Budgeting for the Kingdom

Luke 14:25-33

I’m not a real home improver – but I watch them on TV.

And what I’ve learned so far is that there are two kinds of renovation:
In the first kind, a professional designer and contractor come to your house with a crew of handypersons.  They perform a wide variety of tasks that look so easy you could certainly do them on a Saturday afternoon, and a beautiful new kitchen appears in 47 minutes plus commercial breaks.
Then there’s the other kind of renovation, in which homeowners begin by removing a major chunk of the house’s fixtures or walls, and five weeks later the kitchen is still missing a wall and an oven, and several thousand dollars over budget.

That’s  the kind of project Jesus is talking about today.
… 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?   Otherwise, when he has laid a foundation and is not able to finish, all who see it will begin to ridicule him…

Maybe the neighbors don’t really make fun of the half-finished kitchen (especially if they’ve done some work on their own house), but Jesus expects that we can all imagine the despair, embarrassment, exhaustion and chaos of that half-finished, out-of-resources experience.

And Jesus is pretty confident that we don’t want to go there. 
That’s why he’s very careful to outline exactly what following him is going to cost.

Open up your mental ledger or spreadsheet, and count along:
ONE 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.
Hate is not something I recommend to make everyday life easier.  And it’s not entirely consistent with what Jesus teaches about loving others as yourself.  But Jesus uses that very strong language of hate to be sure that we hear that the call of discipleship is so strong it challenges even the strongest of our ties,
it’s stronger than the blood which is thicker than water.

TWO  Whoever does not carry the cross and follow me cannot be my disciple.
That’s all about accepting that your death and your life are someone else’s to control – not our own.

THREE  none of you can become my disciple if you do not give up all your possessions.
Easier to say than do, by a long shot, but clear.

Jesus does not say you have to do these things to be a good person, or to be a holy person, or to be a member of the church.
But being a disciple, a person who has truly absorbed the life of Jesus into one’s own life, is that expensive.

And Jesus doesn’t list these things to encourage either atheism or despair.  He lists them for the crowd because his teaching and his healing are so attractive and appealing that people have begun to give up family ties and material goods to follow him around.

Jesus knows that – if we don’t first count the cost and know we can pay it – there will come that time when we’ve run out of resources and the joy of following Christ will turn into despair, embarrassment, exhaustion and chaos, just like the half-finished walls of a tower or a new kitchen.

And the kingdom of God can’t be abandoned half finished.

The work of the Church and the life of discipleship aren’t actually the same thing.  Related, yes – and that relationship has been making me think:  I’ve been recruiting a lot of volunteers lately, and I’m very aware of the temptation to tell prospective Sunday School teachers and Vestry Members that the work I’m asking them to consider will be easy.

Doable, yes.  Fun, often. Sometimes it's simple, and sometimes it doesn’t take all that much time – make this decision on Monday night, share this Bible story with the kids on Sunday morning – but it’s not always easy.
And, just as with towers and kitchen remodels, it can be hard to tell just what will be difficult, even if you’re already started on the job.

So I try, as best I can, to be honest about the cost.
And to offer not a cheap experience, but the resources we will need to do the job right.

Because what we do here – in our classrooms and our parish hall, our sanctuary and our homes – might not require that we hate our families or sell everything we own.
But the work of building the kingdom of God and of nurturing Jesus’ disciples always demands our heart.  Sometimes more heart than we thought we had when we started.

It's worth it.

We don’t want a cheap church – one in which all the volunteer jobs are easy and take less than an hour a month. 
Because with those resources, we’d never get the material bought or the foundations laid.

We don’t really want a cheap relationship with Jesus.  Because, as experience has taught many of us, the cheap stuff breaks the quickest. 
We want the quality stuff – the church and the relationship with God that will endure, even beyond our family, or our possessions, or our lives,
and especially when we stand to lose those things.

That’s what Jesus is talking about,
reminding the crowds who’ve delighted in his healing and teaching that the easy part of our relationship with the Messiah will barely scratch the surface of the relationship God invites us to.
It’s expensive.
And Jesus wants us to count the cost, because we need to carry it through, and we need to know it’s worth it.

And there’s something else to hear, if we are listening.
Jesus says these things to the crowds who have been following him on the road to Jerusalem.  The road that literally ends at a cross on a hill and a tomb in a garden.
And when Jesus says that we cannot join him on that road without counting the cost, we know that he has counted the cost.
That on that road to Jerusalem, Jesus has counted the extraordinary cost of death and resurrection, and knows that he will finish the task.

And even more, God has counted the cost of our salvation, beginning to end,
and God will complete it.

Its expensive.
And it definitely takes longer than 47 minutes plus commercials.

But knowing the cost, in time and effort, in pain and loss, in love and the depth of our hearts,
God has counted us worth it.
Worth the gift of Godself, and worth giving ourselves to God.

God is not cheap.
Neither are we.
But the budget of the kingdom of God is abundant, and it will be completed.
Amen.