Sermon on September 5, 2010
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.
Rachel was in her mid-twenties when she left the church. It wasn’t a gradual drifting away, but rather a conscious decision to leave. She’d been active in the congregation—showed up at quite a few things, helped out with Vacation Bible School… Folks in the church were a little surprised to hear that she’d left.
“Oh, well you know Rachel—she’s so busy all the time,” someone said. And it was true. Rachel had a new job that took a lot of energy and time, and she and her fiancé Chuck were planning a wedding the following summer. She volunteered at the food pantry, she mentored a student in a local after-school program, and she had just started taking classes for a master’s degree. She was the kind of person any church would love to have on board—bright, energetic, engaged… and busy, too, that’s true.
Her pastor was a friend of mine, and he gave her a call and they met for a cup of coffee. “Well, we miss you at church,” he said to Rachel as they sat down, “but I think I understand. You’ve got a lot going on, and it can be hard when you’re so busy.” Rachel looked him straight in the eye and said, politely but firmly, “Busy has nothing to do with it. I didn’t stop coming because I was too busy—I stopped coming because the church didn’t seem to need me.”
Her pastor confessed to me and some other colleagues later that he’d been hesitant to ask too much of Rachel when she was a member. “With her being so busy, I didn’t want Rachel to feel like the church was piling too much on. But as it turned out, it was her sense of the church’s low expectations that drove her away.”
Have you ever felt that way? Like the church isn’t expecting enough of you? (If you do, please see me and we can talk!) It’s easy for a church, though, to fall into the trap of having low expectations. After all, people really are busy these days, and with that, they’re understandably skittish when it comes to long-term commitments. That’s probably why the term “commitment-free” is popping up more and more these days. Cell phone plans, cable TV options, marketing strategies—they’re all using the language of “commitment-free” in hopes to connect with consumers who can’t stand the thought of one more thing to keep track of in their lives.
A nation-wide volunteer organization called “One Brick” has tapped into this same reluctance to commit in our culture. One Brick’s website lists ways that people can volunteer in their communities, but the jobs are always short-term—a couple hours on a Saturday afternoon, maybe. When the job is done, it’s over. One Brick boasts on its website, “Our ‘commitment-free volunteering’ allows you to choose when you volunteer, rather than having to make commitments for a certain number of volunteer hours, or agree to be available every week at a specific time. Volunteering made easy!”
And I get it. I’m nervous about commitments too. I’m reminded of that every time I’m asked to write down my email address. All can be right with the world, but then, while filling out a form in the dentist’s office or buying a pair of shoes online, I’m asked for my email, and suddenly the thought of just one more useless email in my inbox is about enough to do me in!
So I get it. I don’t need more emails to delete. I don’t need more stuff to read. I don’t need more stuff to do. No one needs more stuff to do! But I also get it when I see churches fall into the trap of having low expectations. It’s never an intentional strategy, really—more like a subconscious surrender to an overly-cluttered culture.
Jesus says to his disciples and to the crowds in Luke’s gospel, “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… Not one of you can become my disciple if you do not give up all your possessions.” Yikes! Obviously Jesus did not confer with his marketing strategist before he chose these words. Hate father and mother? Hate? Carry the cross? And hate life itself? Give up all my possessions? Gosh golly, Jesus, you really make being a disciple sound fun, but as it turns out, I am kind of busy right now… Clearly this is not a “commitment-free” discipleship Jesus is offering.
I do want to take a moment to talk about the word “hate” here. In our family, “hate” is a bad word, and Sylvia reminds us of that every time we say it. “Oh, I hate being late,” I’ll say as we dash off to the van on a school morning. “Dad, you shouldn’t hate.” “You’re right, Sylvia…”
Here Jesus tells us to hate your father and mother, hate your spouse and children, hate your brother and sister, hate life itself… It’s sort of strange hearing these words coming from the one who commanded us to love others as we love ourselves. But the word “hate” here is an ancient expression that means “to turn away from.” So what Jesus is demanding here is not a true hatred of family or self. Rather, Jesus is acknowledging the commitments and loyalties we keep, and he’s saying that in the midst of them all, the gospel should not only take precedence, but it should also redefine the others. (1)
“Turn away from anything that attempts to define you more clearly than the gospel,” Jesus could have said—“Turn away from the expectations of others, turn away from that mountain of stuff you have, and even turn away from your life as you know it, if you have to.” These words come as a challenge to any church attempting to cope with an overscheduled culture by demanding less of its people. But friends, we do have an overscheduled culture on our hands. None of us need more stuff to do. Certainly the people who aren’t here yet don’t need more stuff to do.
So what do we do? First, I think we need to identify the disconnect that often exists between our message and our expectations.
When I taught eighth grade, I had a colleague who was constantly telling his class to stop talking and pay attention. “Stop talking. Pay attention. This is important,” he’d tell his class. Over and over again. “Stop talking. Pay attention. This is important.” Sometimes he’d say it nonchalantly: “Stop talking. Pay attention. This is important.” Sometimes it would be a yell: “Stop talking! Pay attention! This is important!” He said it so much, it lost all meaning. And it never worked. His class never seemed to stop talking. I don’t know if they paid attention or thought anything was important in that room. I do know that in an odd way, that teacher’s strategy for classroom management undermined his hopes for teaching. He said “Stop talking, pay attention, this is important” so many times that it became background noise, and by the end of the year, he may as well have been telling his students, “Keep talking, guys. Don’t pay attention. This isn’t important.”
Sometimes I think the Christian church is like that teacher. The message we send to our culture, time and time again, is “Jesus Christ is Lord.” But the expectation we often make is that Jesus’ lordship is something you can easily squeeze into your busy schedule—that there’s room in your free time for the gospel.
The message Jesus gives the crowd is that this isn’t about anybody’s free time. It’s not about what you do when you’re not committed to work or family. It’s not about something you can squeeze in on the weekend. Rather for Jesus, discipleship is about life itself. Discipleship isn’t about one more thing—rather, it’s about everything.
I think this is good news for those of us who feel trapped by the demands of an overscheduled lifestyle in a cluttered culture. Following Christ’s Way isn’t about adding something new to the long list of things we have to do: Finish up the project at work, stop at the store on the way home, feed the kids, drive them to soccer practice, do laundry, mow the lawn, and follow Jesus. It doesn’t work that way. Your spirituality is not meant to be an “add-on” in your life. Christ’s invitation to become a disciple, rather, is an invitation for Christ’s Way to be everything in your life.
With that in mind, there isn’t a church in the world that will score points for long by making Christianity sound convenient or compatible with life’s busy-ness. But there’s a lot of room for a family of faith that understands more fully the cost of being a disciple of Jesus Christ. And the cost is this: everything. Everything. Jesus tells all would-be followers in Luke’s gospel, “I don’t want half of you. I don’t want the left-over you. I don’t want the care-about-justice-sometimes you. I don’t want the when-I-get-around-to-it you.” I want you entirely. Every fiber of your thought and being. Every care and concern. Every hope and possibility.
Now make no mistake. This is not a discussion of church activity. This is not a hope for perfect worship attendance. Rather, this is a reminder that being a disciple of Jesus Christ is not part-time. When we give our lives over to the lordship of Jesus Christ, we invite Christ’s Way to be our way completely. Christ’s Way—the way of compassion, the way of justice, the way of looking out for the poor and the oppressed, the way of mindful, attentive love for others and for self. Being a disciple means being a follower of that Way, and consequently hating—or turning from—anything that would prevent us from doing otherwise.
As we enter another school year, my hopeful prayer for this church is that we would continually find ourselves centered in Christ—allowing the loving character of Christ to define us as a family of faith, and following Christ in all that we do.
Racine doesn’t need another church giving people stuff to do when they’re not busy with other stuff. And neither do you. Racine—the whole world—needs a church that has found its identity in Christ—a church that understands that the cost of discipleship is everything—and a church that therefore has everything to give. Amen.
1. I'm grateful for Fred Craddock's insights into this passage in his commentary on Luke's gospel in the Interpretation series.
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