A sermon for the Thirteenth Sunday after Pentecost: Proper 18
September 7, 2025, at St. Luke’s Episcopal Church in Hot Springs, AR
Readings: Deuteronomy 30:15-20; Psalm 1; Philemon 1-21; Luke 14:25-33
“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. None of you can become my disciple if you do not give up all your possessions.”
Some weeks are easier to preach than others. Love each other, Jesus says. Got it. I can preach on that. The kingdom of God is like a seed planted in a field that sprouted and grew, the farmer knew not how. Okay, Jesus, I can preach on that one, too. I suspect you might be like me in that regard. We all can prefer certain things Jesus says–certain easier messages that settle well. I suspect you, like me, might have a similar answer to a question like, what did Jesus teach? We would probably talk about love: loving God and our neighbor. The summary of the law. A very Anglican answer indeed. And that would be a good and fine answer. But I wonder how many of us would answer differently? What are Jesus’s teachings about? I wonder who would say they are about hating family, carrying a cross, and giving up everything we have?
The truth is, Jesus said some radical things; some things so radical that they eventually nailed him to a cross. But we humans, even well intentioned Christians, can be in the habit of only paying attention to the parts we want to. All Christians cherry pick, conservative and liberal alike.
When we come to a passage like today, I think there are two temptations: First, we can ignore it. That’s what I mean by cherry picking. This is an inconvenient part of Scripture and I would like to skip to the parts I like. In the end, we are left with an incomplete view of Holy Scripture that is made in our image. It’s not faithful.
But there’s another temptation, too. It is actually the flip side of the same coin: We choose not to wrestle with the difficult text. We end up becoming legalistic in our biblical interpretation. “Whoever does not carry the cross and follow me cannot be my disciple.” To that message, some Christians around the world literally nail themselves to crosses. They’ve missed the point. “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.” How many cult leaders have used that to tell people to shun their families, to cut off the outside world, to drink the kool-aid laced with poison? And isn’t it something that somehow all of those cult leaders end up enriching themselves beyond belief with all their followers’ possessions? In the end, we are left with an incomplete, and dangerous, view of Holy Scripture that is used to oppress and maim and literally kill, and is drained of all life and salvation. That’s not faithful either.
To avoid these two temptations, we have to take what Jesus says seriously, and we must do a bit of investigation about what he means, looking at his culture, rhetorical norms, historical context. And we should do all of this from a place of trust, believing that this is the Word of God, and that when we follow what Jesus tells us we will find life, and freedom, and peace, and God.
Let’s hear those difficult words again: Jesus 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. Whoever does not carry the cross and follow me cannot be my disciple. None of you can become my disciple if you do not give up all your possessions.”
This whole passage, and this section of Luke, is about discipleship and the cost of following Jesus, all while Jesus himself is on his way to Jerusalem to be crucified. That’s why he talks about counting the cost. I can imagine some folks in the crowd saying something like, “you know, I like this Jesus guy, but what’s this discipleship thing going to cost me in the end?” We ask the same question. What’s it going to cost me? What will be demanded or expected of me?
Jesus gives us three expenses. First, he says to “hate” our family and life itself. It is an example of hyperbole, or exaggeration, a common way of teaching for Jesus’s time. He does not intend for us to take this literally. After all, a literal application of what Jesus says would put us in violation of the commandment to honor our parents. And yet he is saying that following Jesus must be more important than those family obligations; it’s a question of priorities. For sometimes, following Jesus might mean that we come into conflict with those whom we love. Are we willing to follow Jesus anyway? Are we willing to put Jesus first every time? That’s what is demanded.
Expense two: pick up your cross. The cross for us is a religious symbol, but for Jesus’s audience, it was the most shameful way to be executed. Pick up your electric chair, your firing squad, your death by lethal injection, Jesus is saying. Are you willing to follow me if it means that? And for many of Jesus’s followers, both then and now, it does mean that in a literal sense. But for us, I wonder if we are willing to do some different difficult thing for Christ? Are we willing to give up the life we might be dreaming of to do what Christ is asking us to do, to go where Christ is asking us to go? When we pray “thy will be done,” are we able to allow our will to be undone, even if it hurts? And it will hurt. But that’s what is demanded.
Expense three: give up your possessions. In this chapter of Luke, Jesus is at a dinner party at the home of a leader of the Pharisees. A rich man. Unlike most of the people Jesus talks to, this man has possessions–enough to build a tower and count the cost. This was a man more like us, for we all have many possessions. Jesus is asking, are we willing to give of our treasure to support the kingdom of God? Do we see ourselves as stewards, taking care of God’s stuff for a time? Or do we see ourselves as owners? Will we put our money where our faith is? For that is what is demanded.
All of these things come down to one simple but difficult idea: In our relationship with God, what are we willing to give up? What will we refuse to do? Where is that bridge too far, that line in the sand? And the truth is, we all have a line in the sand. We all have that limit. We’re humans and sinners. We follow Jesus imperfectly. T.S. Eliot said that following Jesus will require not less than everything, but we try to get grace on sale. The question for us is not, do we have that line in the sand (because we all do). Rather, the question for us is, are we willing to let Jesus continue to work on us, to continue to redraw that line, over and over again, as he pulls us closer to him?
And here’s the really Good News: While we might draw that line in the sand, God doesn’t. For God, there is no line in the sand, there is no bridge too far to come for us. Remember those three expenses? Hate your family, carry a cross, give up your possessions. God the Father gave up his Son so that we might be drawn into his embrace. God in Christ carried a cross for us to defeat the powers of sin and death on our behalf. The Son of God has given up everything, every claim of possession of glory, trading it all in for an earthly life without a place to lay his head, all so that we might be given everything: so that we might be given true life as children and heirs.
I wonder. Will you decide to follow that kind of God with me?
Storied Grace 