It seems impossible,
in the face of so many negatives, to find an encouraging word in this morning’s
gospel. If we do not hate, if we do not carry our cross, if we do not give up
all our possessions. These are hard words to hear for any who desire to be a
disciple of Jesus Christ because we know we hate, we seldom carry our cross,
and we certainly hang on to our possessions.
It seems even more
impossible to hear these words in the light of any hope we may have for our
lives. In the light of our deep hunger for joy.
One who offers a
glimpse is the mystic, Julian of Norwich. She may well have been the Christian
world’s eternal optimist. Her words of hope resonate with us; “All will be
well. And all will be well. And all manner of things will be well.” She echo’s
the prophet Jeremiah (7:23) who said, “Obey my voice, and I will be your God,
and you shall be my people, and walk only in the way that I command you, so
that it may be well with you.”
The author Annie
Dillard also sees hope . In her book, “The Writing Life,” she challenges us to
define our desires for well-being. She asks, “Why are we reading (books), if
not in hope of beauty laid bare, life
heightened and its deepest mystery probed? Why are we reading, if not in hope
that the writer will magnify and dramatize our days, will illuminate and
inspire us with wisdom, courage, and the possibility of meaningfulness, and
will press upon our minds the deepest mysteries, so we may feel again their
majesty and power? What do we ever know that is higher than that power which, from
time to time, seizes our lives, and reveals us startlingly to ourselves as
creatures set down here bewildered? Why does death so catch us by surprise, and
why love? We will and always want waking. We should amass half dressed in long
lines like tribesmen and shake gourds at each other, to wake up; instead we
watch television and miss the show.”
There are those moments in a book when the author reveals a
truth and names it. That revealing and naming touches us so deeply we find
ourselves laughing out loud, or welling up with a tear because we hear for the
first time the answer to our deepest longing to know and realize there is a
name for what we had hoped.
Such is our need this
morning. We have read in Luke disturbing words that smother our deepest
longings. It seems there is no hope in these words. Jesus shatters us with
these stabbing blows, “Whoever does not hate your family, you cannot be my
disciple . . . whoever does not carry your own cross, you cannot be my disciple
. . . whoever does not give up all your possessions, you cannot be my
disciple.”
That just about
settles it. Perhaps our only hope now is to just be left alone. Perhaps there
is no reason at all to believe. To name truth using these words is not what we
have ever hoped for. Why would any of us want to follow such a person making
such claims?
I believe, even given
these words about hate and crosses and giving up stuff, there is reason to
believe and to follow and I think you feel the same way. Just as Julian said, we
do hunger that “all will be well.” We do hope “all will be well.” we do long
for the truth that in our lives, “all manner of things will be well.”
Hoping and wondering
about the truth, even in our doubt, seems to go hand in hand with being a
Christian at times. Near the end of Luke’s gospel even the apostles seemed to
be in doubt.
In chapter
twenty-four, after the resurrection, Jesus stood among the disciples and spoke
to them, “Peace be with you.” And he showed them his hands and his feet. Then,
in verse forty one, “while in their joy, they were disbelieving and still
wondering . . .”
But, there is a reason
to believe. Even in our disbelief and wondering our hunger for joy will not go
away. Our hunger that “all will be well” does not diminish. Our hunger for God
is real and primal.
Where then, in this morning’s harshness, is
there hope for that hunger, hope for that joy?
Jesus is speaking to
us about being in a loving relationship with God. A loving relationship, by its
nature, requires total commitment to the other. Such a commitment demands a lot
from us. Loving Jesus actually takes more than a lot. It takes everything we
have.
So, what does Jesus
mean when he says, “Whoever does not hate your family . . . cannot be my
disciple?” Consider how powerfully at odds this word hate is with God’s
commandment that we love one another. Especially our neighbor as ourselves.
Especially our enemy. We are taught to have faith, hope and love. We are taught
the greatest of these is love. Loving others more than we love God does not
create discipleship in us.
We are, as believers,
to love simply, yet powerfully. We are to even love the rascals in our lives.
Or, perhaps, especially the rascal. The one who disappoints, the one who
aggravates, the one we grind our teeth over, the one we walk away from. We are
to love our families too. Only, we are to love all these a bit less than we
love God.
In Matthew 10:37 Jesus
says, “whoever loves father and mother, or son or daughter, more than me is not
worthy of me.” Here is the thing, Jesus does not say, “Do not love your father
and mother, or son or daughter.” He says, if you love these folks, these
things, “more than me” you are not worthy of me. If we consider our word “hate”
as being in this context, as a degree of love we will understand Jesus.
We love our
grandmother more than we love pecan pie, for example. We love our dog or cat
more than we love chocolate. Well, perhaps that one is in doubt. But you
understand. Love does not hold equal meaning and feeling.
What then does Jesus
mean when he says, “Whoever does not carry your own cross, cannot be my
disciple.” This phrase is in the present
tense. Here and now, we are to carry our daily responsibilities, pick up our
problems, our burdens and fears, our crosses. We are to live with the reality
of life and take risks.
Embracing life and
accepting our responsibilities requires we take chances. God does not want us
to take those chances alone. We should pick up those crosses and follow along
with Jesus.
What may it then mean,”
whoever does not give up all your possessions cannot be my disciple.” Here is a
challenge to each of us to prioritize our life. To be loyal to God first, and
to persevere in that loyalty. To know the difference between giving lip service
to following Jesus and actually being a disciple of Jesus means we set everything
else aside.
Now, we need not set
everything on the curb for the trash. But, we do not set everything on a
pedestal either. The end game for us is to follow Jesus and not be distracted
by all our distractions.
The clear message this
morning is this, our relationship with God needs to come first in our lives. If
family or work or possessions come first, at the exclusion of God, we are
living lives worshiping things other than God. That does not mean we are not to
love and adore our relationships. It does mean we are to place God first in our
lives.
It may still be
difficult to hear in these words a reason to believe in God. But believe we
must. For the seed of a hunger that all will be well and all will know joy and
live a life of amazement has been planted in each of us by our creator.
We believe because if
what Jesus taught is true, then joy and hope and forgiveness and salvation and
life everlasting is at the core of our creation.
John Ortberg has
written, “If Jesus is right, joy was at the beginning. Joy was challenged in
the middle. And joy will be restored in the end.”
The wisdom of the
author G. K. Chesterton creates a picture of such a God and the future in store
for God’s creation that opens us to the possibility of a goodness that we can
only hope will be true. It closes with a picture of Jesus and the hope for joy
that should sustain us as we struggle to believe we too can be a disciple of
Jesus Christ.
To make his point, Chesterton tells the story
of a child, any child, even the child in us, who has been sick, and our fear is
we might lose that child, even our own life. Imagine that the doctors discover
the truth, a simple operation will ensure life, will bring healing and joy.
But, for a five year
old like us this truth does not really take away our fear. What if the doctor
is wrong? Won’t the operation hurt a lot? What if I never get well? My illness
may come back. It has been with me so long.
With this truth before
us we cannot lightly dismiss the real fear our child has. We must offer
compassion and understanding and love and
give assurance that all will be well.
At the same time, our
hearts are hoping with anticipation for joy. We want to believe, all will be
well, that all manner of things will be well. Inside we are able to laugh and
dance with the sheer truth of the joy that awaits us. An operation, a simple
operation, and all will be well.
This is the same truth
that Jesus knows about. Jesus knows what awaits us when we become his disciple.
We will be healed of our human afflictions, from sin, from our desperate
struggle to survive.
For God has a place
for us in God’s kingdom. Jesus has come to offer compassion and understanding
and love and gives us assurance that if we will love him even more than we love
our families, and if we will carry our daily burdens, and if we will allow our
possession to be less important than he is in our lives, all will be well. We who
believe know this. Ultimately, all will be well!
Chesterton writes,
“Joy, which was the small desire of the pagan, is the gigantic secret of the
Christian. And as I close this chaotic volume I open again the strange small
book from which all Christianity came; and I am again haunted by a kind of
confirmation. The tremendous figure which fills the gospel’s towers in this
respect above all the thinkers who ever thought themselves tall. His suffering
was natural, almost casual. He never concealed his tears; he showed them
plainly on His open face. Yet, He concealed something.
He never restrained
anger. Yet, He restrained something. I say it with reverence; there was in that
shattering personality a thread that must be called shyness. There was
something that He hid from all (humanity) when He went up a mountain to pray.
There was something he covered constantly by abrupt silence or passionate isolation.
There was some one thing that was too great for God to show us when God walked
upon our earth; and I have sometimes fancied that it was His mirth, His sheer
joy.”
Jesus knew, all will
be well, and because he knew, all will be well. And, with God’s grace and God’s
assurance, all manner of things will be well.
In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy
Spirit, one God, now and forever, Amen.
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