Counting the Cost of Discipleship: A Meditation on Luke 14

And there went great multitudes with him:

and he turned, and said unto them,

If any man come to me, and hate not his father, and mother,

and wife, and children, and brethren, and sisters,

yea, and his own life also, he cannot be my disciple.

And whosoever doth not bear his cross,

and come after me, cannot be my disciple.

For which of you, intending to build a tower,

sitteth not down first, and counteth the cost,

whether he have sufficient to finish it?

Lest haply, after he hath laid the foundation,

and is not able to finish it, all that behold it begin to mock him,

Saying, This man began to build, and was not able to finish.

Or what king, going to make war against another king,

Sitteth not down first, and consulteth whether he be able with ten

thousand to meet him that cometh against him with twenty thousand?

Or else, while the other is yet a great way off,

he sendeth an ambassage, and desireth conditions of peace.

So likewise, whosoever he be of you that forsaketh

 not all that he hath, he cannot be my disciple.

This idea of considering the cost of being a disciple of Jesus was pretty visceral in the first century.  In roughly 33 A.D. Jesus Himself was scourged and crucified by the Roman governor at the instigation of his own Jewish authorities, abandoned to die by His people whom He came to save.  Following in Jesus’ example and prediction, all but one of His 12 Disciples died martyr’s deaths, as their message of peace, love, and reconciliation with God was met by hostility, scorn, and violence.  Even St. John, who the ancient histories say they tried to kill by boiling him alive in oil, and when he wouldn’t perish at their unjust hands, was exiled to Patmos so that he might be worked to death there (the place where he received the Revelation recorded at the end of the New Testament, after which he was liberated and lived out his life as bishop of Ephesus.)  Time would fail to recount the many martyrs of the first and second centuries of the Christian Church (even those recorded, while still many more are known only to God,) who for the sake of their discipleship with Christ, bore the irrational hatred, persecution, and bloodlust of pagans, politicians, atheists, and hedonists.  To become a Christian in the early centuries of the Church was to invite upon oneself a life of torment and ridicule, as the forces of darkness in every echelon of society sought to stomp out the light of Christ’s redemptive message of His love, mercy, and forgiveness for mankind.  Christ’s peaceful and loving call to all mankind that they turn from their evil ways of malice and death and receive His free gift of life and grace brought Him to death on a cross, and those who bore His saving Word often met a similar fate.

Such a context helped drive home the message Jesus presented in our Gospel lesson for this Sunday.  Jesus’ love for His people was not calling them to hatred of their families, friends, and countrymen.  On the contrary, His message of love for all people exceeded even the high demands God gave His people through Moses at Mt. Sinai 1500 years earlier, as Jesus called everyone to love their neighbors as themselves.  But this love of neighbor, as highly as Jesus lifted it in His teaching, was secondary to the love He called all people to have of their Creator and Redeemer God—that they love Him first and foremost, with all their heart, all their soul, all their strength, and all their mind.  While the divine love Jesus called for people to share with each other exceeded all earthly and selfish love, it was always secondary, a reflection of the primary source of divine love which emanated from God Himself.  Thus Jesus teaches in our reading for this Sunday, that anyone who would elevate their affection for their neighbors—regardless of who they may be, or of whatever offices they may hold—over their love for God, actually denies the font of love itself, and cannot be a disciple of Jesus.  To the first century Christian, this meant that the love of God which moved them to become disciples of Jesus by grace through faith in His Eternal Gospel of salvation, would cling to Jesus and His Gospel even if their neighbors rejected it, persecuted it, and slandered both it and them.  For these Christians, this love of God in Jesus Christ moved them to suffer torture and death at the hands of demonically inspired men, rather than repudiate the salvation of Jesus’ Gospel.  Their martyrdom was a witness not only to their saving fidelity to Christ who would keep them forever and raise them up on the Last Day, but a loving witness even to those who were shedding their blood—a witness that even the dark and demonically inspired murderers of saints can be redeemed by the Gospel of Jesus Christ.

This is the cost of discipleship.  While recent centuries have made it easier to remain Christian in Western democracies, that ease is beginning to turn into the ridicule, scorn, and legal persecution known all too well to ancient Christianity, and under which many of our Christian brothers and sisters have painfully labored in the East.  The bloody rise of Secular Atheist regimes in the 20^th century spilled the blood of hundreds of millions, and their vestiges continue to do so in China and North Korea, while their political activists continue to fan their flames in Europe and North America.  The gruesome resurgence of militant Islam has been murdering whole populations since the 7^th century A.D., and in only the last decade has publicly butchered hundreds of thousands in their genocidal quest to establish a hellish world Caliphate.  Caught today between rising tides of pagans who worship demons and unleash their oppressions upon communities great and small; of secular atheism which drives toward tyrannical and godless totalitarianism; of hedonists who prize pleasure above all things, even the lives of those whom they consume for their passions; of materialists who discount the dignity of humanity both in themselves and in others, inexorably treating people as valueless animals; to militant Islam which seeks to submit the whole world to the horrors of Sharia Law; of apostate churches which have abandoned the Word of God so as to make alliances all those persecutors above; here the Christian must once again count the true cost of discipleship.

In ourselves, there is no power to stand against such great terrors and persecutions.  To rely on our own strength to be disciples of Jesus is to fall into the trap of thinking we can work hard enough to merit Jesus’ salvation, which Jesus and the Apostles assure us we cannot do.  What we can do, however, is receive the Word of Christ as it calls us to Him.  That Word will work in us a saving and living faith by the power of His Holy Spirit, which will receive His grace of forgiveness, eternal life, and salvation, turning us from the paths of wickedness and death.  Raised up by this Word and Spirit of Christ, He makes of us disciples which can love Him beyond all things, and yet love all things as He loves them, sacrificing Himself for the sake of the whole world.  And when in our sinful weakness we fail to love as He calls us to love, His Word and Spirit call us again to faith and repentance, that we might once again be raised up to new and eternal life as restored and forgiven His disciples.

As the Word and Spirit of Christ come to you this day, they call you to count the cost of being a disciple of Jesus.  There is nothing in this passing world which compares with the salvation and life He offers to you through His own life, death, and resurrection which pays for your sins of infidelity to your Creator and His Word.  Rather He invites you by grace to receive His free gift of love and salvation, which He extends not only to you, but your family, your community, your nation, and your world.  There in the love of Christ you will find true love for your spouse, your children, your parents, your siblings, your friends, and all your neighbors.  There in the Gospel of Jesus Christ you will find a life that cannot be quenched by the powers of darkness, and cannot be cowed by the ferocity of hell’s most vociferous malefactors.  There in the love of Christ you will find the heroic faith of the martyrs, which will raise you up to shine the saving light of Christ and His Word into a dark and dying world.  Hear the Word of Christ call to you today, that you may arise by grace through faith in Him forever.  Amen.