Sermon on Luke 14:25-33

Pastor Jennifer Garcia

When Jesus talks in Luke about hating family members, carrying crosses, and giving up all possessions, one could be forgiven for thinking twice about following him.

Jesus seems to have turned the sharp wit he used in last week’s reading about the dramatic dinner party to the “large crowds” that were now traveling with him.Jesus didn’t stop at turning the social ladder upside down—he warned his followers that difficulties would come, so they should be prepared.

After all, Jesus knew he was provoking the powers that be to the point where we know it ended: execution by the state. We also know what happened after, but Jesus’ followers still needed to know what was at stake: their reputations, their comfort, and even their lives.

Jesus was setting before the crowds a choice that was life or death, similar to what God presented in our reading from Deuteronomy: “I have set before you today life and prosperity, death and adversity.”

Jesus’ words seem harsh because he was deadly serious about his mission and wanted his followers to commit to living the Beloved Community.

It’s meant to be tough to hear these words. Surely Jesus didn’t literally mean that we all have to intentionally hate our families—that would be at odds with the greatest commandments to love God and neighbor.

But Jesus needed his followers to know that following him—this unpredictable rabbi who was challenging the Roman Empire—might cause family members to disown them. If they couldn’t handle that possibility, it would be better if they turned back now.

And as I already mentioned, Jesus’ teachings and works of power would get him executed, and his followers needed to be ready to accept that fate too, because the Romans weren’t known for their mercy.

As for Jesus’ insistence that people can’t follow him without giving up all their possessions, he had a precedent of sending his disciples out pretty much empty-handed, dependent on others’ hospitality. It created the mutuality of the Beloved Community. If his followers weren’t willing to be dependent on the generosity of others, maybe they weren’t cut out for what he would ask them to do.

As the crowds around him grew, he needed them to realize that this wasn’t just a matter of following him around watching him do miracles.

Jesus knew that hardships and suffering were coming for him and his followers, but also that their participation in creating Beloved Community would lead to more freedom, abundance, and love for them and the world.

He offered them a life or death choice, just like God’s Law in Deuteronomy, and he wanted them to choose life in him.

We as Lutherans might find this idea of the Law being life-giving a little uncomfortable. We focus so much on God’s grace that we have a hard time knowing what to do when we read parts of the Law that God gave God’s people after the Exodus. We worry that we might be getting too much into the “shoulds” or maybe the “shalt nots” and losing sight of God’s grace.

But our reading from Deuteronomy tells us that the Law wasn’t about restriction or mindless obedience—it was meant to be life-giving to the newly freed Israelites.

It was about deepening their trust in God and helping them live in ways that honored God, their neighbors, the earth, and their own selves.

Luther named three uses of the Law:

1.    First, that it gives us a way to live together as large groups of human beings in ways that guide us toward not hurting each other.

2.    Second, it shows us a standard that we can’t fully attain, and so it convicts us of our sinful, imperfect nature and evokes gratitude for God’s grace.

3.    Third, specifically for Jesus followers, it helps us love God and our neighbor better.

Luther himself found life-giving help in the Law, and so can we, as long as we always remember that we’re not saved by our actions but by God’s grace.

The particulars of the Law can be perplexing and even troubling to a modern reader, but it was given to people in a different time and place. We have refrigeration, which allows us to eat shellfish that was dangerous to the Israelites. Most of us wear clothes made of mixed fabrics. Our norms, around marriage for instance, are very different from what we read in the Law.

The particulars of what is life-giving can vary over the course of thousands of years, and we need to think deeply and pray deeply about how we interact with the Law as people of faith in our time, but it is meant to be life-giving. It’s meant to show people how to love God and their neighbor better and how to participate in the Reign of God, just like Jesus was encouraging his followers to.

Our world could certainly use more love of God and neighbor.

There’s so much pain in the world.

I’ve been barely able to wrap my mind around yet another school shooting last week. The pictures of starving people in Gaza haunt me, and my stomach churns when I think of people being held hostage.I hold my breath when I check the news, waiting to see what new devastation is being wreaked around the globe.

Faced with all that’s wrong with the world, it's so easy turn to things that bring us enjoyment in the moment to numb ourselves from the pain: scrolling, buying things, binging tv, food, alcohol, etc.

But numbing doesn’t satisfy. It can even exacerbate the deterioration of our mental health. And it can lead us to consume even more in a world that’s falling apart under the weight of our overconsumption.

When God implores God’s people to choose life in Deuteronomy, it sounds so pertinent for us today. We may not observe the Law the way the ancient Israelites did, but God still has a way of life for us that is life-giving.

Are we willing to renounce the ways we numb ourselves to the pain of others as we work to make the world a more just and peaceful place?

And when Jesus charges his followers to count the cost of following him, that has resonance today, too.Jesus called his disciples to “hate” or give up whatever had a hold on them that would keep them from God’s mission.

Are we willing to give up our reliance on things that make our lives more convenient to the detriment of the future of our planet?

Even our reading from Philemon has implications for us. The interpretation of this letter over the course of history, especially in this country, is fraught. But though it deals with the topic of enslavement without directly calling for its termination, Paul makes it clear that Philemon is to consider Onesimus his brother in Christ and treat him as he would treat Paul. We are one in Christ. The image of God is in each of us, and we should treat every person accordingly.

Are we willing to divest ourselves the best we can from, for instance, supply chains that exploit others?

These are big questions, and we can’t make any significant changes alone. But also, nothing will change unless individuals like us step up.

Choosing life is complicated.

But we can rest in the knowledge that we aren’t and in fact can’t be perfect, and God knows that and loves us anyway. God saves us by grace alone, not by anything we do or don’t do.

We can forgive ourselves as God forgives us when we fall short of our ideals of renouncing numbing, giving up overconsumption, and divesting from exploitative systems.And that frees us to love God and our neighbor the best we can.

We can’t measure up to the cost of discipleship. It’s only because of Jesus’ journey to the cross that we can even try to follow in his footsteps.

But now that we are freed in Christ, we can foster the Beloved Community as best we can—together. It’s a community, after all. We can’t make a huge difference on our own, but together, we can change the world with God’s love.

Whenever you can, however you can, choose life—together.