cross. In 9:22-24, after he tells the disciples that the Son of Man must suffer many things and be rejected and killed (v. 22), he says to all, “If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross daily and follow me. For those who want to save their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake will save it” (vv. 23-24). Bearing one’s own cross echoes the demand to hate one’s life in 14:26. The kingdom of God must come before personal security, health and life. Discipleship is a march to the cross with a deep and abiding hope in God’s sovereignty even over death (9:22, 24-27).
To follow Christ involves denial of self in the sense of yielding freely to this total service and therefore refusal to save their lives for themselves. For those who had not heard the private prediction of Jesus concerning his suffering, death and resurrection, these words must have shocked them to their shoes. Jesus lays out requirements for discipleship that go far beyond any usual conversion practices. Jewish proselytes had to decide to accept Jewish faith and law freely, willingly rejecting old pagan relationships and acquaintances. The insistence of Jesus that a potential disciple must not only deny all old familiar ties but must be prepared to suffer horribly because of their identity as a disciple is unprecedented. After two millennia of "cross" imagery, our senses are not as shocked by this reference, as listeners to Jesus must have been. The pain, brutality, and degradation of a death by crucifixion ‑‑ including the spirit‑stripping practice of making the condemned "take up his cross" on this final death march to the execution site ‑‑ was a torture reserved for only the most despised of state criminals. Yet this is the very image Jesus chooses to represent as the fate of his most devoted disciples. This means that each disciple has a cross to take up, rather than to fear, hate, avoid, evade, or escape the affliction that falls on the disciple. Discipleship becomes a matter of each Christian carrying one’s own cross, suffering one’s own affliction, bearing the definite limitation of death that in one form or another falls on one’s own existence.[4] The challenge here is that to follow Jesus, one simply must renounce, withdraw, and annul, any existing relationship of obedience and loyalty, namely, to oneself. As he sees it, self-denial in the context of following Jesus involves a step into the open, into the freedom of a definite decision and act, in which it is with a real commitment that people take leave themselves, the person of yesterday, of the people they were. They give up their previous form of existence. What matters now is not the self, but to follow Jesus, regardless of the cost.[5] Following Jesus in this service means co-crucifixion with Jesus. Paul, in fact, suggests this in Galatians 2:19-20, where he says that he has been crucified with Christ so that now, his life is a matter of Christ living in and through him. The focus on discipleship is identification with the destiny of Jesus. This view is in keeping with the sayings of Jesus about the discipleship of the cross, in which Jesus required his disciples to bear his cross, but only as far as they were to bear their own. The bearing of their cross is the consequence of the special calling and sending they received from God. Mark makes clear that Christology and discipleship are inseparable, and that the way of Jesus to the cross is also the way the disciple must follow.[6]
A disciple today must practice self-discipline, accepting the consequences and sacrifices that may come our way. Philip Yancey tells of a monk who once bragged about his dietary discipline. His spiritual director replied, "Don't tell me, my child, that you've spent 30 years without eating meat. However, tell me the truth: How many days have you spent without speaking ill of your brother? Without judging your neighbor? Without letting useless words pass your lips?"[7] Bearing the cross of Christ involves walking in the way of Christ. Many might bear a little discomfort, but a disciple knows the sacrifices and sufferings of a truly disciplined life.
Just as following Jesus means denial, so also it means death. Dietrich Bonhoeffer famously said in his Cost of Discipleship, that when Christ calls us, he bids us to come to him and die. Thomas à Kempis wrote,
In the Cross is salvation;
in the Cross is life;
in the Cross is protection against our enemies;
in the Cross is infusion of heavenly sweetness;
in the Cross is strength of mind;
in the Cross is joy of spirit;
in the Cross is excellence of virtue;
in the Cross is perfection of holiness.
There is no salvation of soul,
nor hope of eternal life,
save in the Cross. (The Inner Life)
"If you bear the cross gladly, it will bear you"
(The Imitation of Christ, 2.12.5).
C.S. Lewis wrote (The Four Loves) that if you would love you would suffer. We cannot even love a dog without at one point or another feeling the pain of loss, assuming we outlive the dog. The greatest of all things-love-is itself most intimately bound with suffering. It is a poignant irony, I think. In our attempt to avoid suffering, we cut ourselves off from the one thing that can mitigate it: each other. Anyone who really wanted to get rid of suffering would have to get rid of love before anything else, because there can be no love without suffering, because it always demands an element of self-sacrifice, because, given temperamental differences and the drama of situations, it will always bring with it renunciation and pain. When we know that the way of love, this exodus, this going out of oneself, is the true way by which man becomes human, then we also understand that suffering is the process through which we mature. Anyone who has inwardly accepted suffering becomes more mature and more understanding of others and becomes more human. People who have consistently avoided suffering do not understand other people. They become hard and selfish. We have no literary, psychological, or historical answers to human tragedy. We have only moral answers. Yes, in the face of suffering at the hands of other human beings we may despair. Yet, hope also comes from other human beings.[8]
Luke next provides two examples of what it means to count the cost. These parables do not seem to serve well Jesus' insistence upon self-renunciation. Indeed, the reverse is true. These are accounts of self-actualized, self-assertive men who are determined to build or go to war and who are carefully counting the cost before doing so. Yet, Jesus makes the deeper point: The man who builds the tower and the king who goes to war will count everything that does not advance those objectives as worthless and meaningless. One must make great sacrifices for great gain.
In a saying of proverbial wisdom unique to Luke involving the tower builder, Jesus said, 28 For 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? 29Otherwise, when he has laid a foundation and is not able to finish, all who see it will begin to ridicule him, 30 saying, ‘This fellow began to build and was not able to finish.’ Jesus urges self-evaluation and probing. For example, people count the cost of construction before building a tower. By such careful reckoning, the builder not only avoids littering the landscape with an unfinished tower but avoids as well the taunting barbs of his neighbors: "This fellow began to build and was not able to finish."
A disciple today will show selfless generosity. Martin Luther astutely observed, "There are three conversions necessary: the conversion of the heart, the mind and the purse." Of these three, it may well be that we moderns find the conversion of the purse the most difficult.[9] It can cost to be a disciple. Many Christians give with generosity, considering it a privilege to give, generously, lavishly, joyfully, and recklessly, knowing that their treasure is in heaven. They have discovered that the greatest joy and satisfaction come from giving to others, as Jesus did. The tower-building parable hits close to home for many of us when we realize how much it costs to be a Christian. Add up the amount of money we spend on tithing, supporting missionaries and Christian charities, the possible building fund, buying books and paying for kids’ camps, etc. Now think about the fact that a nonbeliever does not spend any of that money the way we do. It costs a bit, does it not? However, the question Jesus is raising is whether it costs us enough. The idea of starting to build a tower and not having the funds to finish it points out the fan club’s shallow view of how much financial sacrifice goes into vibrant faith. To love Jesus means loving money, possessions, and comfort so little that we give uncomfortable amounts of it away. The financial cost of discipleship may have one safe rule in giving more than we can spare. If our expenditures on comforts, luxuries, amusements, and so on, is up to the standards of our culture, then we are giving away too little. If our giving does not hamper our ability to get all that we want, then our might be too small. There ought to be things we would like to do and cannot do because of our giving.[10]
Then, in a saying of proverbial wisdom from material unique to Luke involving the warring king, Jesus said, 31 Or 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? 32 If he cannot, then, while the other is still far away, he sends a delegation and asks for the terms of peace. Jesus urges self-evaluation and probing. For example, a king considers going to war with 10,000 soldiers against an opponent with 20,000. If he goes to war under such conditions, he must be confident of victory, or else he seeks the alternative and "sends a delegation and asks for the terms of peace" (v. 32).
We need to consider the two parables from the perspective of Jesus himself. Jesus, facing Jerusalem, is seeking committed disciples to carry on the work of the kingdom. Jesus is the tower-builder and the king going to war. He is the one who has counted the cost of building and of the battle. He is determined neither to abandon the building nor to sue his enemy for peace. The disciple can be confident that he is following one who has himself "estimate[d] the cost" and is capable of seeing this through.[11]
Scholars have considered these two parables from a variety of angles.
In these parables, Jesus is explaining an aspect of the message of the imminence of the rule of God against critics, in this case, the right answer to its summons.[12] Jesus intended the parables to encourage would-be followers of Jesus to take heart. The message of the parables is that if the builder counts the cost before building the tower, he is likely to complete it successfully. Likewise, if the king carefully assesses the battle-readiness of his troops, he is likely to gain the victory. The point is this: If the demands of Jesus to love him more than family and life itself seem hard, the disciple will not fail in his discipleship if he counts the cost as carefully and enthusiastically as the worldly tower-builder and the warrior-king. We, too, can avoid building a spiritual tower that is a few bricks shy of a full load, and can avoid being a few soldiers short of a full and complete spiritual victory.
Other authorities are less sanguine about this interpretation. Some argue that Jesus would propose never in this context stopping to count the cost of discipleship. If one counts the cost, one will scarcely choose to follow at all. Instead, Jesus deliberately aims his comments at thinning the ranks of the casual and the curious who are following him.
The parables may also suggest that the tower-building phase of Jesus' ministry is nearing completion and that the real battle is about to begin. Jesus once needed fellow builders; he now needs soldiers, not camp followers, as he nears Jerusalem. Subsequent events will demonstrate reality of his fears. In his hour of need, there is no one who "hates" family or life for his sake, there is no one who joins him in his hour of radical self-denial, and there is no one who gives up all his possessions for him. His tormentors do not say, "This fellow began to build and was not able to finish," but they do say, "He saved others; let him save himself" (23:35). It is too late to sue for peace with his enemy. He is alone.
Then, in a saying unique to Luke, involving the thought of goodbye to everything, a saying that some scholars think of as Luke offering a summary of the segment, Jesus said, 33 So therefore, none of you can become my disciple if you do not give up all your possessions. Jesus calls for renunciation of possessions. Luke regularly portrays wealth as a hindrance to discipleship. In the Beatitudes, Jesus blesses the poor (vs. the “poor in spirit” in Matthew 5:3) and pronounces a woe to the rich (6:20, 24). In Luke 18:18-30, the rich ruler fails to follow Jesus because he cannot part with his possessions. When Jesus’ disciples marvel at how impossible it is to follow Jesus, the Lord declares,
“Truly I tell you, there is no one who has left house or wife or brothers or parents or children, for the sake of the kingdom of God, who will not get back very much more in this age, and in the age to come eternal life” (18:29-30).
His own disciples have left everything to follow him (5:11, 28; 18:28). Those who will follow Jesus on his way to the cross must go on the journey with him as Jesus now presents them with the opportunity. The kingdom of God has broken into the present and demands response. God has sent the invitation to the banquet. Now, those would-be disciples must choose to follow or to stay behind.
Just four months before his murder, Martin Luther King Jr. preached a sermon, “The Drum Major Instinct,” at Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta, in which he reflected upon the impact of his life …
If any of you are around when I have to meet my day, I don’t want a long funeral. And if you get somebody to deliver the eulogy, tell them not to talk too long. (Yes) And every now and then I wonder what I want them to say. Tell them not to mention I have a Nobel Peace Prize — that isn’t important. Tell them not to mention that I have three or four hundred other awards — that’s not important. Tell them not to mention where I went to school. (Yes)
I’d like somebody to mention that day that Martin Luther King Jr. tried to give his life serving others. (Yes)
I’d like somebody to mention that day that Martin Luther King Jr. tried to love somebody.
I want you to say that day that I tried to be right on the war question. (Amen)
I want you to be able to say that day that I did try to feed the hungry. (Yes)
And I want you to be able to say that day that I did try to clothe those who were naked. (Yes)
I want you to be able to say that day that I did try in my life to visit those who were in prison. (Lord)
I want you to say that I tried to love and serve humanity. (Yes)
Yes, if you want to say that I was a drum major, say that I was a drum major for justice. (Amen) Say that I was a drum major for peace. (Yes) I was a drum major for righteousness. And all of the other shallow things will not matter. (Yes) I won’t have any money to leave behind. I won’t have the fine and luxurious things of life to leave behind. But I just want to leave a committed life behind. (Amen)[13]
All of Me. There is an old song, now a jazz standard, that trades on this sort of all-or-nothing commitment. Numerous artists have recorded it, notably the legendary Billie Holiday. It lent its title to a 1984 movie starring Steve Martin and Lily Tomlin. In that comedy, through some strange Tibetan magic, the soul of a dying woman is transplanted into the body of a living man. Each one controls half of Steve Martin’s body, which makes for some marvelous physical comedy. Throughout the movie, the two personalities silently converse with each other, to great comic effect. The movie’s theme is the toe-tapping jazz standard. Here are some of the words to “All of Me”:
All of me
Why not take all of me
Can’t you see
I’m no good without you
Take my lips
I want to lose them
Take my arms
I’ll never use them …
Hardly sounds like a healthy relationship, does it? These are the desperate words of a spurned and still-besotted lover, willing to sacrifice everything just to regain the object of her devotion. The character singing the song seems a pathetic case: the opposite of Jesus’ call for clear-eyed intentionality. But what is our Lord asking of us, as his disciples?
Christianity is a demanding and serious religion. When it is delivered as easy and amusing, it is another kind of religion altogether.[14]
The Danish philosopher, Kierkegaard, complained of the petty preachers of his day who preached artistic sermons "Whereby Jesus hath obtained admirers rather than followers." It is well known that Christ consistently used the expression “follower.” He never asks for admirers, worshippers, or adherents. No, he calls disciples. It is not adherents of a teaching but followers of a life Christ for which Christ is looking. Christ came into the world with the purpose of saving, not instructing it. At the same time, as is implied in his saving work, he came to be the pattern, to leave footprints for the person who would join him, who would become a follower. What then, is the difference between an admirer and a follower? A follower strives to be what he admires. An admirer keeps personally detached. An admirer fails to see that what is admired involves a claim upon a life, and thus fails to strive to become what the person admires. If you have any knowledge of human nature, who can doubt that Judas was an admirer of Christ! And we know that Christ at the beginning of his work had many admirers. Judas was precisely such an admirer and thus later became a traitor. The admirer never makes any true sacrifices. The admirer always plays it safe. Though in words, phrases, songs, they are inexhaustible in expressing they prize Christ, yet renounces nothing, will not reconstruct their lives, and will not let their lives express what it is they admires. Not so for the follower. Followers aspire with all their strength to be what they admire.[15]
At this stage in the journey, crowds admire Jesus. His teaching fascinates the crowds. They think the world of his witness to the rule of God. However, a great distance exists between admiration and discipleship, a distance bridged only by something called commitment. Here is commitment, which can detach us, cut us loose from other worthy commitments. Here is a jealous lover who tolerates no rivals.
Many people who have heard me preach and teach have said, I think in mostly a positive way, that they could see me as a professor in a college or university. I am okay with that. I share with many professors the malady of finding it difficult to make decisions. Professors are comfortable examining all sides of an issue and thus never able to settle down anywhere. The Academy has the virtue of reasoned detachment, civil discussion, willingness to consider every side of a question, every position. Many a good thesis or experiment has been ruined because some poorly trained scholar has rushed to judgment or been too quick to settle upon a conclusion. An ethics professor organized his classes in such a way where he would speak for twenty minutes on one side of the issue, twenty minutes on the other side of the issue, and ten minutes on class discussion. He bragged that he taught the course without students learning his opinion on any ethical issue. Jesus would have made a lousy professor of ethics. He confronts us, not with a polite and reasoned discussion, poetic generalities, but with a stark either/or - a cross. There were many who, like the rich young ruler, considered the cost and went away sorrowful. Jesus is a dangerous, demanding, expensive operator inviting people to the costliest trip ever taken. This is not a course in Religion 101 where we all sit back in class, take a few notes, think lazy thoughts about God, receive a few interesting but cheap insights, and then collect our books and go to lunch. This is Jesus. This is discipleship. In case anybody thinks that we will get away with an hour a week on Sundays (when it's not raining) and 10% after taxes, Jesus lays his cards on the table.
There is a type of religious questioner, as we see from the case of Nicodemus, who is undoubtedly not serious, who desires only to initiate great discussions of philosophical and religious themes. Yet in no circumstances will such disputants commit themselves. They will not decide. They are not willing to be jolted by Jesus from their course. What they say will all be on the non-binding level of the intellect. It must never take on the character of ultimate decision. Jesus never answers this kind of person. He instructs only those who are ready to have ultimate dealings with God. He withholds Himself from mere onlookers or spectators. Are you prepared if you see that I am the Son of God, to change and renew your whole life? Are you prepared seriously and publicly to make your confession before me even though it is unpopular? If so, you will know who I am — but only so! Mere curiosity about Jesus of Nazareth, or pretense of seeking God, is not enough. Only those who have a right attitude, namely, the attitude of obedience to Christ, can see Him in true perspective.[16]
I wonder what sort of television advertisement for being a disciple of Jesus one might construct based upon this passage. Jesus has all the subtlety of a sledgehammer. Let us be clear. The willingness to give up family ties, face radical self-denial, and abandon possessions constitutes what Jesus calls the "cost" of being his disciple. Such words challenge us to consider how we can be responsible members of society and still live responsibly before God. Some preachers like to preach such a message of costly discipleship far too much. Some preachers, like me, find it exceedingly difficult. Such verses remind me that discipleship is demanding work. We need to admit the perils of following Jesus. Frankly, some churches, preachers, and television programs present the gospel as they were selling used cars. They offer no money down and attractive terms with low monthly payments. They make discipleship sound as easy possible. They make it sound like discipleship requires no real commitments. This passage reminds us that a call coming from Jesus is not like that. Jesus was not then and is not now looking for superficial commitment. He wanted total commitment from his disciples if they were going to follow him at all. He still does. [17]
Frankly, I do not think it is easy to confuse following Jesus with adhering to Carl Jung (psychology), Adam Smith (economics), Karl Marx (political ideology), Hegel, Kant, Kierkegaard (all philosophy). Yet, many people have done so. To keep looking to Jesus and away from the ideas most attractive to us is difficult. Are we willing to pay the price?
In his book, Four Quartets, the poet T.S. Eliot predicts that, at the end of our spiritual journey, there will come a day when:
“We shall not cease from exploration
And the end of all our exploring
Will be to arrive where we started
And know the place for the first time.”
A little later Eliot goes on, in his apocalyptic vision:
“Quick now, here, now, always—
A condition of complete simplicity
(Costing not less than everything)”
Once we achieve that God-given simplicity, Eliot channels well-known words of Julian of Norwich. He assures us:
“And all shall be well and
All manner of thing shall be well
When the tongues of flames are in-folded
Into the crowned knot of fire
And the fire and the rose are one.5”
Truly, the gift of ourselves to Jesus — “All of me: why not take all of me?” — costs “not less than everything.” Jesus does want all of me — and you, and everyone else who aspires to follow him. It seems a fearfully high price to pay, does it not? Yet, consider what Christ offers in return. All shall be well. All manner of things shall be well. Amen and amen.
These sayings and parables invite us to consider some spiritual diagnostic questions that might help us engage in the type of soul reflects that Jesus wanted to give the original crowd to whom he preached.
�On a 1 to 10 scale, how would you rate your own discipleship after Jesus right now?
�What things keep this number from being higher?
�What habits, actions or attitudes would help that area of your life?
�What changes can you make to start living out those habits, actions, and attitudes?
�Whom do you need to share these things with so they can help you and pray for you?
[1] Barth, Church Dogmatics III.4 [54.2] 262-3.
[2] (Constance Gustke, "Tony Gets In Your Face," Success, April 1998).
[3] Pannenberg, Systematic Theology Volume 3, 282.
[4] (Barth, 2004, 1932-67), IV.2 [64.3] 264.
[5] Barth, Church Dogmatics IV.2 [66.3] 539-40.
[6] (Pannenberg, 1998, 1991) Volume 3, 282.
[7] ("A Cure for Spiritual Deafness," Christianity Today, April 6, 1998).
[8] Elie Wiesel
[9] --Richard J. Foster, The Challenge of the Disciplined Life (San Francisco: Harper & Row Publishers, 1985), 19.
[10] C. S. Lewis
[11] (For more on this view, see Peter G. Jarvis, "Expounding the Parables: The Tower-builder and the King Going to War (Luke 14:25-33)," Expository Times, 77 (April 1966), 196-198.
[12] Pannenberg, Systematic Theology Volume 2, 333.
[13] —Martin Luther King Jr., “The Drum Major Instinct,” in A Knock at Midnight: Inspiration from the Great Sermons of Martin Luther King, Jr., ed. Clayborne Carson and Peter Holloran, Audio CD, 2007.
[14] Neil Postman, Amusing Ourselves to Death, 1985, 121.
[15] —Søren Kierkegaard, Training in Christianity, trans. Walter Lowrie (Vintage, 2004).
[16] —Helmut Thielicke, The Silence of God (Eerdmans, 1963), 46-48.
[17] R. Alan Culpepper ("The Gospel of Luke," The New Interpreter's Bible [Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1995], 293).
No comments:
Post a Comment