Reverend Ref +

YEAR C - PENTECOST 14 - PROPER 19

So, after last weeks little digression, we are back on the road with Jesus heading up towards Jerusalem. For those of you who haven't been following this, Luke spends the majority of his gospel with Jesus on the road to Jerusalem. The ultimate focus is Holy Week and his crucifixion and resurrection.

So here we are, on the way again. And Jesus says, "Whoever does not hate father or mother, brother or sister, or even life itself cannot be my disciple." Yep, here we go. Jesus is making things difficult for us. But he is not doing this to be intentionally mean or obnoxious. Jesus is stating the obvious. Jesus wants us to realize that discipleship is hard. Anything that you deem worth pursuing is hard. Whether you are a disciple of your career, athletics or hobbies, discipleship is hard. Because if it is done correctly, everything else in one's life will be pushed aside to make room for whatever it is you are a disciple of.

People who are disciples of their careers make choices. They forsake vacations and time with families in order to, ostensibly, make a "better" life for those around them. But they choose to pursue their job. Over time, everything else in their life becomes secondary.

People who are disciples of athletics make choices to put that first. We just watched the Olympics, and let me tell you, they didn't get to Athens by deciding one Saturday to pick up some weights or run some races or dance across a balance beam. They worked hard. They chose to put that first, to the almost-exclusion of everything else around them. So whether you pursue the Olympics, or the World Series (although it was John Kruk who said that baseball players aren't athletes), or whatever, being a disciple takes work and intentional choices.

And people become disciples of their hobbies. For 13 years I officiated high school football, and hopefully next year I will do it again. But that hobby took precedence over EVERYTHING come September. I told my employers that I would be out early everyday from September through early November. In exchange, I would not collect overtime during the entire year. And let me tell you how important this hobby was. My wedding anniversary is September 8. Think about that. Every year for 13 years, I spent my anniversary on a football field. Now to be fair, we did celebrate early, but on the 8th, I was in stripes.

To get his point across about this, Jesus tells two versions of the same parable. The first is about a builder. "What builder starts a project without first weighing whether or not he can complete it." This sounds alot like the parable of the sower over in Matthew. Remember that? The sower spreads the grain and some of it lands on the rocky soil where it doesn't have the depth to continue growing. Neither does this particular builder have the depth or determination to continue in his project. His discipleship is under-developed and he fails to see how much it will cost.

But the version I like best is the tale of the two kings. Now, we really don't have any concept of kingdoms as they used to be. We really don't know what warfare was like between kingdoms, so it seems that this story would be hard to translate into today's understanding. But how about this? "A man is the king of his household." Or, the TV show, "The King of Queens." What we are really saying is that a man, or woman for that matter, is in charge of everything around him. That's what people want you to think.

To me, this is more akin to your spiritual journey. We begin that journey knowing that God is out there somewhere, and that someday we will meet up with him. As we go, we begin to see just how powerful and all-consuming God really is. So we bargain. We pray. "I'll pray everyday if you do this." "I'll go to church every Sunday if you do this." "I'll tithe $x if you do this." Isn't this just another way to say, "One king opposing another king?" If we don't commit ourselves totally to God, we are, in some way, opposing God.

Jesus saw this. He knew that people like to keep certain things for themselves, rather than turn them over to God. He knew that discipleship is hard. He knew people must make choices, and that's what he's getting at in this story. Discipleship is hard, but if we commit to God, if we become disciples, then everything in our lives will not necessarily be pushed aside, but everything in our lives will be informed by that discipleship to God. How we relate to friends and family, work, hobbies, everything. Being a disciple of God will inform the rest of our lives. But it's a hard choice, isn't it. It's a scary choice.

So, the question we all need to ponder is, "Am I ready to give up everything to be a disciple of the King of Everything?"