WHY Would We Choose Discipleship?

A sermon on Luke 14:25-33, Deuteronomy 30:15-20, and Philemon 1:1-21.

[for an audio recording of this sermon, click here. Photo by Vladislav Babienko on Unsplash.]

So, today is God’s Work, Our Hands Sunday.

Around the country, Lutheran churches are reminding ourselves that God is working for the healing of the world, and that God involves us directly in that work.

We are embodying the understanding that the practice of our faith requires us to reach out to our neighbors: to witness to the gospel in ways that really are “good news” for those around us because that gospel calls us to acts of service and care.

When we collect school supplies for families in need, or assemble quilts for ELCA World Hunger, or – as we will today – learn skills to advocate for our immigrant neighbors, we are using our hands (and voices) for God’s work.

And all that is generally quite self-reinforcing.

It feels good to serve our neighbors in practical and empowering ways.

It’s exciting to know that we are actually part of doing God’s healing work in the world.

It’s the kind of discipleship that is naturally appealing.

Which makes it a STARK contrast with the discipleship Jesus describes in today’s gospel reading.

Hating one’s parents, siblings, spouse and children...

Giving up all of one’s possessions…

Carrying the cross, an implement of torturous execution..

Hating even life itself…

Why would anyone choose such a path?

I use the word “choose” very deliberately here, because I think Jesus is presenting an honest choice.

There are large crowds following the man who hands out miracles and free food and he doesn’t want them to follow just expecting more of the same. 

He is being transparent about the costs involved in following him on the road that he is heading down, because he knows this road will lead him to give up his family, his possessions, to take up his very literal cross and lose his life.

If people are going to follow him on this path it needs to be an informed choice.

Which means it is not coercive.

This is a really important point, because I have heard too many sermons that confuse discipleship with salvation and try to use the fear of damnation to scare people onto the discipleship road.

But Jesus is doing the opposite here.

He’s trying to scare people OFF the road of discipleship, by warning them how hard it will be, how much they will have to sacrifice, and then adding warnings that if they don’t count the cost ahead of time they might fail and face ridicule.

Jesus is not trying to scare us or guilt us onto the difficult path. Salvation is by grace. It’s unearned. We don’t have to prove the depths of our commitment to discipleship for Jesus’s work of grace to restore our relationship with God.

So, if grace is free to us and not “bought” by what we sacrifice, that again raises the question: why WOULD anyone choose discipleship?

A lot of people don’t.

Jesus healed and taught thousands of people who did not follow him to Calgary. And they still experienced his love and wisdom and care.

In the same way, plenty of Christians in the 2,000 years since have received God’s grace without radical transformation of their lives.

But if Jesus is offering us an informed choice, I think it’s worth considering the reasons to opt for discipleship, even considering the costs.

I think our other two readings actually provide some help in understanding the reasons to choose this option.

The reading from Deuteronomy directly presents a choice: the choice that God’s people have between living however they see fit or conforming their communal life to the law of God.

As Moses explains to the people, living under God’s law will limit their individual freedoms for the common good; it will divide them from the surrounding people groups (potential allies or trade partners) who worship other deities; it will create obligations to ensure justice and mercy, which will have very real consequences for the accumulation of wealth and the treatment of powerless groups.

Maybe not quite the dire warning of Jesus about “taking up crosses,” but still a genuine cost to following God’s way.

But Moses does what Jesus does not in today’s gospel: he makes the case for why this cost is worth it.

The choice set before God’s people is between life and death.

God’s law is not arbitrary… it is designed to help the people flourish.

It protects them from the surrounding cults whose priests and practices will try to manipulate and exploit them.

It creates obligations so that those with power and resources must use them to benefit others rather than hording everything for themselves.

It sets limits and consequences for violence, and deception, and greed to curb humanity’s worst instincts and foster interdependent community.

When the reading promises that obedience to God’s law is the choice of life it means the fullness of life… the life for which God created us.

It’s a choice to thrive, not just survive.

Whereas the choice of reckless disobedience is the choice of death not because God is vengeful and punishing, but because that is the natural consequence of living without regard for justice, or mercy, or faithfulness.

When everyone is just out for themselves, it leads to chaos and division and destruction.

The argument is perhaps a bit simplistic.

Natural consequences can take time to make themselves felt.

Those who are skilled at manipulation or who are delt a hand of power and privilege can often do quite well for themselves in unjust societies.

It takes time for systems to crumble under the weight of inequity.

But I would still argue that understanding the choice as being between death and “fullness of life” holds true – because there is no thriving, there is no abundant life without the blessings and wholeness of community.  

And here, Philemon can further deepen the conversation.

The case for discipleship is more nuanced in this brief, personal letter.

Paul is writing to a friend (and convert), Philemon, who is advantaged, at least to some degree, in the Roman Empire. He is wealthy enough to be a property owner, the host of his local house church, and he is a slave-owner.

Apparently, Christians in the 1^st century could be just as imperfect and hypocritical as we can be today.

Philemon’s slave, Onesimus, has most likely run away but after spending some time with Paul, he is coming back… along with Paul’s letter of advocacy for him.

And it’s the shape that this advocacy takes that it so telling.

Paul starts by making it clear that he could just command Philemon to receive Onesimus as a brother, rather than as a returned slave.

Paul has that authority as an apostle.

But, instead, he wants Philemon to choose that path “on the basis of love.”

What is more, Paul is confident that Philemon will make that choice, “and even more than (Paul) asks.”

That might be a bold assumption.

Philemon has rights (immoral as those rights might be) to assert his ownership.

Granting his escaped slave freedom means a financial loss, and also probably a social one, not to mention setting a precedent that could cost him far more on both fronts.

And making this choice will also force Philemon to accept the truth of Paul’s argument about his brotherhood with someone he was previously happy to own…I imagine that would raise some painful self-reflection.

But Paul has no doubt about the result of his letter, because he is arguing “on the basis of love.”

And if we have been touched by the love of Jesus the question changes.

Rather than asking “why would we choose costly discipleship” we have to ask “how do we choose against love?”

There are plenty of worldviews that we may encounter that have no difficulty choosing against love.

Worldviews that deride the life of self-giving discipleship as weak, or naïve, or “woke.”

But the path of discipleship, the path that will transform our lives now, and not just guarantee us grace in eternity, is not weak. It is not naïve. It is not pandering to a standard of performative liberalism.

It is just the way that empowers the fullness of life, because it creates loving community.

Thanks be to God.