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Jesus said, "Whoever comes to me and does not hate his father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters, yes, and even life itself, cannot be my disciple" (v. 26).

Let's admit it. Jesus made some strange comments. This scripture for today remembers one of those times. Must we really hate our mother and father in order to be Christian? I thought Christians were to promote family values. Must we really hate our own lives in order to be faithful? Doesn't the Bible promote the abundance of life? Is that not contrary to hating our life? How are we to make sense of this?

Maybe we are not to make sense of it. Perhaps we are simply to obey by doing what we are told. Some claim that regardless of what seems reasonable, every word of the Bible is to be taken literally. This might be one of those times.

Let me suggest that these claims must be taken seriously, but not literally. In this fourteenth chapter of Luke, our Lord tells us something very important, but we might miss the truth if we take his words literally. Let me explain.

Luke says that Jesus is on the way to Jerusalem. A large crowd of supporters accompanies him. The Master knows trouble waits at the end of the journey. His popularity is limited to the north around the Sea of Galilee. The joyous attitude demonstrated by his companions does not extend to Jerusalem. In that great urban center, the Lord has highly motivated enemies, not enthusiastic friends. Those enemies will plot his arrest, trial, and death by crucifixion. Jesus has so informed his closest followers, the apostles, but they have yet to grasp the significance. The entourage of camp followers accompanying Jesus and the twelve are totally clueless. They think this trip to Jerusalem is a circus parade. When, it fact, it is the front end of the Master's funeral procession.

Imagine the scene. A couple hundred people stir a cloud of dust as they head south on the unpaved road. Jesus takes the lead. His apostles come next. James and John, the most ambitious ones, assume positions to his right and left. Occasionally, other apostles push and shove until they walk next to Jesus for a mile or two. Then James and John reassert themselves. Each time the group passes through a village their numbers swell with enthusiastic local fans of the Lord. They know his reputation as a preacher and healer. These folks never intend traveling all the way to Jerusalem. They just want to be part of the parade. They drop out and return home after walking to the next village.

It will make a great story for the grandchildren. "Did I ever tell you about the time I walked with Jesus. Yep, he came right down Main Street. His apostles were with him -- James and John, Peter and Andrew. I met them all. When I saw the crowd coming, I jumped up from the breakfast table and walked all the way to Magdala. Didn't get home that night until after midnight. Was your grandmother upset with me! There was not, however, anything to worry about. I had a wonderful time. We laughed and joked. The apostles told us what Jesus had been doing and how we would be blessed if we followed his teachings. I remember the Apostle Peter even gave me his autograph. It was a great day."

Jesus, walking at the head of the parade, overhears the chitchat. The enthusiastic crowd does not grasp the significance of this journey to Jerusalem. In a matter of days, Jesus will be arrested in the Garden of Gesthemene. He will pay the ultimate price for his ministry. There will also be a cost to the followers of the Christ. Stephen, the first deacon in the church, will be stoned to death for teaching of God's love in Christ Jesus. Several of the apostles will be martyred. Paul, who wrote much of the New Testament, will be tormented, ridiculed, arrested, imprisoned, beaten, and finally put to death for being a follower. For the next couple centuries, many Christians will worship in secret simply to avoid arrest. In the Roman world before the time of Emperor Constantine, being a Christian required more than putting the symbol of a fish on the bumper of your car and attending church a couple times a month. Declaring for Christ opened the possibility of becoming the lunch special for the lions in the Roman arena.

As the crowd walks toward Jerusalem, they have given little thought to the cost of being followers of Jesus. Those folks are enthusiastic about this nice religious procession, but they are clueless about the demands of the faith. Jesus tells them they must give serious thought to their walk with God. He reminds them that no one in his right mind starts to build a tower without calculating how much it is going to cost to complete it. No king decides to go to war without first determining whether or not it is possible to win the war. In that same way, they must count the cost of faith.

That cost, Jesus insists, is very high. "So, therefore, none of you can become my disciple if you do not give up all your possessions" (v. 33). "Whoever does not carry the cross and follow me cannot be my disciple" (v. 27). In fact, following the Christ means your family must be a lesser priority than your faith. You will have to turn your back on your family. (That, incidentally is what it means when it says to "hate" your mother and father.)

In our time declaring for Christ seems to cost little. Go to church on occasion. Learn whether they say the Lord's Prayer with "debts and debtors" or "trespasses and trespassers." Read the Bible every once in a while. If called, tell the Gallup Poll that you believe in God and are a "born again" Christian. Not much to this stuff of being a Christian.

Contrary to the ease with which we can claim we follow the Christ, there is a cost. In fact, if we take this faith seriously, there can be a very high cost. It still might require you to go against the wishes of your father and mother. It might mean picking up the cross. It still might cause you to give up your life. William Willimon, the chaplain of the Methodist Church's Duke University, remembers this happening. A very angry parent phoned him. "I hold you personally responsible for this," he said. "I have spent an enormous amount of money for my daughter to get a B.S. degree in mechanical engineering and now she wants to throw it all away and do mission work for the Presbyterians in Haiti. Can you imagine! A trained engineer digging ditches."

"Now how is that my fault?" the minister responded. "What did I do?"

"I'll tell you what you did," the now shouting father answered. "You ingratiated yourself with her, filled her head with all that religion stuff. She likes you. That's why she is doing this. I hold you personally responsible."

"Now look, buster," the increasingly defensive college chaplain responded. "You had her baptized in the church. You read her Bible stories. You took her to Sunday school. You were the one who paid for her to go skiing with the youth group. It's your fault that she took that stuff so seriously she now wants to go into the ministry."

"I know, I know," the once-angry and now-grieving father lamented. "But we didn't want her to be minister. All we wanted was for her to be a Presbyterian!"1

One just never knows when one of the kids might take the Christian faith so seriously she might turn her back on the wishes of the family and become a minister. As an aside, let me say how much the church needs this story repeated. We have a significant shortage of people taking their faith seriously enough to hear God's call to ministry. We need people to turn their backs on the alluring call of the wealth and prestige of this world to serve in ministry. In this next generation, we need people who take early retirements and discover they can't play golf or bridge every day to serve as ministers in small rural congregations. We need people to listen for God's call to ministry in the middle of their lives. If your once-chosen profession is proving to be far less fulfilling than you hoped, perhaps God is calling you into ministry. The Church of Jesus Christ needs ministers. Now doing this might be sacrificial. That, however, is just what Jesus is talking about when he says that to be faithful we have to be willing to turn our back on the wishes of the family; pick up the cross and follow him; give up our life for the Christ.

Let me turn this conversation in a little different direction and talk about another way in which Jesus' warning to count the cost of discipleship is true. Remember that Christianity is at its heart an entirely different way to look at the world. This faith of ours is a holistic worldview. One is not a Christian simply because of occasional church attendance, regular prayer and Bible reading, and the presence of a "Jesus Saves" bumper sticker on the family SUV. Christianity is a comprehensive way to think about the world, to decide right from wrong, and to interpret life's ordinary as well as extraordinary events. Think of faith as a very good set of spectacles through which we see things as God wants us to see them. I am convinced that looking through the corrective lenses of the Christian faith clears up our vision so that we see the landmines and potholes as well as the beauty of God's created order.

Stated most succinctly, this Christian worldview understands not only that there is a God who is Creator and Sustainer of the Cosmos, but also that we are ultimately and personally dependent for our strength on this Ground of our Being. We believe that we come to know this God best in Jesus of Nazareth, the one we claim as Lord and Savior. This understanding of God Incarnate, God made flesh, leads us to realize that all people of the earth are brothers and sisters, children of the same parent God. This Christian way to look at the world determines our core values and influences the way we behave on a daily basis. It is an understanding that helps us feel connected to the very nature of things. It calls us to that strict moral code that values people over things, forgiveness over revenge, and serving others over being served. The faith is a way to look at the world and value justice, mercy, kindness, and love over all else.

This Christian view of a created order in the hands of God moves us to find comfort, meaning, and joy at the awesome mystery of life itself. It makes it possible for us to feel the rush of God's grace-filled hope in the resurrection at the moment of grief when a loved one dies. It empowers us to hope in that most mysterious promise of eternal life as we journey toward our own death.

Growing into this Christian worldview is no simple, easy task. It takes significant time and commitment. That process is complicated, of course, by the fact that there are other competing world-views. Contrary to the popular notion, ours is not a "Christian culture." Religiously, we are very diverse. More troubling, however, is that the dominant American worldview is not a religious one at all. It is a very secular one.

In one sense, the dominating secular worldview is one which claims to have grown beyond the need to believe in God. We are modern, even post-modern people; we claim we don't need the ancient God of the Israelites, the God who came to live among us as Jesus the Christ. We need trust nothing beyond human enterprise. We have science and laws and government and wealth. These are the only tools we need to confront the problems of living. We need not fear the unknown. As long as we don't do anything illegal, we are free to do whatever we choose. We do not accept any higher moral authority than the whims of self. That which is right is what each person decides is right. Indeed, we have no need for God.

This secular worldview debases our values and stultifies the human spirit. It deludes us into thinking that our technology, knowledge, and wealth can solve all our problems and empower us to the abundance of life. In spite of the allure of its dazzling glitz, this worldview just doesn't bring the joy it promises. In this Age of Disbelief, we desperately need to apprehend the sacred in the midst of the ordinariness of daily life.

It is costly, however, to look through the lens of faith. It is costly to be a follower of Christ. It means giving up the notion that the pursuit of money is the greatest good that leads to the greatest happiness. It means giving up the notion that you personally are absolutely in charge of running the universe. It means learning to ask for forgiveness. It means putting the needs of others first. It means turning the other cheek. It means loving your enemies and doing good to those that hate you. The fact of the matter is that being Christian is costly, very costly. Are you willing to pick up the cross? Are you able to turn toward God even if it doesn't please other people? Are you able to give up your limited life to live?

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1. Adapted from William Willimon, Pulpit Resources, September 10, 1995, p. 45.