September 7, 2025 "Counting the Cost"

13th Sunday after Pentecost

Deuteronomy 30:15-20

Psalm 1

Philemon 1-21

Luke 14:25-33

Dear fellow ministers of the gospel of Jesus Christ,

 grace and peace to you

from the one who counted the cost

 and still set his face toward Jerusalem. Amen

“Now large crowds were traveling with Jesus, and he turned and said to them, ‘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.’’ 

Sooo this is a kind of awkward day

 to have my parents visiting and sitting in the congregation….

 Hi mom and dad love you….

or maybe not? If I want to be a disciple of Jesus…

Does Jesus really say we should hate our parents?

 it seems pretty clear there in the text…

but in a word ‘No’

given Jesus’ love ethic

his teaching that we are to love even our enemies,

 hatred of parents just doesn’t fit,

 so what’s going on here?

On the one hand the stark jarring nature of this saying

highlights the difficulties of translation,

 a couple of the commentators I read this week

named the fact that it was a literary device

 in the semitic languages and cultures where this teaching originated

 to use hyperbole to exaggerate a contrast

 or even to use the word “hate” to mean love less (New Interpreter’s Bible vol IX, 292; https://www.workingpreacher.org/commentaries/revised-common-lectionary/ordinary-23-3/commentary-on-luke-1425-33-6)

original hearers of this teaching

would be familiar with this practice

 and understand the nuances behind the contrast

given this we can pretty safely say

 that Jesus doesn’t outright mean we should hate our parents and family.

  On the other hand

 we cannot dismiss the seriousness of the choice

 that Jesus sets before the crowds

 as he urges them to count the cost of discipleship,

 if it comes to a choice between family and Jesus,

or possessions and Jesus,

 or even life or Jesus,

Jesus expects disciples to choose Jesus,

 discipleship is not a choice to be made lightly. 

As commentator Matthew Boulton remarks “As we saw last week, in this section of Luke, Jesus has been teaching in the style of a satirical, mischievous provocateur — and here he turns on the “large crowds” following him. They’ve been delighting in the comeuppance he’s been serving to the powers-that-be. But be careful, he says. God’s dawning realm means everything will change, and not only for the powerful. The road to Easter morning runs through Golgotha…” (https://www.saltproject.org/progressive-christian-blog/2019/9/3/giving-up-salts-lectionary-commentary-for-thirteenth-week-after-pentecost) 

Our readings for today

emphasize the free will side of our relationship with God.

 God lays out real choices

and real consequences of those choices

 with an invitation to consider and count the cost

 as these decisions have real implications

for how the people of God will live

 and we are truly free to make these choices,

God makes God’s preference known

 and even offers encouragement and help

to counter the sin in the world that makes a case for the other side

 but ultimately, the choice is ours.

 We heard such a choice laid out before the Israelites

 in our first reading from Deuteronomy this morning,

 they are about to head out of the wilderness

and into the promised land

 and because they are free people

 they have a choice,

 to put the lessons they learned from God in the wilderness into practice,

 to continue to love God and follow the commandments of God

or there is the very real choice/ chance

that they may choose to ignore the commandments

 and worship other gods

and there are consequences for each decision,

 life and prosperity,

or death and adversity.

Moses of course urges the people to choose life,

what seems like the obvious choice

 but also the choice with the most responsibility attached to it

 to choose life is to choose to live counter to the ways of the majority culture,

 there’s no just going along with the crowd when choosing life

and that has its own costs.

Similarly, Jesus urges the crowds following him

to count the very real cost of discipleship

again Boulton remarks “In brief, discipleship means leaving conventional approaches to kinship and property behind, and that’s not a prospect to be taken lightly. Count the cost before you go. The good news of the Gospel may be for everyone — but discipleship isn’t.”

 it’s notable that Jesus taught and ministered to huge crowds

 but only really called a handful of disciples

who we hear left their lives and livelihoods to follow Jesus

and here in his stark warning to the crowds

Jesus seems to be emphasizing

that discipleship may not be for everyone,

at the very least it is not a casual commitment

but one with very real consequences

 of choosing to live counter to the ways of the majority culture,

 there’s no going along with the crowd as a disciple

 and it has a cost of even life itself.

So where does that leave us?

This is a much stricter version of discipleship

 than is found in the gospel of Matthew

where Jesus commissions the disciples at the end of the gospel to

 “make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything that I have commanded you.” Matt. 28:19-20

 Matthew’s discipleship is defined more by baptism and learning

than the divesting of everything to follow Jesus,

this is more what we usually think of when we think discipleship.

And yet, we also must take seriously

Luke’s presentation of discipleship

and the choice Jesus sets before the crowds,

 before us,

 and if we’re honest,

 by this definition of discipleship

 most of us are more like the crowds that are following Jesus

 than the disciples themselves,

 when push comes to shove

 we generally go along with the culture around us,

and our giving is less than the full farewell to all possessions prescribed,

 and there are times when forced to choose between Jesus and family,

 we choose family.

If we count the cost as Jesus urges

we find the cost to be too high

 and this realization may lead us to despair

 until Jesus reminds us

 that while our practice of discipleship

 depends on the choices we make,

our redemption and the redemption of the world doesn’t,

that depends on Jesus.

Jesus who counted the cost,

 who knew what was coming

 and still set his face toward Jerusalem and the cross,

God who started the redemptive process in Jesus

 fully prepared to do whatever it took to complete it

God who still invites us to join in the transformation of the world,

 doing God’s work with our hands,

even if it is just one choice at a time,

 at each crossroads

God sets before us life and prosperity, death and adversity

and the way of life that come with each,

 and each time God urges us to choose life,

 because that is what God chooses. Amen