The Cost of Discipleship

My sister, who is head teacher in her building, walked into the kindergarten class on the second day of school and asked, ”Well, what have you learned so far?”

One little tyke just threw up his arms and with a sigh said “I don't have a clue!”

That may be OK for the second day of kindergarten, but we cannot keep on riding that horse.

Jesus says that we had better know what is going on, and it will be hard work to determine what it is.

We wish the situation were otherwise.

Let's say a student goes to Physics class and the teacher starts in about class schedules and labs and reports and experiments....and the student says “I thought Physics was common sense, like “What goes up must come down'”

He would soon discover otherwise.

Or, someone appears before the football coach and says “I'd like to play football whenever I have a free Friday evening in my schedule.”

The coach will say, “If you are here, it is for the whole thing.

Lose 20# of flab. Get in shape.

Lift weights. You'll be at every practice and game.

Another group wanders in and announces that that they would like to be in the Marching Millionaires.

It is the uniforms, you know.

And the director will tell them none too gently that there are two weeks of camp in August.

Memorize the music. Learn the precision marching

There are regular practices, games to attend, competitions which take tremendous attention to detail.

Oh.

A person calls up the phone company and says that they would like to have service.

Then the company asks all sorts of nosy questions, and when they discover that this person has tried to skip out of paying the phone bill at the last place he lived, if he gets service at all, it will be with a very large deposit up front and other restrictions.

Everything comes with a cost.

So why are we surprised and resentful when Jesus outlines the cost of discipleship?

“But he is asking so much, too much!” we protest.

All these practices, all this study, all those performances.

It gets in the way of what I want!”

And Jesus says back to us, “That's right! So what?”

He is asking unabashedly for our whole life.

You shall love the Lord your God with your whole heart, mind, soul, and strength, and your neighbor as yourself, Jesus says.

And that is to be every hour of every day.

There is nothing lackadaisical about this connection with Jesus, nothing half-hearted.

Choose this day whom you will serve, Joshua challenged the people at Shechem, but as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord.

No one can serve two masters, Jesus says, you will love one and hate the other.

I'd just like to come in here, sit down, and be comfortable for a little while, not think too hard, or get upset about anything, and then go on my way, doing my own things.

“I chose you,” Jesus said to us when we were baptized.

“I chose you for 100% of the time.”

It is equally true for infants, catechetical students, young adults, and those of full number of years.

Dr. Wendt, author of the Crossways Bible study, regularly says that every corner of our life has been claimed by Christ, and counterclaimed by Satan.

It is a constant battle for our allegiance.

Oh, let's just be ...nice, some say.

“Nice” doesn't stop a terrorist bomb.

“Nice” doesn't stop Satan either, in fact, it merely gives him room to work.

Ever since Vietnam, hymns with military imagery have been unfashionable, ones like “Onward, Christian Soldiers.”

And yet there is a certain truth here; we are in fact engaged in this battle of competing claims which Christ and Satan make on us.

Each of them demands 100%.

Let's be clear about what is going on.

You and I are going to pay; in fact we are going to pay with our whole life.

The only question is to whom.

Will you and I be offering our lives to the Lord Jesus, or to some god of the immediate convenience?

There are no innocent bystanders in this battle for allegiance; this is total war and everyone is involved.

So here comes the uncomfortable application.

Every year I urge the Council members, who are to be the spiritual leaders of the parish, to be involved in spiritual formation through some part of Christian Education, just as I urge every other person to find a spot somewhere in one of our classes or groups as a leader or participant.

Every year the admonition is met with polite silence, and Satan chuckles.

There are not many good reasons why each of the Sunday Church School groups should not be completely filled this morning, and people clamoring for more groups to be formed.

Whenever one of us thinks that he or she is beyond the need for study and reflection on the Word, Satan has won another skirmish.

When at school a student goes along when the bully makes fun of a smaller or weaker classmate, Satan laughs.

When at work the real person does not speak up when a co-worker starts into a gossipy lie or foul language or filthy jokes, Satan is gleeful for having captured more time and people.

You are to be holy even as I the Lord your God am holy.

But we need not despair.

Although the battle is grim and ongoing, we who are the beloved of the Lord are assured of victory.

Jesus' resurrection means that because Jesus wins, somehow, in God's good time, we win also.

And the meal that we share here today is a little sample of the victory feast, just enough to strengthen and encourage us in the battle right now.

The final stanza of Martin Luther's hymn A Mighty Fortress says it well:

God's Word forever shall abide,

No thanks to foes who fear it;

For God himself fights on our side

With weapons of the Spirit.

If they should take our house,

Goods, honor, child or spouse,

Though life be wrenched away

They cannot win the day.

The Kingdom's ours forever.

Every moment of every day the choices are before us.

One of the exercises we did in catechetical camp was to take stories and ads cut from the daily newspaper and ask which commandments were being broken or being kept by those in the story.

When we start to ask that in a systematic way, we see how the commandments help us to make the choices that we must make every single day.

Our four boys confirmed today are not graduating from anything; they are just taking on more responsibility for their daily decisions in living as Christians.

We shouldn't kid them; it is hard work.

They will either work at this role with its joys and sorrows, or else turn down God's gifts and run away like so many others have.

No matter which way they turn, it will cost them their whole life.

Our prayer is that the Spirit will lay before them the better choices,

so that together we can sing:

Take my will and make it thine; [LBW#406]

It shall be no longer mine.

Take my heart, it is thine own;

It shall be thy royal throne.

Amen.

Please note: The preceding sermon is provided as a resource for the thought, prayer, and meditation of the members and friends of St. Mark's. It is the residue of a verbal event, and thus it does not have academic footnotes and other details that would be expected in a written document. The writer gladly acknowledges the prior thought and work of many Christians before him.