"Faith and Fear." A Sermon from Littlefield Presbyterian Church. Mark 9:30-37.

"Fear and Faith"

Mark 9:30-37

In last week’s gospel lesson, Jesus traveled to the region of Tyre and then to the Decapolis.[1]  In today’s text, he’s back in his home territory of Galilee, but “he did not want anyone to know it.”  The reason he didn’t want anyone to know he was there? He had some important teaching to do with his disciples.

            Some very important things have happened in the meantime.  In Caesarea Philippi, Jesus had asked his disciples, “Who are people saying that I am? Who do you say I am?” Then he began teaching the disciples about what awaits him in Jerusalem and about the cost of following him. Peter, James, and John had seen Jesus transfigured on a mountain.[2]  Later, Jesus cast a demon out of a boy.

            Now, as they’re passing through Galilee, Jesus is trying again to avoid being noticed while he continues to teach his disciples, saying, “The Son of Man is to be betrayed into human hands, and they will kill him, and three days after being killed, he will rise again.”  But the disciples didn’t understand what he was saying and were afraid to ask him. Maybe they don’t want to understand. This is a hard teaching about a Messiah who suffers and dies.

            I wonder what the disciples might have asked if they had not been afraid.  Are we really very different?

            I agree with David Lose that it’s important to ask good questions. But our fears can get in the way. What fears pursue you during the day and haunt you at night? What worries weigh you down so that it’s difficult to move forward in faith?”[3] Our fears have a way of sneaking into our very being, and robbing us of the abundant life Jesus came both to announce and to share.

            Did you notice? The disciples don’t ask Jesus any questions in response to his prediction of his crucifixion because they’re afraid. And the next thing you know they’re talking about who was the greatest, who was going to have a place of privilege and power in the coming kingdom.

            Fear can do that. It can paralyze you. It can motivate you to look out only for yourself.

            This isn’t the only time Mark contrasts and faith and fear. In the fourth chapter of Mark, after Jesus stills the storm that had terrified the disciples, Jesus asks them, “Why are you afraid? Have you no faith?” As he was restoring Jairus’ daughter, he tells the distraught father, “Don’t be afraid. Only believe.”[4]

            The opposite of faith is not doubt--but fear.  The kind of fear that can paralyze you… distort how you perceive reality… and drive you to despair.

            The disciples didn’t understand what Jesus was saying and were afraid to ask him.

            In the house in Capernaum, Jesus asked them, “What were you arguing about on the way? But they were silent, for on the way they had argued with one another who was the greatest.

            He called the twelve and said to them, “whoever wants to be first must be last of all and servant of all.  Then he took a little child and put it among them, and taking it in his arms, and he said to them, “Whoever welcomes one such child in my name welcomes me, and whoever welcomes me welcomes not me but the one who sent me.”

             

            Now, in ancient times, a child was regarded as a non-person, or a not-yet-person, the possession of the father in the household.   When Jesus held up a child as an emblem of living in God’s household, and perhaps even as a stand-in for Jesus himself, he was challenging the social norms of the day.

            This child was as important to Jesus as the vision on the mountain. Jesus wanted his disciples to see the child…and welcome the child.  Not because the child is innocent or pure or perfect or cute.  No. Jesus wanted them to welcome the child because the child was at the bottom of the social heap.  In Mark’s gospel, children aren’t symbols of innocence or holiness. More often, they are the victims of poverty and disease. Jesus brings the child from the margins into the very center.

            But, surely, we want to think, we are different.  We value children in our churches and in society. And yet…

            In the United States of America--one of the richest countries in the world-- children remain the poorest age group. According to the Children’s Defense Fund, nearly one in five children--12.8 million in total-- were poor in 2017. Over 45 percent of these children lived in extreme poverty at less than half the poverty level.  Nearly 70 percent of poor children were children of color.  The youngest children are most likely to be poor, with 1 in 5 children under 5 living in poverty during the years of rapid brain development.

            Child poverty hurts children. Child poverty hurts our nation’s future. It creates gaps in cognitive skills for very young children, puts children at greater risk of hunger and homelessness, jeopardizes their health and ability to learn, and fuels the inter-generational cycle of poverty.

            Ponder this: 3 million children in the U.S. live in families surviving on $2 a day per person.[5]  I hope you’ll take that statistic home with you and consider what $2 a day per person would buy and what it wouldn’t.

            Something else to ponder:  More than 400 children who were separated from their families at the southern border are still separated from their families.

            These are moral issues that reflect how we are living our values in our society. When we look at the federal and state budgets and see actions to limit access to medical services for lower income Americans including children, or cut-backs in nutrition programs for children, we need to see how these actions affect children’s lives.

            Do we see the children? Do we welcome them?

           

            Joyce Ann Mercer suggests that Jesus’ treatment of children shows his “struggle and resistance to the purposes of empire.” The politics of empire favors relationships of power and privilege, while the politics embodied of the kingdom of God lifts up the lowly, and those with no power or privilege. [6]

            Jesus came to live among us, full of grace and truth.[7]  He proclaimed the reign of God, preaching good news to the poor and release to the poor and release to the captives…teaching by word and deed and blessing the children.[8]

            Do we see them? Do we welcome them?  If we don’t, what are the fears that hold us back from fully welcoming them?

           

            Jesus called his followers to live out gospel values. He calls us to extending hospitality to those who were considered little more than property.  He healed when he wasn’t supposed to, touched people he shouldn’t have touched.  He taught that all our ideas about greatness mean nothing if we don’t stoop down low enough to see the little ones in our midst.

            That day in Capernaum, Jesus held a little child in his arms and brought the words of heaven down to earth. I imagine Jesus whispering in the child’s ear, “You are God’s beloved child.”[9]

           

            The good news is that God has named us all as beloved children and calls us to welcome children in Christ’s name. This isn’t as simple or limited as it might seem. It means caring for children-- not only our own children and grandchildren, but children of migrant workers and asylum-seekers, children of poverty in our cities and impoverished rural areas.

            The good news is that Jesus has promised to be with us always and has given us the Holy Spirit to lead and empower us.  In this broken and fearful world, the Spirit gives us courage to pray without ceasing, to witness among all peoples to Christ as Lord and Savior, to unmask idolatries in Church and culture, to hear the voices of peoples long silenced, and to work with others for justice, freedom, and peace.[10]

           

            Thanks be to God, through Jesus Christ our Lord!  Amen!

Rev. Fran Hayes, Pastor

Littlefield Presbyterian Church

Dearborn, Michigan

September 16, 2018
 

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[1] Mark 7:24-37

[2] Mark 9:2-8

[3] David Lose, “Faith and Fear,” at his blog In the Meantime. https://www.workingpreacher.org/craft.aspx?post=1619

[4] Mark 4:40; Mark 5:36

:

[5] Child Poverty, at Children’s Defense Fund website:  https://www.childrensdefense.org/policy/policy-priorities/child-poverty/

[6] Martha L. Moore-Keish, Theological Perspective, in Feasting on the Word: Year B, Volume 4: Season after Pentecost 2. Location 3408.

[7] John 1:14.

[8] “A Brief Statement of Faith” of the Presbyterian Church (USA), 1991.

[9] I’m grateful to the Rev. Dr. Barbara K. Lundblad for this image in “A Hopeful Fanatic.” http://day1.org/4049-a_hopeful_fanatic

    

[10] “Brief Statement of Faith.”

"Cross of Resistance." A Sermon from Littlefield Presbyterian Church on the Second Sunday in Lent.

A Christian pilgrim carries a cross on the Via Dolorosa in Jerusalem

"Cross of Resistance"

Mark 8:31-38

            “If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me.”

            This command has interpreted--or misinterpreted in a variety of ways over the years. “This is your cross to bear” has been used too often to keep those suffering persecution, oppression, domestic violence, abuse, and economic injustice from breaking free. People have been told to endure patiently, to forgive as Jesus forgave his executioners, and wait for things to be all right when we get to heaven, “in the sweet bye and bye.”

            But this is contrary to everything Jesus did during his ministry. In his inaugural speech in the synagogue in Nazareth, he proclaimed what his spirit-given mission was to be: to bring good news to the poor, to proclaim release to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to free the oppressed. [1]   And that’s what he did. He liberated people, spiritually and physically. He took away their blindness, set them free, spoke up for the voiceless, dined with marginalized and outcast people, and fed the hungry. So, to take up our crosses like Jesus can never mean being silent in the face of oppression.[2]  

            Jesus told his disciples to “take up their cross and follow me” a year before his trial and execution. His disciples at that time would have heard it very differently from the way we hear it today. To the disciples, a cross was a method of torture and execution, by the Roman empire’s occupying forces. It was an instrument of terror.  So, this isn’t an easy teaching.

            Peter hears all this talk of suffering and death, and he knows this is no way to be the Messiah or to successfully build the kind of organization he had in mind, so he takes Jesus aside and rebukes him. 

            Imagine it.   Peter is trying to set Jesus straight about what it means to be the messiah.   “Suffering, rejection, and death are not on the agenda.  The Messiah is supposed to come to rule the nations with power and might. We signed on for a crown, not a cross!” 

But Jesus turns and looks at his disciples, and he rebukes Peter and says, “Get behind me, Satan!  For you are setting your mind not on divine things but on human things.”

That’s when he called the crowd with his disciples, and said to them, “If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me.  For those who want to save their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake, and for the sake of the gospel, will save it.” 

            What does that mean? What does it look like?  

            Many of the leaders of the movements to abolish the slave trade and the institution of slavery in Great Britain and the United States were Christians who felt called to speak truth to power, to work for the cause of God’s justice for all.

            During the most terrible years of World War II, when the Nazi domination of Europe seemed irrevocable and unchallenged, a miraculous event took place in a small Protestant town in southern France called Le Chambon. There, quietly, peacefully, and in full view of the Vichy government and a nearby division of the Nazi SS, Le Chambon's villagers and their clergy organized to save thousands of Jewish children and adults from certain death.  The story of “how goodness happened” there is told in a beautiful book entitled “Lest Innocent Blood Be Shed.”[3]

            Also during World War II, ordinary Danish Christians who saw their Jewish neighbors being rounded up by the Nazis and sent to concentration camps… and responded by ferrying many of them by night to safety in Sweden.

           

            Sophia Scholl was a German student and anti-Nazi political activist. A Christian, she had been brought up in the Lutheran church. Sophie and her older brother Hans were part of the White Rose, a small non-violent, intellectual resistance group that conducted an anonymous leaflet and graffiti campaign which called for active opposition to the Nazi regime. Their pamphlets used both Biblical and philosophical support for an intellectual argument of resistance. Sophie and her brother and another student were caught and convicted of high treason and were executed by guillotine.

            On May 2, 1963 in Birmingham, Alabama, the first day of the Birmingham children’s crusade, some 800 students, first graders through high schoolers, skipped classes. They gathered at the Sixteenth Street Baptist Church and marched holding hand-made picket signs reading “Segregation is a sin” and “I’ll die to make this land my home.” By the end of the day, under Bull Connor’s orders, more than 500 kids were behind bars charged with parading without a permit.

            Over the next two days, young protesters hit the streets in masse, confronting police armed with snarling German shepherds and water cannons. When people around the country saw these images, it changed things. It was then that President Kennedy and the attorney general began considering a path toward comprehensive civil rights legislation.[4] 

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            Jesus said, “Those who are ashamed of me and of my words in this adulterous and sinful generation, of them the Son of Man will also be ashamed when he comes in the glory of his Father with the holy angels.”

            As I was working on this sermon, I found a reference in my notes to the theme song from the movie “Selma,” in which the song writers John Legend and Common describe the march to Selma, Alabama, in terms of “glory.”

            When the movie “Selma” was first out three years ago, David Lose wrote, “Think about that for a moment.  That march, along with the larger struggle for civil rights, was filled with confrontation and suffering and sacrifice.  And yet they sing of glory.  Why?  Precisely because we find glory—and for that matter power and strength and security—only in those moments when we surrender our claims to power and strength and security in order to serve others.”[5]

            We know this—though sometimes we forget and need to be reminded.  I love the way David puts this hard saying of Jesus into perspective, this saying about what it means to take up his cross and follow him.   Every time we let ourselves be vulnerable to the needs of those around us… every time we give ourselves in love to another… every time we get out of our own way and seek not what we want but what the world needs, we come alive, we are lifted up, we experience the glory of God made manifest. 

            On some level, in some ways, we know this is true.  We do it most naturally as parents, sacrificing all kinds of things in the hope of providing for our children.  But we also do it as friends, partners, and neighbors. 

            But sometimes it’s hard for us to believe.  It’s counter-cultural.  So much in our culture wants to make us think that we’ll only have security and happiness if we gratify our immediate desires.  The world of advertising exists to make us feel incomplete in order to convince us to buy something that promises to make us feel better about ourselves.  But so much of what’s in those commercials and so much in the popular culture are lies. 

            Nothing that we can buy or build has the power to make us feel more complete or accepted or loved or safe.  The only thing that does is connection to others, in community, and a purpose beyond ourselves.   And this requires sacrifice.

            The good news is that—when we move beyond being preoccupied with ourselves and look to the needs around us, and others begin to do the same, we discover more life and joy and acceptance and love than we could have imagined.

            Christians from the United States and around the world go to the Holy Land as part of Ecumenical Accompaniment, to accompany Palestinian farmers to their olive groves during harvest… or to help school children get to school safely in Hebron.  Others work through organizations like Pal Craftaid and fair trade olive oil producers, to partner with Palestinians to sell their products, to help people living under occupation support their families and meet educational and humanitarian needs. 

            Closer to home, people take time out of their busy lives to stand in support of people who are being torn apart from their families and deported.  We write letters or make phone calls to elected officials to advocate for those who are hungry or oppressed or to support gun safety.

            We work to feed the hungry at home and throughout the world… we support Habitat for Humanity and Heifer Project and One Great Hour of Sharing.  We do these things because the needs are great.  But we also do these things because we need to do them, as we follow Jesus on the way of the cross… as we set our minds, not on human things, but on divine things.

            When we follow Jesus on the way of the cross, we begin to comprehend that God’s ways are not our ways:  that faith is not certainty, hope is not optimism, and love is not painless.

            On my pilgrimages to the Holy Land, we walked the Via Dolorosa-- the way of the cross.  Near the beginning of the Via Dolorosa, I saw a group of crosses propped up against a wall, where pilgrims could take up a cross and carry it as they walked the Via Dolorosa.

            Paul Shupe suggests that perhaps what we need is a multitude of crosses, one for each of us, at the doors of our sanctuaries, to be taken up as we return to the world of home and family, work and commerce, service and play—symbols of the call to discipleship that we have heard-- for us to accept anew.[6]

           

            We believe in a God who is powerful to overcome sin and death in the Resurrection.  We believe in a God who keeps promises.  We believe that, in the fullness of time, Christ will return.

            When we pick up the cross and follow Christ, there may be darkness and death on the road.  But we know that the darkness does not overcome the world, because we have God's promises.         

            The cost of discipleship seems high.  And it is. 

            But we have Jesus' promise:  Those who lose their lives for his sake-- will save their lives.           

            Thanks be to God!

            Amen!

Rev. Fran Hayes, Pastor

Littlefield Presbyterian Church

Dearborn, Michigan

February 25, 2018

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[1] Luke 4:18-19

[2] Kelly Palmer, “A ‘Cross to Bear’ Means Actively Embracing the Cost of Following Jesus.” https://sojo.net/articles/cross-bear-means-actively-embracing-cost-following-jesus

[3] Philip Halle, Lest Innocent Blood Be Shed,” 2008.

[4] https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/retropolis/wp/2018/02/20/children-have-changed-america-before-braving-fire-hoses-and-police-dogs-for-civil-rights/?utm_term=.e01b8b580aa6

[5] David Lose, in “The Theory of Everything,” at www.davidlose.net

[6]  David L. Bartlett; Barbara Brown Taylor (2011-05-31). Feasting on the Word: Year B, Volume 2, Lent through Eastertide (Kindle Locations 2623-2625). Westminster John Knox Press. Kindle Edition.

"Hard to Imagine:" A Sermon on Matthew 16:21-28 from Littlefield Presbyterian Church.

Crosses for pilgrims to carry as they walk the Via Dolorosa in Jerusalem

"Hard to Imagine"

Matthew 16:21-28

One minute, Jesus is telling Peter “You’re the rock on which I will build my church” and the next minute he’s calling him “a stumbling block.”  Can you imagine? Maybe, as David Lose suggests, that’s the difficulty. Peter couldn’t imagine. 

            In last week’s gospel lesson, Jesus asked his disciples who the people were saying he was, and they repeated what they’d been hearing: that Jesus was one of the prophets. Then Peter said, “You are the Messiah, the son of the living God!”  And Jesus sternly commanded the disciples not to tell anyone he was the Messiah.

            Many Biblical scholars believe that when Peter declared that Jesus was the Messiah, he was imagining a warrior-king, like David-- who would drive out the Roman occupiers and liberate the Israelites. When you think about it, that’s a reasonable hope. The Romans were foreign occupiers. They imposed Roman law, and they taxed the people to pay for the occupation.  They enforced the occupation and taxation by violence. So many people hoped that God’s Messiah--the “anointed” would set them free from the Roman Empire, transform the world and set things right.

            The problem with Peter’s expectation isn’t that it’s unreasonable--but that it doesn’t really change anything. Rome is holding Palestine by force and violence. If Jesus were a warrior-king, he would have to use greater force and violence to drive them out. Eventually, another empire with even more force or willing to do even greater violence could come along and take over. So, who’s in charge might change-- but the cycle of force and violence keeps going.

            Jesus knows this.  In his preaching and teaching about God’s kingdom of forgiveness, mercy, and love-- rather than retribution, violence, and hatred-- he’s challenging the powers that be.  And he’s challenging their understanding of how the world can be, if God’s will is done.

            Jesus tells his disciples that some of their religious leaders will inflict great violence upon him and kill him. When you step back and remember the gospel story, it isn’t surprising that Jesus was killed. From the time of his birth, Jesus was such a threat to the rule of force and violence that Herod was frightened “and all of Jerusalem with him.”[1]. Herod was willing to slaughter all male children under the age of two in and around Bethlehem, to try to destroy the one who might someday replace him as Rome’s puppet king. Herod counted on the chief priest and scribes to cooperate with his agenda and that of the Empire.

            Peter hears all this talk of suffering and death. Clearly, this isn’t what he’s imagined or hoped for. He’s sure this is no way to be the Messiah or to successfully build the kind of organization he had in mind, so he takes Jesus aside and rebukes him.   “Listen, Jesus, this can’t be what God intends for you. There must be a different way. Our deliverer is supposed to save us from our enemies and rule the nations with power and might.! That’s what we thought we were signing on for--not a cross!”

But Jesus turns and looks at his disciples, and he sternly rebukes Peter, saying, “Get behind me, Satan!  For you are setting your mind not on divine things but on human things.”

Then he says, “If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me.  For those who want to save their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake, and for the sake of the gospel, will save it.” 

             

            Can we imagine what that means? What does that look like?  I think it looks different in different times and contexts.

            Many of the leaders of the movements to abolish the slave trade and the institution of slavery in Great Britain and the United States were Christians who felt called to speak truth to power, to work for the cause of God’s justice for all.  Those who were part of the Underground Railroad and helped fugitive slaves to escape to freedom faced personal danger and legal consequences.

            During the most terrible years of World War II, when inhumanity and political insanity held most of the world in their grip and the Nazi domination of Europe seemed irrevocable and unchallenged, a miraculous event took place in a small Protestant town in southern France called Le Chambon-sur-Lignon. There, quietly, peacefully, and in full view of the Vichy government and a nearby division of the Nazi SS, Le Chambon's villagers and their clergy organized to save thousands of Jewish children and adults from certain death.  The story of “how goodness happened” there is told in a beautiful book entitled Lest Innocent Blood Be Shed.[2]

            Also during World War II, ordinary Danish Christians who saw their Jewish neighbors being rounded up by the Nazis and sent to concentration camps… and responded by ferrying many of them by night to safety in Sweden.

            These people knew that taking up the cross and following Jesus would be a way of sacrifice and risk.  And yet, in the book about what happened in Le Chambon, when villagers were asked about what they did, they were rather matter-of-fact about it. The people needed to find sanctuary and safety, they were able to work together and do it, and they seemed to do it with hope and confidence. Someone even shrugged their shoulders and said, “It was our hobby.”

            A few months ago, I re-watched the movie “Selma”, which shows how the march to Selma, along with the larger struggle for civil rights was filled with confrontation and suffering and sacrifice. And yet the theme song sings of “Glory.”

            Why?

            I agree with David Lose when he says, “Precisely because we find glory—and for that matter power and strength and security—only in those moments when we surrender our claims to power and strength and security in order to serve others.”[3]

            I think we know this--though sometimes we forget and need to be reminded.  Every time we let ourselves be vulnerable to the needs of those around us…every time we give ourselves in love to another…every time we get out of our own way and seek not what we want but what the world needs, we come alive, we are lifted up, we experience the glory of God made manifest.

            We do this most naturally as parents, sacrificing all kinds of things in the hope of caring for our children. But we also do it as friends and partners and neighbors. 

            But sometimes it’s hard for us to believe or to imagine.  It’s counter-cultural. So much in our culture wants to make us believe that we’ll be secure and happy if we have certain things. But none of the things on offer has the power to make us feel more complete or accepted or loved. The only thing that does is connection to others, in community, and a purpose beyond ourselves. And this requires sacrifice.

            The good news is that--when we move beyond being preoccupied with ourselves and look to the needs around us, and others begin to do the same, we discover more life and joy and acceptance and love than we could have imagined.

            And so, we work to feed the hungry at the school down the street and in our region and throughout the world.  We send help to those whose lives have been devastated by Hurricane Harvey. We pack bags of school supplies for needy children. We work to dismantle racism and other injustices. We do these things because the needs are great. But we also do these things because we need to do them, as we follow Jesus on the way of the cross… as we set our minds, not on human things, but on divine things.         

             

            On both of my pilgrimages to the Holy Land, we walked the Via Dolorosa-- the way of the cross.  Near the beginning of the Via Dolorosa, I saw a group of crosses propped up against a wall, where pilgrims could take up a cross and carry it as they walked the Via Dolorosa.

            Paul Shupe suggests that perhaps what we need is a multitude of crosses, one for each of us, at the doors of our sanctuaries, to be taken up as we return to the world of home and family, work and commerce, service and play—symbols of the call to discipleship that we have heard-- for us to accept anew.[4]

            When we prepare to celebrate the Lord's Supper, we proclaim one of the great mysteries of our faith:  Christ has died.  Christ has risen.  Christ will come again."

            We believe in a God who is powerful to overcome sin and death in the resurrection.  We believe in a God who keeps promises.  We believe that, in the fullness of time, Christ will return.

            If we really believe in the resurrection, deep in our bones, it changes the way we see everything.   When we pick up the cross and follow Christ, there may be darkness and death on the road.  But we know that the darkness does not overcome the world, because we have God's promises.           

            The cost of discipleship seems high.  And it is. 

            But we have Jesus' promise:  Those who lose their lives for his sake-- will save their lives. 

            Thanks be to God!

            Amen!

Rev. Fran Hayes, Pastor

Littlefield Presbyterian Church

Dearborn, Michigan

September 3, 2017

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[1] Matthew 2:3-4.

[2] Philip Halle, Lest Innocent Blood Be Shed, 2008.

[3] David Lose, in “The Theory of Everything,” at http://www.davidlose.net/2015/02/lent-2-b/

  

[4]  David L. Bartlett; Barbara Brown Taylor (2011-05-31). Feasting on the Word: Year B, Volume 2, Lent through Eastertide (Kindle Locations 2623-2625). Westminster John Knox Press. Kindle Edition.

"The Cost of Discipleship," a Sermon from Littlefield Presbyterian Church on Luke 14:25-33

"The Cost of Discipleship"

Luke 14:25-33

            The gospel lesson we heard last Sunday was set inside the home of a Pharisee, but now we’re outside, in public.  Jesus is on the road, and large crowds are following him.  Jesus has been going through cities and villages, proclaiming and ringing the good news of the kingdom of God,[1] and healing people. 

         Jesus is on the road to Jerusalem, on the way of the cross.  He has been telling people: “If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross daily and follow me.”[2]  He wants people to understand this about discipleship:  “Whoever does not carry the cross and follow me cannot be my disciple.” 

         The crowds have been growing, so Jesus wants people to understand that following him is costly.  As Joseph Fitzmyer put it, “The crowds are following Jesus because of the blessing and the wonderful things that he has associated with the kingdom.[3]” But it seems the crowds have counted the kingdom assets but overlooked the liabilities.

But what is Jesus saying?  It sounds so harsh to us.  The statement about hating your parents, spouse, children, and siblings probably wasn’t as harsh as it sounds to our ears.  The word Jesus used when he said “hate” can mean to turn away from, or to detach oneself from.  That’s saying something different from what we hear when somebody says, “I hate you.”

         Throughout the scriptures, people of faith are encouraged time after time to love--  to nurture,  to care for their families.  When Jesus talks about hating life itself, he isn’t calling for any kind of self-abuse.  He’s using strong language to get our attention.  Jesus is challenging would-be disciples to look again at their priorities and commitments.  Christ’s claim on us is to take priority over any other.

         Jesus is saying that not only is the call to discipleship the highest calling.  It also re-orders and redefines every other relationship and requires our ultimate loyalty.  

         The parables in our passage ask a related question:  “Is the price of discipleship more than you’re willing to pay?”  Whether you’re building a tower, or building or re-building a nation--  the costs of time, energy, resources, and life itself need to be considered.  Will you be able to follow through on your decision?

         Jesus was riding a wave of enthusiasm he knew wouldn’t last.  So he told his followers to look ahead to the costs and the difficulties.

         In the church today, we may be tempted to minimize the cost of living the Christian faith.  “Make it sound easy to belong,”  some may say.  “Let’s not make it too hard to join the church.  We don’t want to scare anyone off.”   We don’t want to offend anyone by any decisions we make in the church.  We want to try to keep everybody happy.

         The problem with these well-intentioned ideas is that they imply that what we’re doing isn’t very important.  They communicate that it’s okay to give less than our best in serving God. 

         In a culture that promotes immediate gratification, we may think of sacrifice as a bad thing.  But we also admire those who make sacrifices for the greater good.  Parents make sacrifices to give their children a good life.  We may forego discretionary purchases to save for a down payment on a home or to pay for education.  We may decide against spending our time or money for something self-indulgent so that we can give to help others.  There are sacrifices we make joyfully, because they lead to a greater sense of purpose, life, and fulfillment.

         Jesus isn’t inviting us to be door-mats, to say, “Oh, that’s just my cross to bear.”  No—he invites us into a life of abundance that we can only discover when we give ourselves away. 

“Take up your cross and follow me,”  says Jesus. Jesus wants us to know that our Christian calling is demanding.  We need to be honest about that--  as Jesus was--  even if it turns some people off.  When the church gets all tame and comfortable, we’ve lost sight of our true calling.  

         I’ve heard several moderators of our Presbyterian General Assembly tell the story of the Moderator’s cross, which is actually two identical crosses welded together.   As you may know, the Presbyterian Church split as a denomination over slavery before the Civil War, and it took 122 years for the reunion to take place between the Northern and Southern Presbyterian Churches.   I knew that the Moderators of the northern and southern Presbyterian churches each wore crosses and that they were then welded together at the reunion in 1983.  What’s less well known is the story behind the two crosses.

         Soon after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, fear of Japanese Americans and discrimination against them swept across our country.  In Chicago, a Christian congregation made up of Japanese Americans had been leasing a chapel in a large church building, but after Pearl Harbor their lease was revoked.  They went to church after church, trying to find a place to rent so they could worship.

         They spoke to the pastor of the Fourth Presbyterian Church, who took the request to the Session.  The elders shared all their concerns about the risks involved, and when the pastor realized the request didn’t have the numbers to pass—the motion was tabled. 

         At the next Session meeting, he raised the issue again, but the passions against the idea were still in the majority, so they tabled the motion again.   At the third Session meeting, a person who worked with the Christian education program came to the Session saying, “I can’t continue to teach the children in this congregation about Christ’s commands—if the Session of this church doesn’t allow our sisters and brothers in Christ to worship here.

         The motion passed—barely.  They knew the risk of violence and ridicule.  They knew the risk of losing members.  But they also knew the risk of having their faith become meaningless.

Throughout the war, the pastor and many members of Fourth Presbyterian gathered outside the church early every Sunday morning to escort their Japanese brothers and sisters safely through the shouts and threats, into the sanctuary of the chapel.

Finally, when the war was over, the Japanese congregation was able to build their own church.  When they left Fourth Presbyterian to move into their own building, they gave the pastor a gift of money to express their deep appreciation for the way he stood with them in their time of trial. 

The pastor didn’t feel he could keep the money, so he purchased two identical crosses, and presented them to the moderators of the Northern and Southern Presbyterian denominations.

These two crosses welded together into one are a double story of reconciliation and discipleship.  They remind us of one form of carrying the cross… of counting the cost… and then saying, “Yes!”

God calls us to be partners with Christ in mission, and the cost of discipleship is high.  God gives us the Holy Spirit to help us. “In a broken and fearful world, the Holy Spirit gives us courage”[4]… and empowers us as we strive to serve Christ in our daily lives—if only we’re open to the Spirit’s work in our lives.

In Jesus Christ, the old life is gone.  A new life has begun.  We are like clay in the hands of the potter.  God can remold, reshape, and bring about change in God’s creation.  At times when life seems to be a disaster, God is able to transform it into a creative opportunity for growth and goodness.  The new life in Christ is full of power and possibility, because it is God’s nature to transform despair into hope. 

When we work with God, we set into motion conditions that can transform things that seem hopeless into amazing opportunities of grace.  God calls us to count the cost of discipleship… and invites us to change our ways… to work with God and in harmony with one another. 

The good news is that the Holy Spirit can give us new life, transform our hearts, and sanctify us to work with God to create a more loving, just, and peaceful world.

Thanks be to God!

Amen!      

  

                        

Rev. Fran Hayes, Pastor

Dearborn, Michigan

September 4, 2016

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[1] Luke 8:1

[2] Luke 9:23-24

[3] Joseph A. Fitzmyer, The Gospel According to Luke: X-XXIV (vol. 28a, Anchor Bible.  (Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1985), p. 1063. 

[4] “Brief Statement of Faith” of the Presbyterian Church (USA), which was ordered to be a statement of unity following the reunion of the Northern and Southern Presbyterian Churches.  It was adopted by the General Assembly and added to our Book of Confessions in 1990.