Luke 14:25-33
September 9, 2007
Sermon preached by Rev. Donald Ng at the First Chinese Baptist Church in San Francisco.
Labor Day weekend last week was one of those blockbuster weekends in the Bay Area with art shows and festivals, a Cal football game, the last traditional weekend of summer, and the Bay Bridge closure. Imagine what would have happened if Caltran did not count the cost to rebuild the Bay Bridge? Imagine what would be the public outcry if the construction company left the bridge unfinished because they ran out of money! It would bring shame and embarrassment to everyone involved. A world-class city like San Francisco and California, the eighth largest economy in the world would end up being the butt of everyone’s jokes.
One of the most popular tourists stops in San Francisco is Coit Tower. Not only can you look down on the steep and hilly streets of the city but from on high you can enjoy the beautiful vista of the bay. There are other towers in the city—water towers, church steeples, bell towers, watchtowers, towers of belfries in city halls and fortresses.
These towers are intended for many reasons: water towers allow the flow of water in the city; bell towers house the bells that keep time and announce religious and civic events; church steeples are raised to the glory of God; watchtowers allow to spot friendly visitors and enemies alike. Coit Tower was built as a memorial for fallen firefighters.
All these towers are carefully planned and are a testament to the ability of those who built them. However, there are some towers that either were not finished or have not withstood the test of time because they were poorly constructed. Just think of the leaning tower of Pisa. Despite their tourist attraction value, these failed or unfinished towers tell us that someone did not count the cost.
The Cost
In our passage for today, Jesus is teaching the people that one needs to count the cost of discipleship before becoming his disciple. Becoming a Christian is not a spontaneous feel-good decision. We are called to estimate the cost before we make a commitment. Just like a man wouldn’t begin to build a tower unless he has counted the cost because if he runs out of money before finishing it, he would be ridiculed by his friends. Having an unfinished foundation would become a daily reminder that he didn’t count the cost. What is the cost of being Jesus’ disciple? Have you counted the cost?
Today is one of those hard sayings of Jesus again. I have thought twice about using this text today. After all, this is our first Sunday back after the long summer. We started our new church school with Promotion Sunday today. We dedicated our choir members for their ministry of music. There may be some visitors today who are looking for a church home, or maybe just wandering in to check out this religion thing after a long time away. And then we have this Luke passage—not a great text to convince people that church should be a regular part of your life!
Jesus sounds down right scary. “Whoever does not hate your family…you cannot be my disciple.” Whoever does not carry your own crosses—you cannot be my disciple. Whoever does not give up all your possessions—you cannot be my disciple. In ten verses, Jesus manages to demolish everything you thought about for a perfect and ideal life. Jesus is saying, “If you want to be my disciple, you first have to count the cost.” Why would anyone want to give up the American dream—the perfect family, the pursuit of happiness, the material comfort of home, cars, and iPhones? But Jesus is saying, “Have you counted the cost of following me?”
If anyone of you came to church this morning looking for a “seeker-friendly” service that soft-pedals discipleship and reassures you that you will have an easy and comfortable life, forget it. You won’t get that message at FCBC!
Jesus said in verse 26, “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.” Take the word “hate” for example. Is that really what the text says? Is that really what Jesus means? Unfortunately, the answer is yes. The only possible translation of the original Greek is “hate.”
But let us remember that Jesus spoke in Aramaic, not Greek, and there really isn’t an accurate Greek word representing what Jesus is trying to say. The Semitic word “hate” is not a violent word of emotion, but instead more a description of a way of being. “Detach” is a better translation. Detach from your mother and your father, your wife or husband, your sister and brother and your children. This is what he is saying.
Hating Family
When it became clear that Joy will be having her major surgery right before the Labor Day Weekend, I was struggling with the idea of still trying to make it to Family Camp—even if it was for a day. I know that I am not indispensable. I know that with Dr. Chuck and Pastor Lauren and all of the able church leaders that the program would be in excellent hands. But if I were just downright literal about Jesus’ saying, “Whoever comes to me and does not hate his wife cannot be my disciple,” I would have been at Family Camp! I wanted to detach myself from Joy so that I can go to camp. I must confess—I counted the cost of leaving Joy to be at Family Camp and it was too much to give.
No network of relationships that we have with our parents, our spouses, children, siblings and even close friends which we have nurtured and developed can realistically or responsibly be cut off “cold turkey.” No set of accumulated possessions that we have acquired down through the years can realistically or responsibly be cut off instantly either.
It is relatively easy, rhetorically for me as a preacher to call in absolute terms for radical commitment and unswerving allegiance. I can do this and you would say, “That’s fine preaching, Pastor, but how can you leave your wife in the hospital and go to camp?” I can’t and you shouldn’t either.
Discerning the Cost
In the story about the man who was about to build a tower, Jesus says that it’s important to “estimate the cost.” What if the words of Jesus: “Estimate the cost!” are heard primarily as an invitation to discernment rather than an action imperative? If I took Jesus’ words as an action imperative, I would have gone to Family Camp. But when I interpret Jesus saying, “estimate or count the cost,” I see that I am a disciple still in the making on a lifelong journey of continuing discernment that involves living into a transformation of perspective and priority. Such a journey is, in fact, more demanding.
When we turn to the next phrase we notice that Jesus calls us to “carry the cross.” It’s in the present tense, not the future tense and not meaning a large wood instrument of torture either. Jesus is speaking metaphorically about the cross. He is telling us to take risks. Pick up the daily problems, burdens, and responsibilities of ethical and loving living. Counting the cost of living out our faith everyday is more demanding.
Jesus tells us to give up our possessions, all of them, not just give to the poor—just give them up. When we try to discern what it would be like to not have our material possessions to depend on and only follow Christ, we begin to estimate and count the cost of discipleship. We begin to live into a transformation of a Christian perspective and priority in Christ over our loyalties to family, reputation, and possessions.
So, what are we to make of all of this? Jesus is trying to make his point. This passage is about priorities not patricide—about loyalty not law—about perseverance not popularity. It is a passage about counting the cost and knowing what you are getting into and finishing what you start, about the difference between an instant feeling-good moment and a lifetime of faithfulness.
We worry a great deal about getting a good start when we ought to worry about how we finish. For example, couples fuss extensively over their wedding day, the flowers, the photos, the guest lists at the reception. A better question is whether or not the bride and the groom have the staying power to see their marriage through “in sickness and in health, ‘til death do us part.” If you are willing to start a relationship with Jesus, are you willing to stay with this relationship until the end?
Jesus is trying to tell us that our relationship with God needs to come first in our lives. If anything else takes precedence—family or work or possessions—well then we are quite simply living lives of idolatry. As one writer has said: “Christianity is a lifestyle, the following of someone headed in a direction we would not normally go.”
Here’s a story from William Willimon, chaplain at Duke University. One day, Willimon received an angry phone call from a father whose daughter had just received her B.S. from Duke in mechanical engineering. Despite all her hard studying, and her parents’ enormous expenditure of college tuition, the new graduate was choosing to “throw it all away” doing mission work for the Presbyterians in Haiti. The father held Willimon personally responsible for filling his daughter’s head with “all that religion stuff.” Willimon, somewhat defensively, reminded the father that he, too, must have had some hand in his daughter’s spiritual development. The no-longer angry, now-grieving parent responded, “I know, I know. But we didn’t want her to be a minister. All we wanted was for her to be a good Presbyterian!” This father was only counting the cost of tuition but his daughter counted the cost of discipleship and is heading in a direction that she normally would not go.
God’s Grace
When I think about the man who is building a tower and for some reason couldn’t complete the project because he didn’t count the cost, I can identify with that. One of the greatest blessings of my life is that I have been raised since as a very young child within the Good News and community of the church. It is the gospel, both its gracious promises and its daunting demands, that has formed the context for my life.
More often than not I have fallen short of the demands that Jesus makes this morning. I didn’t count the cost. How many times have I allowed the needs and pressures of family life to distract me from my baptismal call and call to ministry to serve not only them but also the much larger family of the church and world? How often have I let possessions and money consume me that I miss the beauty, the joy, the pain, and the purpose of living? How often have I avoided the cross, the problems and the possibilities of hard discipleship, only to realize later that I have missed precious opportunities to grow in wisdom and in stature and in favor with my God and with God’s people?
Yet, because God is gracious and irresistible, I have been drawn back again and again into the depth and drama of Christian living. I have discovered that when I live utterly dependent upon the grace of God, when I live in partnership with a living and serving Christ, when I choose to be accountable to the promptings of the Holy Spirit in my life—yes, it is when I put God first in my life—it is then that everything else gets better.
My family life becomes centered and fulfilling, my possessions become blessings instead of burdens, and those daily crosses that I am called to carry become both the power and the privilege of making a difference in God’s world.
High Cost
Three weeks ago, I preached a message based on Luke 12 when Jesus says he came to bring fire to the earth and how he wish it were already kindled. Jesus says that this message is not about peace to the earth but rather it will divide up families—father against son and son against father, mother against daughter and daughter against mother and so forth. Afterward, I received a call from a member who became upset and wondered what this really meant between his relationships with his parents.
I know of others who have become angry and frustrated with this text and with the message like this one today. They feel that it’s judgmental and that what they were already doing with their lives is not enough. They feel they are already giving hours every week to serve other people, to meet other people’s needs. And that such a sermon only lays a guilt trip that we should be doing even more. I wouldn’t blame you if you never want to come back to FCBC again because you came looking for a message to reaffirm your desire to live the American Dream.
My friends please know that it is neither my intent nor the intent of Jesus, today to make you feel guilty. None of us has figured out how to attain the high cost of discipleship. If I did, I would have been at Family Camp last weekend.
Through the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus, God has not only counted the cost, but also paid it in full. God is lavish, extravagant, dependable, and gracious—a God who loves us unconditionally, always, exactly as we are. This is the God who carries us when we cannot carry any more crosses, a God who nurtures us when family pressures have drained us dry, a God who keeps seeking and finding and forgiving us when we get buried in the obsessions and possessions of our daily living.
Don’t feel guilty by this text or by this message but rather, hear these words today for what they are—an invitation, an opportunity to count the cost of discipleship so that what you begin, you may complete knowing all the time that when we don’t finish, God is gracious for us to try again.
Let us pray.
Gracious and loving God, be patient with us as we count the cost of discipleship in Jesus Christ. Continue to lead us to be faithful and committed to discern your plan for us with the hope that we would become your word and witness in this struggling world. We pray that we will be able to finish what we start as followers of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Amen.