Terms and Conditions

This is a sermon that I preached at St. Paul's, New Orleans on July 1. The text for the day was Luke 9:51-62.

Sometimes we don’t know what we’re signing up for. For example, I’m sure that all of us have received an invitation in the mail that reads something like this: “Twelve CDs for the price of one! Nothing more to buy ever! But hurry: this is a limited time offer! Don’t delay: order today!” Dazzled by the combination of both music and savings, we select our CDs, send in the order form, and start jamming out to our new tunes. We throw away all of the information that the company mails us since we were assured that there was nothing more to buy ever. A few weeks later, however, we discover that the offer we signed up for wasn’t as straight-forward as it seemed. It turns out that if we don’t mail in a card each month we get charged big money for CDs that we don’t want. “That’s not fair,” we cry. “You didn’t tell us the whole story! If we knew all of the details we wouldn’t have signed up for this deal in the first place.”

This is the type of complaint that Jesus tried to nip in the bud in today’s reading from Luke. He knew that a lot of the people living in the area he traveled through had heard about his ministry. He also knew that what they heard came in a format similar to that CD club advertisement. The word on the street might have sounded something like this: “Here comes Jesus of Nazareth! The man is filled with the power of the Spirit. He’s teaching the crowds, curing the sick, and raising the dead! Sign up today and become part of the Kingdom of God, but hurry, this offer expires soon!” Jesus knew that, given this description, folks would be chomping at the bit to follow him, ready to have their sickness healed and reserve a place for themselves in the Kingdom of God. Later on these CD club disciples would have cried foul when discovered that they would have to take up their cross daily and loose their lives in order to save them.

So, while Jesus was on the road to Jerusalem, he made sure that all of his would-be disciples knew exactly what they were signing up for. He was upfront about the demands of being one of his followers. There’s no guarantee of a place to live, there’s no time off, even for funerals, and you don’t get a chance to say goodbye before you ship off. Nothing trumps the urgency of proclaiming the Kingdom of God.

I imagine after hearing all of these details, some potential disciples decided that following Jesus wasn’t really what they were looking for. At first they might have thought that they were getting involved in a self-help program, where all of their problems would be solved by God. Perhaps they were seeking a fast track to worldly success once this new Kingdom was established. Whatever their reason, it seems safe to assume that, once all of the details were laid out, not everyone was ready for the demands that come with discipleship, even those who really wanted to help spread the word about the Kingdom.

While this reaction to an unpredictable and possibly dangerous lifestyle was to be expected, what is amazing is the number of people that did want to become Jesus’ followers. Even the crucifixion couldn’t stop people from taking part in his Kingdom-building work. A mere fifty-three days of after Jesus was nailed to the cross people were flocking to the life of discipleship by the thousands. It didn’t matter to these early Christians that they were being persecuted for their beliefs and thrown in jail on account of the name of Jesus. But what could possibly give someone the strength to put the gospel message in front of everything else, to sacrifice everything for their beliefs?

The source of their strength was in the crucifixion of their Lord. These disciples knew that Jesus’ death redeemed them, won their lives back from death and granted them citizenship into God’s Kingdom. In response to this loving self-sacrifice, they gave their whole lives to the building up of his Kingdom and were given gifts to help them in their work. Filled with the power of the Spirit, they sought to do all that they could to bring about the reign of God on earth. They overcame seemingly insurmountable obstacles and faced death without fear. This isn’t to say that the members of the early church were super heroes. In fact, they weren’t responsible for their strength at all. Their witness was one of ordinary people made great by the power of God’s Spirit working through them.

Unfortunately, much of the radical nature of Jesus’ message has been lost over time. Many churches these days have taken the Kingdom-building movement of Christ and turned it into something else, something less than it was meant to be. Our focus has been shifted from transforming our lives to fixing our problems. Our mission has changed from standing with the marginalized to maintaining the status quo. Our prayer has changed from “Thy will be done,” to “Oh that you would bless me indeed, and enlarge my territory…”

In short, the Church has come dangerously close to offering the CD club discipleship that Jesus tried to get us to leave behind on the road to Jerusalem. “Come visit us this Sunday at St. Swithun’s! We’re doing Church for the new millennium! Our sermons are short and the lessons are painless. Try us out today! No obligation required!” We are trying to ignore the parts of the Scriptures that trouble us instead of wresting with the message that they give. We are compromising the gospel in hopes that a watered down Christianity might entice more members. We are giving up on transforming the world to focus on maintaining our individual parishes, but it doesn’t have to be this way.

We can revitalize the Christian movement by doing what Jesus did: Letting people know exactly what to expect from a life of discipleship. Would-be disciples need to know that living the way that Christ taught us to live will not win us any popularity points with folks who like things the way that they are. Christians follow a God who “has brought down the powerful from their thrones and lifted up the lowly.” Nobody at the club likes to hear that God “…has filled the hungry with good things and sent the rich away empty,” but that is the message that we are to deliver. The world that we live in doesn’t understand how someone can be strong by making themselves vulnerable or lead by being servant of all. No, folks don’t understand at first, but there is nothing that they need to hear more.

I want to be clear: Christ does change our lives, he does help us get through our most trying times, and he does help us build Christian communities. He does this all on his own, asking nothing from us. What is up to us is how to respond to this abundance of grace. We can keep it to ourselves, offering it to the people that worship with us on Sunday mornings, or we can offer it to the whole hurting and broken world that we live in. I have had my own spiritual life refreshed by seeing all of the kingdom building, community restoring work being done here at St. Paul’s When we do that, when we use the power given to us by the Holy Spirit to reach out into the world around us, Christ is truly present.

So here are the facts, laid out plain: discipleship isn’t a bargain and you can’t cancel your membership at any time. Discipleship holds power and pain, rejection and rejoicing, agonizing crucifixion and glorious resurrection. True discipleship takes all of your life. Knowing all the details, one question remains: Who still wants to sign up