September 7, 2025 Sermon
Sermon title: “Count the Cost”
Scripture: Luke 14:25-33
(Other lectionary suggestions include Jeremiah 18:1-11, Psalm 139:1-6 and 13-18, and Philemon 1-21.)
Luke 14:25-33
The Cost of Discipleship
25Now large crowds were traveling with him; and he turned and said to them, 26“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. 27Whoever does not carry the cross and follow me cannot be my disciple. 28For which of you, intending to build a tower, does not first sit down and estimate the cost, to see whether he has enough to complete it? 29Otherwise, when he has laid a foundation and is not able to finish, all who see it will begin to ridicule him, 30saying, ‘This fellow began to build and was not able to finish.’ 31Or what king, going out to wage war against another king, will not sit down first and consider whether he is able with ten thousand to oppose the one who comes against him with twenty thousand? 32If he cannot, then, while the other is still far away, he sends a delegation and asks for the terms of peace. 33So therefore, none of you can become my disciple if you do not give up all your possessions.
The sermon title is “Count the Cost.” And what is Jesus saying? It sounds as if he is warning us that following him may cost us something. It may cost us our family, and we may even have to “hate” some of our family members. This is hard to hear - and is he serious? Some like to think he’s only using “Semitic hyperbole” to make a point. But I think he’s serious, and again, it’s hard to hear. Quoting William H. Willimon, “Jesus’ harsh words about family versus discipleship, as well as his stern warnings about counting the cost of discipleship, suggest that meeting our need is NOT the major concern of Christ and cannot be the chief purpose of the church.”
So, what is the purpose of the church? The Lutheran pastor Dietrich Bonhoeffer wrote a book called, “The Cost of Discipleship,” and he himself was hanged by the Nazis near the end of World War II. And we know what happened to the Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr., in our own country: killed by an assassin’s bullet in 1968. “Jesus comes to call us into ministry,” says Willimon, “not to maneuver ourselves so that we become the center of his ministry and mission. He comes not only to heal us but to call us, to summon and enlist us, to give us jobs to do that are more significant than meeting our needs as we define those needs.”
So, why do you come to church? Does it surprise you that maybe God has business with you that you weren’t expecting? Willimon tells a funny story about a woman who had come to church after a hellish week. Willimon said he was sorry, but that he hoped the woman had received a little comfort from the sermon. “Not particularly,” she responded. “I came here hurting and needy only to be given an ASSIGNMENT!” Willimon says such things happen often, especially if JESUS is doing the preaching!
Seriously, why do we show up here on a more-or-less regular basis? Maybe our parents brought us or maybe our grandparents because they thought there was something good about church. It is true that in the book of Exodus the ancient Hebrews were told to teach their children certain things about God. Some of us must believe that there was something good for us in those ancient instructions. Also, maybe we NEED this: regular association with believing friends, regular public worship of the God who has somehow called each one of us. According to one sermon I saw on the internet, what Jesus was telling us was that the devotion we have for him must be even greater than what we have for our dearest family and friends. That may be hard but certainly not impossible. What I personally think that means is that we owe God or Truth more than we owe our family and friends. Does your political party demand more than what you think is right? Then stand UP to that political party and speak out for what is right. I always think of the Germans during the time of Hitler. If more had stood up for what they knew was right, there would have been no Holocaust, no slaughter of 6 million Jews and 11 million others. We are called to love the Lord our God with all our heart and mind and soul and strength. And what Jesus is saying is, there may be a price to pay for such courage.
One of the things we have to say about Jesus is that he was honest! As the song, “I beg your pardon,” says, “I never promised you a rose garden,” and he didn’t. He said, “This is going to be tough. Do you really want to be my disciple?”
Jesus wasn’t speaking in a void. When he says, “Count the cost,” he was referring to most of his countrymen wanting to throw off the yoke of Rome by force. Can you really do that, he was asking. SHOULD you really do that? You have 10,000 men and Rome has 100,000. Are you sure you are prepared for such a fight? Also, Israel is supposed to be the salt of the earth. Israel, in Jesus’s mind, were “the people through whom God’s world is kept wholesome and made tasty. But if Israel loses her particular ability and flavor, what is left?” In the words of N. T. Wright, “The warning backs up the cryptic sayings about the tower and the battle, and brings us back to the all-or-nothing challenge. Jesus is facing his contemporaries with a moment of crisis in which they must either be Israel indeed, through following him, or they must face the ruin of the tower and the devastation of the lost battle.”
The Gospels are interesting, aren’t they? I think lots of us think Jesus is addressing one or two specific things, when maybe he (and Gospel writer Luke!) have some OTHER issues to consider, also. Some theologian - whose name I don’t know - said on at least one occasion, “Nobody reads the Gospels for the first time.” There is a lot of insight in that quote. The first time you heard about Jesus wasn’t REALLY the first time, because you had heard his name before from parents or grandparents, and you had already formed an opinion about him before you came to church for, the first time! Isn’t that a great quote? Before you ever saw Abe Lincoln’s face on a five-dollar bill you had heard about him, hadn’t you? You heard he freed the slaves, you heard he was honest. In truth, there are many people we knew about before we read about them in school or before we heard about them from our parents. Please remember that: “Nobody ever reads the Gospels for the first time.”
Well, what do you think? Did you count the cost yet, or did you do that years ago? Or are you like me: trying to have it both ways! As I think of other clergy, some of whom were professors, did they count the cost, or did they try to have it both ways? I think of the prophet Isaiah, whose calling you can read about in Isaiah 6. He was faithful to God in all that he did. And he was God’s servant. In fact, if you read Isaiah 6, you’ll hear him say to God, “Here am I. Send me.”
Again, William H. Willimon has something amusing to say. Somehow a layperson, an unordained person, made it into a meeting where there were lots of ministers. She said she didn’t mind getting an assignment from the pulpit. But what she DID mind was being BORED out of her mind by a dull sermon! I’ll try not to do that! Amen.
Pastor Skip
