Luke 14:25-33
Preached by Rev. Dr. Jason
Haddox
Young John, known more
familiarly as “Frenchy” to his family and friends, had been a soldier, a lover,
a man-about-town, and a decent hand in his father’s business endeavors. He seemed poised to take over the family
business and be quite successful in it. But
then he heard God calling. He heard the
voice of Jesus asking him to put down the sword, put down the flowers and
candy, put down the silks and velvets, the account-books and money-bags, all
these things that he had enjoyed, to come and follow the way of Christ.
And so on that snowy, windy
winter day, in the town square, in the presence of everyone whom he had ever
known in his life—his brothers and sisters and mother, his friends, his parish
priest and the bishop—young John took off his clothes, the rich brocades and
warm furs he had grown up wearing, and handed them back to his father. "Hitherto I have called you my father on
earth; henceforth I desire to say only 'Our Father who art in Heaven'."[1] Clad only in a linen tunic and a pair of
sandals, that young man went out of the city gates that day, to seek union with
the Jesus who had no place to lay his head. The man, whom the world would later know and
celebrate as Francis of Assisi, began his public ministry by publicly turning
his back on everything that had been his life until that day, to follow the
call of Jesus.
“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.”
I wish I could tell you he
didn’t really say that. But I can’t.
I can tell you that it
doesn’t mean what you think it means. At
least, not entirely.
“Hate” in this sense does not
mean any particular emotional content. Jesus
is not demanding that anyone feel some strong emotion or other in regard to the
attachments we all deal with. Rather, he
is asking those who choose to follow his way of living, to choose. To consciously and intentionally say “Yes” to
him, even if it means saying “No” to something else. To close the door on “keeping one’s options
open” in the event of a better or more attractive offer. And there will be many better, more
attractive offers.
As the prophet Isaiah says
(ch. 53):
“Who has believed what we
have heard?
And to whom has the arm of the Lord been
revealed?
2 For he grew up before him
like a young plant,
and like a root out of dry ground;
he had no form or majesty
that we should look at him,
nothing in his appearance that we should
desire him.
3 He was despised and
rejected by others;
a man of suffering* and acquainted with
infirmity;
and as one from whom others
hide their faces*
he was despised, and we held him of no
account.
This is Jesus, who will
shortly be put to death on a cross outside the walls of Jerusalem.
Those who hear these words in
Luke’s gospel already know how the story ends.
So do we.
Jesus invites those who
follow him—then and now—to carry the cross with him.
To join him in a
cross-carrying journey.
To follow him, in the Way of
Life which leads to Eternal Life,
but which looks very strange
indeed.
For the Way of Eternal Life
is not concerned with holding on to, or controlling things.
The Way of Eternal Life
rejects the temptation to manipulate relationships and people as objects.The Way of Eternal Life to
which Jesus calls his followers, indeed,
flies in the face of much of
what we call common sense, and business as usual.
When I was eight years old,
my hometown in Texas experienced a flood.
Not a hurricane, not a long sustained rainy season, but a one-shot 24
hour stretch of full-downpour like none of us had ever seen. My parents’ house sits in a low-lying area,
and the waters began to rise. The
garage, on the lowest level, was completely flooded. A six-foot chest deep freezer was bouncing
around like a cork in the water; my father’s boat floated up to the ceiling of
the garage with the trailer still attached, and we had to get neighbors to help
hold it down and get it out of there.
I stood on the front porch
(fortunately at a higher elevation) and watched the excitement. As I did, I noticed small red-brown balls
bobbing in the water. The fire ants
(which are many and prolific in that part of the world) were being flooded out
of their mounds in ours and neighboring yards, and were clinging together in an
instinctive desperation to float to safety.
As each ant ball came to rest on the front porch, the ball would
“explode” in all directions, as the ants scrambled for higher ground up the
walls of the house.
Sometimes we human beings act
like ants.
In times of crisis and
anxiety, we cling so tightly to the things we think ARE our life
—money, power, status, family,
friends, fill in the blank—
that we threaten to strangle
the life, the very breath, out of one another in the process.
We “hold on for dear life”
as if those things themselves
ARE life,
until the things that should
be used to give and share life
(for ourselves and for
others)
become idols.
Become false gods.
Become “Our Possessions”—
not merely things we possess,
but things by which we are possessed.
Status.
Appearance.
Money.
Profession.
Kids.
Spouse.
Any of these, and many others
we could list.
As individuals, as families,
as towns, as nations—
we can, and do, cling and
grasp
and suppose that if we get
hold of “enough” of these things
that our life will be secure.
That all the worries will
disappear
And no harm will come to us.
Jesus will have none of
it.
He tells those who desire to
follow him—
even just a little bit, just
the teeny-tiniest mustard-seed bit of wanting to be with him:
That’s not how it works.
All these good things, as
good as they are, will not suffice.
And all the bad and awful
things, as bad and awful as they are, will not have the final word.
The word of Jesus, which
calls through joy and sorrow,
abundance and scarcity,
apparent success and obvious
failure,
which finds its consummation
in a shameful death and an impossible resurrection,
speaks a reality beyond all
of these things.
Speaks, again and again,
of God who made all things,
and loves each of us beyond
all reasonable sense,
and desires us with longing
too deep for words.
Speaks a word of invitation
that called John Peterson Bernardone—“Frenchy”—Francis of Assisi, and countless
others, and us as well, to “take up the cross, and follow.”
Few of us will ever be like
Francis of Assisi.
Or like Sister Constance and
her companions, of the Order of St. Mary, whose faithful service in 1878 during
an epidemic of yellow fever earned them the title of “The Martyrs of
Memphis.”
They stayed behind in a
plague-infested city when anyone who could get out, got out.
They nursed the sick, buried
the dead, housed and fed the orphans, and eventually gave everything, their
very lives, to serve Jesus in the disguise of these poor ones.
We will commemorate their
service and sacrifice tomorrow, on September 9th.[2]
Most of us will not be called
to such dramatic, heroic service in the name of Jesus.
But we are all called.
And we are all carrying the
cross.
For in our baptism, we were
signed with the cross on our forehead;
we were sealed by the Holy
Spirit;
we were marked as Christ’s
own for ever.
And every day, day by day,
moment by moment,
we are given the chance,
again and again,
to let go of the things, the
ways, the false gods
that draw us from the love of
God.
To say, however often as we
need to:
“Jesus, I trust you. Above all others.
No conditions; no
fingers-crossed-behind-my-back.”
Eyes open; hands open; heart
open.
[2]
The brief hagiography in Holy Women, Holy
Men gives an overview of the story.
A more detailed account from original source materials may be found at http://www.anglicanhistory.org/usa/csm/memphis1.html,
accessed on 9/8/13.
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