There are certainly days when I long to do what Jesus is talking about today.
To drop everything, walk away from possessions, family, all the stuff I have and am; leave it all behind and go off and be a hermit with Jesus.
I don’t know if any of you have ever felt that way, but for me, well, there are definitely days….
And then I remember that if I do that, I’ll miss my cat. And my favorite pillow.
And you all.
And my washer and dryer after a few days.
And my family, even when I’m frustrated with them.
And I remember that Jesus isn’t inviting us to chuck it all up to retreat to a nice calm mountain cave with no internet, but rather to join him in a very active lifestyle: healing, teaching, and arguing with authority.
And, well, I haven’t actually seized a cross and walked away from it all, yet.
Because this is in fact something very difficult that Jesus is proposing you and I and everyone else do.
It’s very hard to actively cut ourselves off from possessions, identity, security, and control over our own destiny.
Jesus is deliberately using strong language – maybe offensively strong language – about “hating” family and life itself, in order to make sure we don’t miss the point that he’s not asking for a temporary shift in our priorities, but a complete, powerful, shocking reorientation in our priorities and perspective. Demanding not that we be “good people”, but that we become completely God’s people. Jesus’ people, rather than our own person.
Jesus very definitely wants to save and heal all the people of God, regardless of who is lifting a heavy cross to greet him, and who is tightly connected with their whole family.
And today, he’s asking us not just to receive his healing care, but to join him in it. To be an active, completely committed, part of his work to bring the world and all people into the unprecedented peace and wholeness and justice and self-giving love of God.
And he doesn’t want us to jump on the wagon and then fall back off in shock and dismay, but to “count the cost” and know how profound a commitment this is going to be. So that we can join him in disrupting and rebuilding the world wholeheartedly, not tied up in half-forgotten obligations, self-preservation, and anxious fear.
Phew.
It’s a big ask.
But it might be that Jesus is asking us to do what many of us actually long to do.
We might in fact long to become part of making extraordinary miracles, saving those already counted as lost, and transforming the world.
Or maybe you long to cut loose of anxious obligations, of the fear of loss, of the need to preserve the world as we know it because the flaws we know seem less terrifying than tearing things down and starting over.
Or maybe we long to follow a leader who is truly right. Truly good, and who will keep us from accidentally collaborating with evil, who will put virtuous, generous, healing choices in front of us, instead of a messy mix of bad choices.
Anyone else felt some longing for one of those things?
Those things we long for are rarely easy to find and grasp in the world you and I live in, and so it is difficult – just as difficult as Jesus says – to commit ourselves to a whole life of doing what Jesus would do. To a whole life of putting ourselves, our social standing, our working relationships, our sense of security on the line in order to profoundly heal and save and transform the world, and the lives of the neighbors and family and friends we love.
But when all the costs are added up, the cost of discipleship, of choosing always, over and over again, to take the risk of healing and reconciling, of disrupting everyday evil and making new space for God’s transformative love, might not truly be as high as the cost of going along in the world as it is.
And I’m convinced that Jesus is asking us, today, to count the costs of staying comfortable in the world as it is, as well as the costs of joining him in transformation.
Inviting us, challenging us, to consider what it costs us to “go along to get along” with a co-worker, or an in-law – or our own children or parents, sometimes – and compare it to the cost of calling out a casual support of injustice, or some malice in tasty gossip, or leaving someone else to suffer what won’t kill them.
Challenging us to count the costs of reading the news in horror, and feeling our own helplessness grow. And comparing that to the risks of publicly demanding change, the hard work of seeking out others who want to heal that particular horror, and the heavy lift of figuring out some new way to act when all the ordinary ways we’re used to trying don’t work.
Counting the costs to the healing of the earth and the health of our neighbors in the way we invest and use our possessions, along with counting the costs to our daily convenience and our future security of sharing our possessions, or divesting from things that might harm others.
Counting the costs of loving our neighbors, even our enemies, with compassion and hope and generosity, and comparing the costs of cutting ourselves off from our neighbors, or the costs of nurturing hatred in our hearts.
I’ve counted some of those costs myself. I imagine many of you have counted some of them, too. They’re all expensive.
And none of them look good on the living room wall, or in my bank balance.
But wholehearted trust in God – committing to “take up the cross” and giving up anxious control of my own destiny to be led by the direction and example of the one most profoundly worthy of trust – is still appealing, expensive as it may become.
I’ve been finding, all along, that saving the world is far too expensive for me. Even saving just myself is beyond my budget. And finding, also, that declining to help Jesus heal the world, declining to try to help Jesus defeat the powerful and petty evils that try to cling to us, is even more expensive.
I can’t afford to say “no” to Jesus’ call to live, and do, and be like him. I need that vision beyond my own vision, that strength and courage and love beyond my own. So, even though the accounting is complicated, day by day, I can only afford to say “yes”, to try to let Jesus choose my costs. Can only choose to try to let God spend all I have on healing, and hope, compassion and love, and - in the spending - discover the richness and joy of being part of God’s impossibly generous love.
What about you?
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