The Cost of Discipleship
August 01, 2010
The Rev. Susan E. Gilbert Zencka
Frame Memorial Presbyterian Church
Texts: Deuteronomy 30:15-20; Luke 14:25-35
This is one of those texts that people gently describe as “the difficult teachings of Jesus.” It would be exhibit A in my presentation on Why It Is Inaccurate to Think of Jesus as Nice. Jesus isn’t “nice.” Jesus loves, Jesus calls, Jesus cares, Jesus is brilliant, Jesus speaks truth to anyone who will listen, and thus, we can’t call Jesus nice. Jesus won’t say things just to make people happy. Jesus doesn’t refrain from speaking the truth as he understands it, regardless of how others will respond.
Somehow, I’m reminded as I am describing Jesus of a passage from C.S. Lewis’ The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe. As most know, C.S. Lewis was a famous Christian writer and this book is an allegory with clear Christian themes. Aslan, in the book, is a Christ-figure – but Aslan is a lion. And one of the girls, Lucy, is talking with a beaver family, and in talking about Aslan, she asks, “Is he safe?” And Mr. Beaver replies, “Safe? Of course he isn’t safe. But he’s good.”
I want to say, “Nice? Of course Jesus isn’t nice. But he’s good…and he’s right.”
When I was in seminary, I read a book called Resident Aliens by Stanley Hauerwas and William H. Willamon. Hauerwas taught ethics at the Divinity School of Duke University, and Willamon is a Methodist Bishop who was then the chaplain at Duke. And in the book, they write that our baptism made us citizens of God’s Kingdom. And therefore, whatever culture we’re in, we don’t fit into anymore. They argue that the primary task of ethics is seeing -- we can only act in the world that we see. So that Jesus, in the Sermon on the Mount, wasn’t trying to persuade us that turning the other cheek works, because it doesn’t, he was telling us that it’s the way God is. To quote from the book: “We can only act within that world which we see. So the primary ethical question is not, What ought I now to do? but rather, How does the world really look? The most interesting question about the Sermon [on the Mount] is not, Is this a practical way to live in the world? but rather, Is this really the way the world is? What is “practical” is related to what is real. If the world is a society in which only the strong, the independent, the detached, the liberated, and the successful are blessed, then we act accordingly. However, if the world is really a place where God blesses the poor, the hungry, and the persecuted for righteousness’ sake, then we must act in accordance with reality or else appear bafflingly out of step with the way things are.”
As Jesus is teaching a new world view, he talks again and again about the Kingdom of God, and he describes a world that is not always consistent with our cultural norms. So looking at this passage through Kingdom eyes, Jesus is describing discipleship – he is talking about a way of life in which our primary goal is to serve God by following Christ. And he’s using commitment language – he is saying that if we want to follow him, following him has to be a commitment: it has to come first in our lives.
Now many people don’t want that kind of relationship with Jesus. Some are more comfortable thinking of him as a wisdom teacher – a man with good ideas, whose teachings are worth listening to. Each of us needs to make our own decision about Jesus – who he is, and who we are in relationship to him. But I am convinced that we will not understand what Jesus is saying until we understand that he is, indeed, asking for commitment.
Some of us are thinking – “That’s fine, commitment is great. I want to be committed to God – I want to be committed to Jesus. But I don’t want to hate anyone – what happened to the God of love? That’s the God I’m willing to commit to.” And I think we can be sure that is the God Jesus is asking us to commit to – Jesus is not asking us to actually hate. Remember, Jesus has already told us to love those who hate us. Will he then now tell us to hate those who love us? No. Jesus again and again makes clear to his disciples that part of following him is undertaking to love: to love God, to love our neighbor, to love each other, to love our enemies. The fundamental obligation of discipleship is love.
So how, then, do we understand this passage?? The Greek word for “hate” in this passage is miseo (miseo). It can, indeed, be translated as hate. Kittel’s 10-volume Theological Dictionary on the New Testament [Kittel], in its article on miseo, says that in the context of discipleship, such as in this passage, it is an admonition not to be bound to anything or anyone more than to Jesus. And it states further that the teaching “is to be taken, not psychologically or fanatically, but pneumatically and christocentrically.” Gotta admit that as a practical theologian, I loved that phrase even though I had to read it more than once. Let’s unpack it. Kittel is saying that this teaching is not about developing a psychological hatred of our family members or a fanatical hatred of all things not-Jesus. Instead he says, the teaching should be interpreted ‘pneumatically and christocentrically’- that is, spiritually (pneuma is Greek for spirit or wind) as part of keeping Jesus central in our lives: christocentrical is when Jesus is at the center.
And it’s a great term – as we think about what’s at the center, and what do our lives revolve around, I am reminded of the work of Nicolaus Copernicus, who in 1514 first published his understanding of heliocentrism – a radical new view that the earth revolves around the sun, instead of the traditional view that the earth was at the center of things.
For many, the idea of Jesus being at the center of our lives is a Copernican shift. To think of our lives not being fundamentally about ourselves is a huge change in understanding. Or, in the terms that Hauerwas and Willimon use, it is a new way of seeing. I’m also reminded of one of my seminary professors who told us that Jesus, like the prophets before him was really trying to teach a world view, which I’ve often called looking at the world with Kingdom eyes. Jesus was asking people whether they were able to put him first. Such commitment, like any commitment, demands sacrifice. When we commit to becoming an athlete, a musician, financially secure, or thinner – we make choices, and some of those choices feel like sacrifices. Interestingly, the word sacrifice comes from words meaning “to make holy”.
“Nothing is gained without sacrifice.” These words were written on a scrap of paper found inside Martin Luther King Jr.’s pocket when he was assassinated. In a recent article in The Progressive magazine, author Terry Tempest Williams reflects on these words. She recounts a conversation she had with Senator Bob Bennett of Utah after a speech in which she had criticized the war in Iraq. He asked her, “What are you willing to die for?” And she found herself unable to answer him. But as she reflected on Dr. King, the scrap of paper found in his pocket, and what he had said once, “I just want to leave a more committed life behind” Williams found herself focusing differently than the question Bennett had asked. She writes, “Bennett asked me what I was willing to die for? I couldn’t answer him;. I thought about it for months. And then one day, I realized while walking in the desert that for me, it’s not what I am willing to die for, but rather, what am I willing to give my life to: This is the question that matters most to me.”
This is the question that Jesus was pushing the crowd around him to wrestle with: what gives your life meaning? What determines your priorities? Where do your ethics come from? What does the world look like?
Williams writes further: “Martin Luther King Jr. committed himself to healing the ills of this sick society and to bringing about social change through spiritual nonviolence. It is what he was both willing to die for and give his life to. Most of us do not get the chance to live a life so large. But we do have the chance to live our lives with greater intention. King said, ‘Our goal is to create a beloved community, and this will require a qualitative change in our souls as well as a quantitative change in our lives.’”
Jesus was pressing us to make a commitment, and to consider the cost of the commitment. Are we willing to follow Jesus? What if it brings us into conflict with others? What if it brings us into conflict with our work? Three weeks ago when I had just returned from General Assembly, I found on Sunday morning an angry anonymous voicemail, denouncing me for things I had said while at General Assembly. I had been quoted, incompletely, in an AP article that had been widely published, and the caller urged me to rescind my remarks. The call hurt. But as I reflected on what the caller had said, and what I had said at General Assembly, I found myself comfortable with my own words, even though they had drawn painful criticism. I had taken a stand; a stand that I felt was consistent with my call to follow Jesus.
Even if we decide that we are able and willing to commit to following Jesus, again and again we will need to discern what that means for us in our own lives in the 21st century. For most of us, it will usually not mean disavowing our families. But we do need to consider the cost – and in order to do that, we need to understand more fully how Jesus calls us, what the Kingdom looks like. And that’s why we read the Bible, and that’s why we study the historical context so that we can understand the particulars of the situations Jesus, or Paul, or Jeremiah were speaking to, so that we can understand how we are called in our own contexts. And even once we have decided to follow Jesus, we will need to make choices again and again. Are we called to feed the hungry? To teach the children? To heal the earth? To compassionate care of the hurting? None of us can do everything, and among the things that Jesus modeled was good self-care: he took good care of himself. He rested. He enjoyed his friends. He prayed. I think this is part of what Jesus urges us to examine as we count the costs – where do our own particular gifts, resources, and passions lead us in following Jesus?
And these are questions that face not only individuals, but congregations and denominations as well. When I was at General Assembly, each decision before us carried information about the financial implications. Even on the last morning of the Assembly we were debating whether we should eliminate one action in order to fund another. None of us can do everything. Part of the Frame the Future project that our congregation has undertaken is to set priorities for our future. We have a limited number of people here, and a limited amount of money. How can we best use our resources to faithfully serve God? What is our particular call? What are the commitments that we are each able and willing to make? These are the classic stewardship questions: how can we best use our time, our talents, and our treasures to serve God?
These are also the classic vocational issues: where do my particular talents and passions intersect with what God needs in the world? It is hard not to despair at times – there are so many problems, and so little time to solve them! The Danish philosopher Søren Kierkegaard wrote, “This then is the formula which describes the state of the self when despair is completely eradicated: in relating to itself and in wanting to be itself, the self is grounded transparently in the power that established it.” That is, on our own, and in relying solely on our own power, we will often despair – but when our foundation is in God, in Jesus Christ, in the Spirit that inspires and empowers us, we find ourselves grounded transparently so that we find ourselves most authentically in God, recognizing that God is, as Augustine said, “deeper in me than I am in me.”
“Ad fontes!” was a Latin expression meaning “to the foundations” – it was an expression used by the Scholastics – a Medieval movement attempting to reconcile Greek and Roman philosophy with Christianity. It was also used during the Reformation to call people to greater attention to the Bible.
What is our foundation? One of the important votes during the General Assembly was to delete paragraph G.6-0106b from the Book of Order and replace it with a new paragraph. The current paragraph is the one that reads:
“The Cost of Discipleship” is the editorial subheading given to this section of the Gospel where Jesus gives this hard teaching. The Cost of Discipleship is also the title of the most famous work by Dietrich Bonhoeffer, the German theologian and pastor who was executed for his role in an unsuccessful plot to assassinate Adolf Hitler. Bonhoeffer understood that our faith only has meaning as it is lived, and that it is in our living that our belief is formed. In this work, he writes “The actual call of Jesus and the response of single-minded obedience have an irrevocable significance. By means of them Jesus calls people into an actual situation where faith is possible. For that reason his call is an actual call and he wishes it so to be understood, because he knows that it is only through actual obedience that a person can become liberated to believe.” It is only through actual obedience that a person can become liberated to believe. Jesus knows that until we are actually living discipleship, its demands will seem impossibly hard, but that in the living, love becomes a new freedom that makes faith possible. Jesus calls us to give our lives, and in so doing, our lives, our faith, and our very selves are given to us. Let us pray… Amen.
Frame Memorial Presbyterian Church
Texts: Deuteronomy 30:15-20; Luke 14:25-35
This is one of those texts that people gently describe as “the difficult teachings of Jesus.” It would be exhibit A in my presentation on Why It Is Inaccurate to Think of Jesus as Nice. Jesus isn’t “nice.” Jesus loves, Jesus calls, Jesus cares, Jesus is brilliant, Jesus speaks truth to anyone who will listen, and thus, we can’t call Jesus nice. Jesus won’t say things just to make people happy. Jesus doesn’t refrain from speaking the truth as he understands it, regardless of how others will respond.
Somehow, I’m reminded as I am describing Jesus of a passage from C.S. Lewis’ The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe. As most know, C.S. Lewis was a famous Christian writer and this book is an allegory with clear Christian themes. Aslan, in the book, is a Christ-figure – but Aslan is a lion. And one of the girls, Lucy, is talking with a beaver family, and in talking about Aslan, she asks, “Is he safe?” And Mr. Beaver replies, “Safe? Of course he isn’t safe. But he’s good.”
I want to say, “Nice? Of course Jesus isn’t nice. But he’s good…and he’s right.”
When I was in seminary, I read a book called Resident Aliens by Stanley Hauerwas and William H. Willamon. Hauerwas taught ethics at the Divinity School of Duke University, and Willamon is a Methodist Bishop who was then the chaplain at Duke. And in the book, they write that our baptism made us citizens of God’s Kingdom. And therefore, whatever culture we’re in, we don’t fit into anymore. They argue that the primary task of ethics is seeing -- we can only act in the world that we see. So that Jesus, in the Sermon on the Mount, wasn’t trying to persuade us that turning the other cheek works, because it doesn’t, he was telling us that it’s the way God is. To quote from the book: “We can only act within that world which we see. So the primary ethical question is not, What ought I now to do? but rather, How does the world really look? The most interesting question about the Sermon [on the Mount] is not, Is this a practical way to live in the world? but rather, Is this really the way the world is? What is “practical” is related to what is real. If the world is a society in which only the strong, the independent, the detached, the liberated, and the successful are blessed, then we act accordingly. However, if the world is really a place where God blesses the poor, the hungry, and the persecuted for righteousness’ sake, then we must act in accordance with reality or else appear bafflingly out of step with the way things are.”
As Jesus is teaching a new world view, he talks again and again about the Kingdom of God, and he describes a world that is not always consistent with our cultural norms. So looking at this passage through Kingdom eyes, Jesus is describing discipleship – he is talking about a way of life in which our primary goal is to serve God by following Christ. And he’s using commitment language – he is saying that if we want to follow him, following him has to be a commitment: it has to come first in our lives.
Now many people don’t want that kind of relationship with Jesus. Some are more comfortable thinking of him as a wisdom teacher – a man with good ideas, whose teachings are worth listening to. Each of us needs to make our own decision about Jesus – who he is, and who we are in relationship to him. But I am convinced that we will not understand what Jesus is saying until we understand that he is, indeed, asking for commitment.
Some of us are thinking – “That’s fine, commitment is great. I want to be committed to God – I want to be committed to Jesus. But I don’t want to hate anyone – what happened to the God of love? That’s the God I’m willing to commit to.” And I think we can be sure that is the God Jesus is asking us to commit to – Jesus is not asking us to actually hate. Remember, Jesus has already told us to love those who hate us. Will he then now tell us to hate those who love us? No. Jesus again and again makes clear to his disciples that part of following him is undertaking to love: to love God, to love our neighbor, to love each other, to love our enemies. The fundamental obligation of discipleship is love.
So how, then, do we understand this passage?? The Greek word for “hate” in this passage is miseo (miseo). It can, indeed, be translated as hate. Kittel’s 10-volume Theological Dictionary on the New Testament [Kittel], in its article on miseo, says that in the context of discipleship, such as in this passage, it is an admonition not to be bound to anything or anyone more than to Jesus. And it states further that the teaching “is to be taken, not psychologically or fanatically, but pneumatically and christocentrically.” Gotta admit that as a practical theologian, I loved that phrase even though I had to read it more than once. Let’s unpack it. Kittel is saying that this teaching is not about developing a psychological hatred of our family members or a fanatical hatred of all things not-Jesus. Instead he says, the teaching should be interpreted ‘pneumatically and christocentrically’- that is, spiritually (pneuma is Greek for spirit or wind) as part of keeping Jesus central in our lives: christocentrical is when Jesus is at the center.
And it’s a great term – as we think about what’s at the center, and what do our lives revolve around, I am reminded of the work of Nicolaus Copernicus, who in 1514 first published his understanding of heliocentrism – a radical new view that the earth revolves around the sun, instead of the traditional view that the earth was at the center of things.
For many, the idea of Jesus being at the center of our lives is a Copernican shift. To think of our lives not being fundamentally about ourselves is a huge change in understanding. Or, in the terms that Hauerwas and Willimon use, it is a new way of seeing. I’m also reminded of one of my seminary professors who told us that Jesus, like the prophets before him was really trying to teach a world view, which I’ve often called looking at the world with Kingdom eyes. Jesus was asking people whether they were able to put him first. Such commitment, like any commitment, demands sacrifice. When we commit to becoming an athlete, a musician, financially secure, or thinner – we make choices, and some of those choices feel like sacrifices. Interestingly, the word sacrifice comes from words meaning “to make holy”.
“Nothing is gained without sacrifice.” These words were written on a scrap of paper found inside Martin Luther King Jr.’s pocket when he was assassinated. In a recent article in The Progressive magazine, author Terry Tempest Williams reflects on these words. She recounts a conversation she had with Senator Bob Bennett of Utah after a speech in which she had criticized the war in Iraq. He asked her, “What are you willing to die for?” And she found herself unable to answer him. But as she reflected on Dr. King, the scrap of paper found in his pocket, and what he had said once, “I just want to leave a more committed life behind” Williams found herself focusing differently than the question Bennett had asked. She writes, “Bennett asked me what I was willing to die for? I couldn’t answer him;. I thought about it for months. And then one day, I realized while walking in the desert that for me, it’s not what I am willing to die for, but rather, what am I willing to give my life to: This is the question that matters most to me.”
This is the question that Jesus was pushing the crowd around him to wrestle with: what gives your life meaning? What determines your priorities? Where do your ethics come from? What does the world look like?
Williams writes further: “Martin Luther King Jr. committed himself to healing the ills of this sick society and to bringing about social change through spiritual nonviolence. It is what he was both willing to die for and give his life to. Most of us do not get the chance to live a life so large. But we do have the chance to live our lives with greater intention. King said, ‘Our goal is to create a beloved community, and this will require a qualitative change in our souls as well as a quantitative change in our lives.’”
Jesus was pressing us to make a commitment, and to consider the cost of the commitment. Are we willing to follow Jesus? What if it brings us into conflict with others? What if it brings us into conflict with our work? Three weeks ago when I had just returned from General Assembly, I found on Sunday morning an angry anonymous voicemail, denouncing me for things I had said while at General Assembly. I had been quoted, incompletely, in an AP article that had been widely published, and the caller urged me to rescind my remarks. The call hurt. But as I reflected on what the caller had said, and what I had said at General Assembly, I found myself comfortable with my own words, even though they had drawn painful criticism. I had taken a stand; a stand that I felt was consistent with my call to follow Jesus.
Even if we decide that we are able and willing to commit to following Jesus, again and again we will need to discern what that means for us in our own lives in the 21st century. For most of us, it will usually not mean disavowing our families. But we do need to consider the cost – and in order to do that, we need to understand more fully how Jesus calls us, what the Kingdom looks like. And that’s why we read the Bible, and that’s why we study the historical context so that we can understand the particulars of the situations Jesus, or Paul, or Jeremiah were speaking to, so that we can understand how we are called in our own contexts. And even once we have decided to follow Jesus, we will need to make choices again and again. Are we called to feed the hungry? To teach the children? To heal the earth? To compassionate care of the hurting? None of us can do everything, and among the things that Jesus modeled was good self-care: he took good care of himself. He rested. He enjoyed his friends. He prayed. I think this is part of what Jesus urges us to examine as we count the costs – where do our own particular gifts, resources, and passions lead us in following Jesus?
And these are questions that face not only individuals, but congregations and denominations as well. When I was at General Assembly, each decision before us carried information about the financial implications. Even on the last morning of the Assembly we were debating whether we should eliminate one action in order to fund another. None of us can do everything. Part of the Frame the Future project that our congregation has undertaken is to set priorities for our future. We have a limited number of people here, and a limited amount of money. How can we best use our resources to faithfully serve God? What is our particular call? What are the commitments that we are each able and willing to make? These are the classic stewardship questions: how can we best use our time, our talents, and our treasures to serve God?
These are also the classic vocational issues: where do my particular talents and passions intersect with what God needs in the world? It is hard not to despair at times – there are so many problems, and so little time to solve them! The Danish philosopher Søren Kierkegaard wrote, “This then is the formula which describes the state of the self when despair is completely eradicated: in relating to itself and in wanting to be itself, the self is grounded transparently in the power that established it.” That is, on our own, and in relying solely on our own power, we will often despair – but when our foundation is in God, in Jesus Christ, in the Spirit that inspires and empowers us, we find ourselves grounded transparently so that we find ourselves most authentically in God, recognizing that God is, as Augustine said, “deeper in me than I am in me.”
“Ad fontes!” was a Latin expression meaning “to the foundations” – it was an expression used by the Scholastics – a Medieval movement attempting to reconcile Greek and Roman philosophy with Christianity. It was also used during the Reformation to call people to greater attention to the Bible.
What is our foundation? One of the important votes during the General Assembly was to delete paragraph G.6-0106b from the Book of Order and replace it with a new paragraph. The current paragraph is the one that reads:
The new paragraph begins“Those who are called to office in the church are to lead a life in obedience to Scripture and in conformity to the historic confessional standards of the church. Among these standards is the requirement to live either in fidelity within the covenant of marriage between a man and a woman or chastity in singleness. Persons refusing to repent of any self-acknowledged practice which the confessions call sin shall not be ordained and/or installed as deacons, elders, or ministers of the Word and Sacrament.”
This change has to be affirmed by a majority of the 173 presbyteries in the coming year in order to amend the Book of Order, but it is an important change. It deepens our foundations – from reliance on rules to following the living Christ.“Standards for ordained service reflect the church’s desire to submit joyfully to the Lordship of Jesus Christ in all aspects of life.”
“The Cost of Discipleship” is the editorial subheading given to this section of the Gospel where Jesus gives this hard teaching. The Cost of Discipleship is also the title of the most famous work by Dietrich Bonhoeffer, the German theologian and pastor who was executed for his role in an unsuccessful plot to assassinate Adolf Hitler. Bonhoeffer understood that our faith only has meaning as it is lived, and that it is in our living that our belief is formed. In this work, he writes “The actual call of Jesus and the response of single-minded obedience have an irrevocable significance. By means of them Jesus calls people into an actual situation where faith is possible. For that reason his call is an actual call and he wishes it so to be understood, because he knows that it is only through actual obedience that a person can become liberated to believe.” It is only through actual obedience that a person can become liberated to believe. Jesus knows that until we are actually living discipleship, its demands will seem impossibly hard, but that in the living, love becomes a new freedom that makes faith possible. Jesus calls us to give our lives, and in so doing, our lives, our faith, and our very selves are given to us. Let us pray… Amen.