The Cost of Discipleship
Now large crowds were traveling with him, and he turned and said to them, “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. Whoever does not carry the cross and follow me cannot be my disciple. 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? Otherwise, when he has laid a foundation and is not able to finish, all who see it will begin to ridicule him, saying, ‘This fellow began to build and was not able to finish.’ 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? If he cannot, then while the other is still far away, he sends a delegation and asks for the terms of peace. So therefore, none of you can become my disciple if you do not give up all your possessions.
God of goodness and mercy, we thank you for your son Jesus, who you have set before us to be not only an example to us but be the savior of the world. Amen.
How many of you would say you’re a follower of Jesus? Did anyone hesitate because of what we just read this morning? Yikes, right?
When we say we are followers of Jesus, I’m not sure we always understand what that means. If we really are following Jesus, are we prepared for all of that?
Jesus isn’t being a very good evangelist here, is he? I mean think about it. Does’t he want people to follow him? Doesn’t he want people to come with him as he travels and listen to his teachings? He’s not selling it very well.
It reminds me of a conversation I had with one of my students last year. He grew up Buddhist and had a lot of questions about Christianity. And over the course of the year, we had more and more conversations about what it means to be a Christian. Eventually, he said “you know, I’m about 85% sure this is the right religion for me. I think I want to be a Christian.” I kind of stopped short and turned to him and said, “are you sure??”
Oftentimes, when we talk to our friends or family members about being Christian, we focus on the good aspects, the benefits. And there certainly are benefits— of course there are, otherwise why would anyone follow Jesus? But we don’t often dwell on what it could cost us.
It’s not all rainbows and butterflies when it comes to discipleship. In fact, Jesus seems to say this morning, it’s really perhaps no rainbows and no butterflies.
In Jesus’ day, following a rabbi meant following so close that the dirt from his sandals would be kicked up on your own shins. Now, of course, we could talk about how terrible it would be to walk around having dirt kicked up on you all day, every day. But I want you to think about how close you’d have to be to someone’s heels to have their every step affect you like that.
In Jesus’ day, it wasn’t possible to call yourself a follower or disciples of a rabbi without following him incredibly closely, day in and day out. You had to be there to hear his every word and imitate his every move. Nowadays, to “follow” someone, might mean to read some of their books, or watch a tv interview they’ve done. Or maybe it means clicking a button on your phone to “follow” them on instagram or Twitter. And just as easily, you can click the same button to “unfollow” someone.
And it costs us absolutely nothing to do any of that. We assume no risk whatsoever to follow or unfollow people whenever we choose to.
Not so with Jesus and his disciples. To follow Jesus, it means staying close. It means being like him. It means doing what Jesus does.
Imagine if every time you hit that “follow” button, you had to imitate the person you were following, you had to be like that person. It would make you hesitate, wouldn’t it?
I think that’s what Jesus is trying to help his followers understand in this moment. It feels good and right to follow me right now, when things are going well, and you’re seeing the miracles that can happen, and the people who can be healed. But things can turn ugly really quickly and things are going to get bad for us.
And there is good reason for that. Jesus was in the world to change it, to show people a different way to live. Jesus was there to disrupt things and challenge the comfortable people while lifting up those who the world had forgotten. Of course it was going to get him into trouble.
Barbara Brown Taylor puts it this way:
“As long as the world opposes those who set out to transform it, the transformers will pay a high price…Discipleship costs all that we have, all that we love, all that we are. That is less God's doing than our own. If the world were kinder to its reformers, discipleship might be a piece of cake, but it is not, and Jesus does not want anyone to be fooled.”
Because following Jesus is going to cost something. It is going to changing your life, and rearrange your priorities. It’s going to change how you see the world and how the world sees you. It will likely lead you to death. In fact, for most of us it already has.
Because in the waters of baptism we have died to our old lives, and we have been raised together with Christ. We have rejected our old ways of living and the ways of death and the devil so that we might be able to follow Christ on a journey to a kingdom that is foreshadowed here at this table. But it’s going to cost us something. And we absolutely must be prepared for it. So are you sure? Amen.
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