(Jeremiah 18:1-11; Ps. 139:1-5, 12-17; Philemon 1-21; Luke 14:25-33)
I know a man who, growing up, was a golden boy: he was at the top of his class academically all the way through school, an excellent athlete, tall and good-looking, popular, imaginative, funny, the whole package. He went to a top college, fell in love with a girl there, they both went to the same top law school, got married, both got jobs in different law firms in the same major American city: his had the distinction of being the first firm in the country to charge $1000 an hour for its services. So this young man’s future was assured.
But very soon, he realized that that life was not for him: it was not who he was, and is. So he left the firm – and the law – after less than a year. And of course he knew that decision would come at considerable sacrifice: it cost him a lot of money, and what the world sees as power and prestige; and it also cost him his marriage.
He’s now a high school math teacher, and I don’t mean to suggest that everything’s a bowl of cherries for him – he’s been married and divorced again, and you wouldn’t call his life exactly settled. But, whatever others might think is good or bad about his life, he knows what it means to live truthfully, according to the dictates of his conscience, and what he believes is really important about life; and he knows what it costs when you don’t act that way. That kind of bottom-line awareness of the stakes that are really involved in day-to-day life is a fundamental element of Christian faith.
Today is what at St. John’s we call Startup Sunday.
We resume our schedule of two services, the choir is back at the ten o’clock (thanks be to God), church school’s underway again; we’re back to the way we do it most of the year, to what we’re used to. Things are back to normal. So it feels good, doesn’t it? Feels comfortable.
So let’s be grateful that, by the grace of God, we get a gospel reading today which smacks us right in the chops and says, Wake up, folks! Let’s remember what we’re really about here. A few weeks ago I mentioned a sermon I’d heard about titled “Things I Wish Jesus Had Never Said.” Today’s gospel might be part of a companion to that called “Things I Can’t Believe Jesus Really Meant (Or Anyway I Sure Hope He Didn’t)”. If you don’t hate your father and your mother, your wife and your kids, brother and sister – if you don’t give up all your possessions – if you don’t hate life itself, you can’t be my disciple. Startup Sunday. Doesn’t it feel more like Lemme Outta Here Sunday?
So there’s a rule of thumb in this situation: if you hear something in the Bible that you don’t like, or don’t understand, go right at it.
There are several characteristic things about Jesus that are evident in this gospel story. One is that he was constantly telling people to be alert to the pitfalls, the dangers of this broken world: to stay awake, be aware of what was really happening around them. Another is that Jesus was able – uniquely of any person in history that I’ve come across – to just look at someone and in a flash see into the bottom of that person’s heart: see who they think they are and who they really are, what they think they want and what they really want. (Sometimes he didn’t even have to look at them, he could just feel it.) And finally, Jesus didn’t always have a very good temper.
All three of these traits are front and center in today’s story. Jesus is on his way to Jerusalem, for his final confrontation with the powers of this world. So he’s ministering on the way – teaching and healing – but his focus is always straight ahead. And there’s come to be a crowd following him, because his ministry – his words and actions – have attracted a lot of attention: nobody’s ever seen anyone like him.
But Jesus is perfectly well aware that a lot of these people – probably most – are just along because of the buzz, because he’s the latest, because they want to be there to see one of those miracles they’ve heard he does. And Jesus wants nothing to do with a posse, an entourage. He wants disciples: people who want to learn about what’s really real: about the truth of God’s presence and work in this world, and who want to live more fully into that, whatever it costs, because it’s the truth. It’s the same for us here as it was for the people in this story, and sometimes Jesus needs to get our attention about that.
Which he does here in the starkest possible terms. Luke tells us there’s a crowd following Jesus, and that he turns – the impression is that he turns on his heel, suddenly – and lets the hangers-on, the spectators, have it right in the teeth: unless you hate your mother and father, unless you hate life, unless you give up all your possessions, you cannot be my disciple. So. This is what following me means. Are you in? Or not? He’s challenging them.
Now: here’s what this language means. God is always doing new things, in this world, all the time, and some of them are big. God can turn the universe inside out. God can turn death into life. And when God presents us with something new, God is asking us to make changes in our lives. And sometimes those changes are big and painful: as big and painful as hating our mother and father and so on.
Of course, we can decline to do this. God has given us freedom, and we make up our own minds. We can stay in the world we find comfortable. We all do make that choice at least sometimes, every single one of us. But when we do that, we should be aware that we are not acting as disciples of Christ. Jesus sets the bar high. But as always, hard as it sometimes is to hear, Jesus is telling us the truth; and the truth, as Jesus also tells us, will make us free.
There’s a good example of what discipleship means in this way in today’s reading from the letter to Philemon. Philemon is a Christian, who was converted by Paul, and who hosts a church in his house. One of his slaves, a man named Onesimus, has run away, has met Paul (who is in jail), and has through Paul’s ministry become a Christian himself. With this letter Paul is sending him back to his master Philemon, asking Philemon to see him, and receive him, now not as a slave, but as a beloved brother; and to send him back to Paul: that is, give him his freedom: or, more truthfully, recognize his freedom.
And Paul puts this on the basis of Christian discipleship. As we heard, he tells Philemon, “Formerly he was useless to you…”: that’s to say, forget the work he did for you as a slave: that’s not part of the kingdom of God; which means that’s not part of your world any more, Philemon: is it? “Formerly he was useless to you, but now he is indeed useful both to you and to me.” Useful how? Paul is saying, together we have a chance here – all three of us together – to spread the love of God in Christ out into the world. He is asking Philemon to be a disciple of Christ, and give up a possession. And give up not just literally the piece of property that a slave was, like a sofa, but give up his relationship to this man as master to slave: give up that way of seeing the world, which he’d had all his life, and just assumed was part of the natural order of things. And do this not because Onesimus has become a Christian, but because Philemon is a Christian; and for disciples of Christ, the whole human race is our immediate family.
This is asking a lot. But Paul sees the opportunity that God is offering all three of them here: he writes to Philemon, “Perhaps this is the reason he was separated from you for a while, so that you might have him back forever, no longer as a slave but more than a slave, a beloved brother – especially to me but how much more to you, both in the flesh and in the Lord.”
Paul sees the wonderful new world that God is opening for Philemon to step into. It’s going to come at a cost, and not just because he’s giving up a possession: Philemon’s friends will think he’s not only a kook, but a traitor to his class; he might become an outcast.
But put that next to the new beloved brother he will have: the new dimension of life that will now be his. This is the treasure in heaven, which neither moth nor rust can consume, and thieves cannot break in and steal. On this Startup Sunday, let us give thanks to God for our call to the discipleship of Christ. Amen.