Luke 14:25-33

15 Pentecost/ Proper 18 / Year C

9 September 2007

Preached by the Rev. David Fredrickson

"Whoever comes to me and does not hate father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters, yes, and even life itself, cannot be my disciple. Whoever does not carry the cross and follow me cannot be my disciple. (Luke 14:26-27)

What makes you angry? There are probably a whole host of things that get under your skin from time to time. We all have our pet peeves and our boiling points. But I think, for Christians, it is always interesting for us to see what irks Jesus.

This morning we find Jesus on the road with, as Luke puts it, large crowds following along. Luke frequently mentions these crowds in both his gospel and in the book of Acts and quite often he presents them as a sign of Jesus' growing popularity. So Jesus, after a difficult start to his ministry in the synagogue in his hometown of Nazareth, where he is almost assassinated, here finally begins to show some success. But just when he is beginning to gather some steam, in the face of such success and popularity, right there when at last the public opinion polls were running with him, right then, he turned and he said, "Whoever comes to me and does not hate father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters, yes, and even life itself, cannot be my disciple." The crowds get real quiet. "Did he say, "hate?" I thought Jesus was all about love." You can almost hear his disciples trying to repair the damage by attempting to explain; "He didn't literally mean to hate your mom and your dad. He meant rather, keep all these things in proper perspective. That is what he meant by that so relax." But Jesus is on a role and despite the attempts of his publicists to put a good spin on this PR disaster, nobody can stop him. "Oh and another thing, Jesus adds, whoever does not carry the cross and follow me cannot be my disciple." It's like this, anybody beginning to build a tower without counting the cost, runs the risk of looking really stupid when they run out of brick and can't finish the job. And a king who goes off to war without first considering whether or not he has the troops to win may look rather dumb if he has to beg for peace. // The point is made, "Count the costs." And another thing, before I finish up, Jesus says, "You can't be my disciple if you don't give up everything you own." He then turns and continues his stroll and the crowds, well they aren't so large anymore. Can you blame them?

I can guarantee you one thing, no denominational authority would ever put Jesus in charge of congregational development or church growth. Marketing doesn't appear to be his thing. And yet marketing is what the church these days seems to all about.

I have a bachelor's degree in Business Administration with my emphasis being marketing. And yet when I tell people this and explain to them that I had a previous life selling product to the regional Bell Telephone Companies back in the eighties, many of them say something like; "Well you're still in the sales and marketing field, you just have a different product as a priest." I usually smile and nod, but truth be told comments like these tend to get me a little hot under the collar. And yet sales and marketing is where the church is putting its resources, especially churches like ours, churches that are declining in numbers. Television advertisements, volumes and volumes of books about how to attract and retain new members, whole periodicals devoted to helping parishes develop strategies on how to make church more hip and exciting; this is where the church, the church universal, is spending its time and its money.

Yet how is it possible to reach any culture when texts like this one make our Lord look and sound like a complete lunatic? For here he is literally putting the fear of God into this great crowd of potential disciples and for what purpose? Such words as the ones spoken here by our Lord have no value to our culture, so how can we hope to market it to our friends and neighbors.

Some do it by changing the message. The largest church in this country is Joel Osteen's church in Houston, Texas. Joel's new book 7 Keys to Improving Your Life Every day has now sold over 3 million copies. Joel Osteen, like Robert Schuller and Norman Vincent Peale before him preaches a gospel of positive thinking and prosperity. What is wrong with that you ask, well, quite simply, it is not the gospel of Jesus Christ. It might be helpful and interesting in a self-help sort of way, but don't bring Jesus into it.

In a recent issue of the Christian Century, there is a very interesting story about this gospel of prosperity. It appears that in Africa, churches that proclaim this sort of gospel message are experiencing explosive growth. One of the largest churches on the African Continent proclaiming this message is the Nigerian Multinational Living Faith Church Worldwide Inc., better known as Winner's Chapel. It has one auditorium that holds over 50,000 people, the largest church building in the world. In 2006 the founding pastor of the Winner's Chapel, Rev. David Oyedepo made this pledge to all church members: "Everything that shall make your laughter complete and total shall be added unto you. The desires of everyone's heart shall be delivered. Every trial shall be turned to testimonies. Every struggle shall be turned to fruitfulness. Every frustration shall be turned to celebration. Every humiliation shall be turned into honor. Every shame shall be turned to glory. And every curse shall be tuned into blessing."ⁱ "Though the success promised at Winner's [Chapel] embraces all areas of life, material success is paramount. Perhaps this is to be expected in light of Oyedepo's account of his calling by God. His experience is obviously modeled on God's call to Moses, but whereas Moses was commanded, "Go and set my people free,' Oyedepo was told, "Make my people rich.'"ⁱⁱ

I recently read another interview with a pastor from a large church who recently removed the cross from the sanctuary because in his words, "We find that the cross is an impediment, a turn off, that it gets in the way of our attempt to reach people with the gospel." My question, what sort of gospel is he attempting to preach? These are examples of the church's willingness to compromise in order to market or sell Jesus to the world. The trouble is, if the world ever gives a true hearing, we may find that we have lost anything significant to say. That is to say, why should the world bother with the church if the church offers a salvation that isn't any different from that which is offered by social service agencies or self help books?ⁱⁱⁱ

Jesus, at least in the passage we heard read this morning, has no interest in being a part of the culture. In fact, here he speaks of severing us from our most cherished values, motherhood, and family, self-fulfillment. I tell you when you think about some of the stuff that Jesus said, considering his sermons and his demands, it is no wonder that Jesus has trouble attracting a crowd. I doubt that he could fill a 50,000 seat arena or even our little church right here. In fact, it is a wonder to me that any of you are here on Sunday. Unless of course, what Jesus says just happens to be true because he is in fact the way and the truth and the life. I didn't say that he was the way that nine out of ten thinking Americans want to walk. I didn't say that he was the truth that we think we want or that his discipleship is the life we seek. We cannot have a good advertising campaign around Jesus because his way is decidedly against the crowd. Why are we here, we're here because, in some surprising way, he has sought us, wanted us, called us to walk a way not of our own choosing. And all reason or reservation to the contrary, we believe, despite its patent absurdity, his is the way, though narrow, that leads to life.

Forgive me and forgive the church for sometimes saying or implying that Jesus will make life easier for us, that he will fix everything that is wrong with us. Chances are, he won't. But he can do even better than that. He can make us into disciples.^iv All we have to do is keep following, keep walking closer and closer to Christ every day.

What irks Jesus? The crowds. The people who are looking to jump on the bandwagon without first counting the costs.

In Jesus Name; Amen.