SERMON FOR SEPTEMBER 8, 2019 THIRTEENTH SUNDAY AFTER PENTECOST TEXT: LUKE 14:25-33

One of the scholars I consulted this week made an interesting observation about today’s Gospel: “Jesus’ hyperbolic language . . . — to hate one’s own family — is simply to stress the seriousness of taking the journey with him to Jerusalem.” As an aside, it is worth noting that Matthew, in his version of this saying, softens the language: “Whoever loves father or mother more than me is not worthy of me; and whoever loves son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me . . . . “ This makes it clear that what is at stake for Jesus is not rejecting one’s family per se but getting one’s priorities straight. Serving God by following Jesus comes before everything and everyone else. The commentary on the text continues: “In the first century, Jewish families were central; . . . many family members were engaged in the same family occupation. Losing someone to religious interests could be detrimental to the family’s well being. So the implications and challenges of Jesus’ words are real. As he stresses elsewhere, it’s impossible to serve two masters. He seeks singularly devoted persons, undistracted by the cares of daily life. This may explain why most of his disciples were probably unmarried (though Peter is one exception). Paul understood the basic nature of Jesus’ expectations, since, he too, chose not to marry. [And he advised other followers of Christ to do the same.] For both Jesus and Paul, their eschatological visions affected their ethical and behavioral choices.”

Luke’s Gospel includes the story of the twelve-year-old Jesus staying behind in the Temple in Jerusalem, unbeknownst to his parents. They begin the return journey, assuming he is part of the group of travelers. When they discover he is missing, they go back to the city and search for three days until they locate him. Jesus’ mother calls him to account for the anxiety he has caused them. He replies, “Why were you searching for me? Did you not know that I must be in my Father’s house?” The meaning of that is unclear to his parents, but the story concludes on a filial high note: “Then he went down with them and came to Nazareth, and was obedient to them . . . . And Jesus increased in wisdom and years, and in divine and human favor.” We assume he remained in the bosom of his family and joined his father’s trade as a carpenter. But the next event of Jesus’ life recorded in the Gospel is his baptism by John the Baptist. “Jesus was about thirty years old when he began his work,” writes Luke. Almost two decades of his life unaccounted for. So much for the family carpentry business. So much for his family. The last we hear of them is in chapter 8: Then [Jesus’] mother and his brothers came to him, but they could not reach him because of the crowd. And he was told, “Your mother and your brothers are standing outside, wanting to see you.” But he said to them, “My mother and my brothers are those who hear the word of God and do it.”

Jesus apparently took “hating” his family of origin in stride. There is no scriptural evidence for him having been other than celibate. There are scholars who argue that marriage for a Jewish male of his social class would have been such a matter of course in that era that there was no need to mention it. Should that be the case (I’m not buying it), he was able to walk away from wife and children with remarkable aplomb when the ministry called. The kingdom of God was at hand, the Day of Judgment was dawning; Jesus had much to do, a brief window of opportunity in which to accomplish it, and no time for distractions. His eschatological vision did indeed determine his ethical and behavioral choices.

But for you and me the cares of daily life and family commitment are not distractions. They are at the heart of our discipleship; they are ground zero of our carrying the cross. There is a famous saying attributed to Martin Luther that has never been verified in his written works. That has made no difference, however, because it so perfectly captures his understanding of the Christian life. “Even if I knew the world was going to end tomorrow, I would still plant an apple tree today.” The end will come in God’s good time. Yet even now God’s reign comes among us in, with and under the common rhythms of earthly life — birth and death, growing up and growing old, love and loss, work and rest, seedtime and harvest, school year and summer vacation. And so we build families. They teach us to live from the first person plural, not just the limited “I.” They keep us grounded and give us purpose. They create possibility and energize our hopes. For Luther the family was the root of the church, for within its circle we first experience love, practice mercy, and learn the lessons of grace.

You don’t have to be in the construction business or the state department to understand Jesus’ illustrations of prudent preparedness. Don’t start a building project you haven’t the resources to complete. Pick your battles; don’t fight ones you can’t win. Take discipleship seriously before you take it on, because “[i]t’s . . . no bed of roses, no pleasure cruise,” to quote Freddie Mercury. It is perhaps unseemly of the pastor to push back on this, but it doesn’t seem so simple to me. Because discipleship isn’t one thing you do among others; when you follow Jesus every part of your life becomes discipleship, including your family relationships. You can do a cost-benefit analysis before you commit to a partner, but how in advance do you calculate the resources needed to complete a parenting project, especially when no two of them are the same? My mom was of the opinion that if people thought too deeply about having babies, they wouldn’t, and that’s why God created hormones, to cut them off at the analytical pass. There’s just no calculating the towers you will have to build and rebuild, the battles you will have to fight, when you commit yourself to caring for a child.

This past week a dear friend sent me an email from the ICU in a hospital out west, where her grandchild was near death after attempting suicide. When my Lucy was five, she presented the baptismal candle while the joyful parents held that baby and the pastor said, “Let your light so shine before others that they may see your good works and praise your Father in heaven.” That light is going out too soon under tragically complicated circumstances, and I wonder how the family will persevere through the grief and pain.

“Whoever does not carry the cross and follow me cannot be my disciple,” Jesus says. We think of the cross as a sign of death and desolation and such suffering inflicted upon us as its heavy weight. But Jesus speaks of the cross as a way one embraces, not as a fate one endures. It is certainly costly but is itself of priceless worth. To carry the cross is to choose life, life as Jesus lived it, with its inevitable challenges and consequences in this broken world. As Karoline Lewis writes, “What a different way of being it would be if the cross were a way of choosing life and not fixated on death. . . . This is not to say Jesus’s death doesn’t matter. It’s to push how and why it matters. How is the cross, especially for Luke, flying in the face of empire? A promise that God’s seeing us does not end in our death and burial? A certainty that release of the captives is a past, present, and future reality, but that that future depends on our choice to carry the cross of Jesus?”

The last communication Lucy and I had from our friend was a Bible reference, Jeremiah 29:11: For surely I know the plans I have for you, says the Lord, plans for your welfare and not for harm, to give you a future with hope. Lucy asked me what I thought this means. I think our friend is telling us that in the face of this horrific tragedy she still chooses the cross and the life to which it calls us. She will grieve until her last hour on this earth, and she will claim that promised future with hope. Indeed, she will help create it, so that others, subjected to the kind of suffering that drove her grandchild to despair, may be set free. Though her world has been shattered, she will go on planting apple trees. This is what it means to carry the cross and follow Jesus. This is the way of life. Amen.