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The Cost of Discipleship is far less than you think (or has been told to you)
Thoughts carrying me to Jesus, and to the Cross…
“And when the people saw it, they all complained, “He has gone in to be the guest of a man who is a sinner.”But Zacchaeus stopped and said to the Lord, “Look, Lord, half of my possessions I now give to the poor, and if I have cheated anyone of anything, I am paying back four times as much!” Then Jesus said to him, “Today salvation has come to this household, because he too is a son of Abraham!For the Son of Man came to seek and to save the lost.”” (Luke 19:7–10, NET)
But hope in the resurrection allows us to take the proper measure of our brief time in this world, and this does not make us neglect our neighbor, it stirs up greater generosity. We have seen this in the lives of many mystics. The saint with a soul soaring upward into heaven does not forget the world; to the contrary, he or she is in the most radically free position to transform it. Chesterton said his first attractions to Christianity came when he realized that Christians were the only ones to preach the paradox that one must be “enough of a pagan to die for the world, and enough of a Christian to die to it.” Hope allows us to love the world radically, without practical calculation or cost analysis.
Back int eh 1980’s, there was a great focus on the the idea of the “Cost of Discipleship.”
Some of it came because of the great work by Bonhoeffer bearing that name, which many people would read and not finish! Or if they did, would struggle and give up applying it. Others would talk about it based on Jesus’ parables and stories–illustrations like the general going to war, or the warnings about following Jesus costing family, friends, and even require accepting martyrdom and persecution.
In some ways, the Kingdom of God was put forth as requiring such a sacrifice that you would be considered a “hero” of the faith, a saint because of inner fortitude and a willingness to pay any cost to be with Jesus, and it turns the Church into a rest haven for weary crusaders fighting against that “ole Satanic foe.”
Count the cost – the pastors and evangelists told us… and held up images of those who left everything to go on the mission field, or serve in the inner city, or give up the tech career to work in the church. They counted the cost, and accepted the cost, and paid for it with their blood, sweat, and relationships.
And often burnt out – for the cost analysis they did was inaccurate, and minimized the cost to one’s heart and soul. (that is another blogpost entirely!)
Simply put, if our focus is on the cost analysis, we won’t make it.
But those who encounter Christ, as Zacchaeus did, don’t calculate the cost of walking with God, he didn’t perform a cost analysis or look at his bank account when he determined where God was leading him. He did check his credit card balance before throwing a massive parry at his house, so people could meet Jesus, he did it. And as he restored and multiplied his victims wealth, there was no one at his should, laying out a payment plan.
There was no need for a cost analysis, because he could see the value God put on restoring him… and nothing could compare. Those who serve God for 40-5070 years will tell you the same thing – nothing can compare to what they have, indeed they rejoice in their hardships!
This is why Fagerberg’s saints are so generous, why we are free to love radically–even to the point of bloodshed and death. dying for the world that we had to die to.
Which brings up a last point… if we were dead in sin prior to being brought alive in Christ, what price could we have paid, and what cost is there now?
This isn’t cheap grace _He paid for it…and as we receive it – we realize that only our relationship with Him, and walking with Him as we love others with Him matters.
Fagerberg, D. W. (2019). Liturgical Mysticism (p. 96). Emmaus Academic.
Does anyone really know what time it is?
“Saint Francis embracing Christ on the Cross” (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
Does anyone really know what time it is?
Luke 12:49-56
† Jesus, Son, Deliverer †
My friends, may you be very careful about the sort of lives you lead, living like intelligent and not like senseless people. May you make the best of the present time, for it is a wicked age. 17 This is why you must not be thoughtless but must recognize what is the will of the Lord. AMEN! Adapted from Ephesians 5:15-17 (NJB)
Synchronize your watches
The men are gathered around their leader, excited, anxious, a bit nerve-wracked as they consider what it will take to come out of this alive, and more importantly, bring those that they have been sent to rescue out alive.
They have gone over the plan, time and time again. They have it memorized, the exact time each will be called on to do their part, right down to the second. They know the signals, the potential obstacles, and as they once last time are briefed, the leader calls for them to synchronize their watches, it is 9:35 on my mark….mark!
Timing is very important. Knowing what time it is, can be critical. (except during the sermon)
When Jesus is talking to the crowd about timing, about how they should know what time it is, they cannot quite comprehend the mission He is on, nor perhaps can they understand how it will change their lives.
It is time for something to happen, for God is in their midst. Jesus the Messiah is talking to them – and all of the promises of His work in preparing them to be the people of God are coming true, right before their eyes.
But that action will call for a painful division, one that cuts right through their souls, right through their hearts.
Jesus has been teaching them, and we’ve been hearing Him teach them for 3 weeks, about His work… really, we’ve been hearing Him talk to us, calling us to realize it’s time.
The question today is like the title of an old Chicago song…”does anyone really know what time it is?”
and if we do, are we ready for what needs to take place, within us, within our world?
The High Cost of the Mission
As Christ has spoken to us through the gospel readings this week and the previous two weeks, He has asked us about our priorities, or perspective in life and yes, our loyalty.
It’s not that there is something wrong with wealth, or things, or family. Each has its place; each has it’s time; each should be treasured as a gift from God. The challenge is when they become more important that our relationship with God. Make no mistake, the cost of hearing God’s love and responding to it, trusting in Him, can divide us from anything.
It can mean we realize that money or careers are not our priority.
It can mean we realize that even relationships with family and friends don’t quite compare.
Luther found this out, when he realized God wanted him to be a priest, his father wanted to disown him. Francis of Assisi’s dad locked him up in a storage area that was 3 feet tall and 5 feet long because he wanted to become a monk. Some relatives may call us nuts or fanatics, we may struggle to explain to them why our relationship with God is our highest priority…there is division… at first.
We may even struggle with this cost… after all, worldy logic tells us that blood is thicker than water… though I don’t think they understood the power of this water when the word of God is applied with it.
The temptation is simple – to allow the Trinity to be overlooked. To see God’s mission to take a back seat, to be blind to our time with family to be time invested in God’s mission. Whenever we forget it is time to see God at work, we’ve allowed false God’s to slip in,
Back to the question for us, which means more to us? Is it our relationship with God, or how we define ourselves apart from Him?
If it is time to see God’s Kingdom come in its fullness among us, if we are going to find our lives set apart completely for God’s use, then that means that we will be divided from things, and potentially our relationships with others will change.
And we need to ask are we ready for this time?
If we answer ourselves honestly, to really see our loyalty and how we invest our time and effort being centered in our relationship with Christ, we are going to need help. Lots of it!
Christ’s desire
But as is the case over and over, when we have to face the harsh reality and demands of our life of faith, we find the one in whom we have faith. I love the way the New Living Translation puts the first two verses of the gospel.
I have come to set the world on fire, and I wish it were already burning! 50 I have a terrible baptism of suffering ahead of me, and I am under a heavy burden until it is accomplished.
The two verses are a parallelism – they are saying the same thing. What will set the world on fire – what will devour us, is the very baptism of suffering that Jesus would endure. For us, that He endured. Next year – on good Friday, you will hear Jesus proclaim “It is finished” (well you can read it before then too!) It is the same root word as accomplished. For as He dies, everything in the universe changes – the world is consumed there on the cross – along with all of us, and our sin.
But I want you specifically to see the desire of Jesus – He wants to get on to this, He is under a heavy burden, waiting for His crucifixion! Not because of the nature of the suffering, but because of what it brings – our deliverance, our salvation, our being united to Him, our being freed from burdens of sin, anxiety over death, from the oppression of Satan.
All of that will be consumed at the cross. All of that was consumed at the cross…
Being on fire for Christ, as some talk about it, is about His suffering, His death, consuming our sin, our idolatry. It’s about responding to Christ’s enduring the cross because of the incredible joy that God, Father, Son and Spirit would have, with our life in Christ secure.
Look at the cover of the bulletin – that is what the author of Hebrews, tells us, in the chapter after our epistle reading….
What all of those people of faith looked forward to.. it is time for… time to..
2 Let us keep our eyes fixed on Jesus, who leads us in our faith and brings it to perfection: for the sake of the joy which lay ahead of him, he endured the cross, disregarding the shame of it, and has taken his seat at the right of God’s throne. Hebrews 12:2 (NJB)
That’s the fire that changes everything – this baptism of suffering which Christ endures. It causes a fire of love, of faith, something which consumes our hearts and minds, something that transforms them, purifying us, assuring us of God’s love in a way that is not illogical – but greater than any logic we can understand…
it’s like the blessing which I started the sermon with…
May you make the best of the present time, for it is a wicked age. 17 This is why you must not be thoughtless but must recognize what is the will of the Lord. AMEN!
The will of God, His greatest desire… to feast with you, to pour out His love upon you, to help you realize you are never alone, but that He would cleanse of all our idolatry, that He would divide us from the world in a sense, but give us back that same world and many of those relationships as they are cured of their brokenness, that they are healed of the sin which so ravaged them.
Because of His love for us…
His burden is over now… the wish that the fire were already burning is no longer needed – this fire, this desire to see the world saved – it is kindling in us, and as we come to realize how great the Father’s love for us is…. It will burn brighter and brighter, as we desire that all the people we know join us…all the people we meet, for as they join us at this altar, we know that they will join us before His throne…..
So yes – may you daily recognize what is the will of the Lord…
That because of the cross, because of Christ’s love, we would dwell now and forever in His peace, the peace that passes all understanding and guards our hearts and minds in Christ Jesus. AMEN?
Related articles
- How and Why do we confront sin? (justifiedandsinner.com)
- “Jesus’ Fire And Baptism” by Fr. Robert Manansala, OFM (santuariodesanantonio.wordpress.com)
Willing to serve God? At what cost?
At one point in Jesus ministry, a lot of His followers abandoned Him, for they found what He taught about, to challenging the price to high.
We often talk of heroes of the faith in terms of what they’ve given up – the comforts of a modern home, being surrounded by friends and family, maybe even those who have given up the idea of having a spouse, so that they can spend more time ministering. (one church I was at sponsored such a lady who ran an orphanage in Hawaii) We are amazed at the cost some people will pay, as they minister for Jesus at what appears to us – to be great cost.
We respond greatly to pleas from those who sacrifice, we fund their missions and ministries, we tell others of what they’ve done. But how much are we willing to sacrifice? Instead of money, what about time? What about our pride, our dignity?
That question is a good one to ask, because it gets to what we’ve made idols in our lives quickly. Ask a five year old to somewhere with Mommy and Daddy, and you will quickly find where his treasures lie! But ask him which He loves more, get him to think about it… and the answer will change – and eventually the attitude as well (Eventually)
The answer to the question of what is to high a cost to serve God can only be answered by first looking at our relationship with God – realizing His love, realizing His desire to know us, and the sacrifice He made… and realizing what we gain because of it.
When everyone found the cost of listening to Jesus teaching to high here is how St Peter answered a
6:67 Then Jesus said to the Twelve, ‘What about you, do you want to go away too?’ 68 Simon Peter answered, ‘Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the message of eternal life, 69 and we believe; we have come to know that you are the Holy One of God.’
John 6:67-69 (NJB)
May we, as we cry out “Lord Have Mercy” come to the realization that no cost is too high, for everything we are… is because of Him, and is His.
