Pentecost 16

Pentecost 16 (Luke 14:25-33)

“Whoever does not take up his cross and follow me cannot be my disciple.”

There is no such thing as a free lunch.

Everything in this world has an associated cost. Jesus wants to be sure we understand that there is a cost to discipleship.

Salvation is free to us but cost Jesus unimaginable pain and suffering and death. Those who accept this gift receive reunification with the Father through the Son by the indwelling presence of the Holy Spirit. Reunification gives us a new life that produces a new way of living. The new way of living is the way of the disciple.

The disciple is one who follows Jesus on the new way of living. That way is the way of sanctification. It is the way of transformation.  The three categories of transformation are the three fundamental relationships that form our unique personal identity.

These three categories are our relationship with God, with other people, with the unique identity God has given each of us.

The first cost of discipleship is the way of individual autonomy.

Jesus finds us lost in the individual will to power. He saves us from separation, isolation and the illusion of individual autonomy. He reunites us to the eternal triune community of the one God. And, he places us in the new community of interdependent relationships of the new humanity.

The first cost of disciple is the attitude that life is all about me. It is the self-offering of the false ego that says “I am the master of my fate; I am the captain of my soul.”

The cost of individual autonomy is the cost of personal responsibility. The Anglican priest John Donne once wrote; “No man is an island.”  We are responsible to God for our actions. And, we are responsible for each other in our actions. We are our brother’s keeper. We are responsible for helping those in need of help according to our resources and abilities.

The cost of disciple is the way of sacrificial living that places Jesus first, other second and you third. It is the recognition that all things, all resources, all talents and abilities come from God not from the individual will to power.

The cost of discipleship in time is the Sabbath Day of Real Presence. How many who claim the name of Christ are willing to pay that price?

The cost of discipleship in resources is charity. How many who claim the name of Christ are will to pay the price of  compassionate service to others and Biblical tithes and offerings?

Finally, the cost of discipleship is the commitment to personal change, growth and reachability.  How many of those who claim the name of Christ are willing to pay the price of having their beliefs challenged, their sins revealed and transformed, their minds educated and their hearts softened?

The cost of disciple is the price we pay when we agree with God that Jesus is Lord and we are not.

The cost of disciple is the price we pay when Jesus reveals to us our sins of attitude and action and asks us to yield those sins to him to be transformed back into their original virtues.

The cost of discipleship is the personal trust we choose to place in Jesus as the new way of living, the pattern of truth and the only source of life.

The cost of discipleship is the sacrifice of the autonomous individual will to power in order to discover the unique personal identity God has designed for each of us in union with Him and with each other.

It isn’t easy to be a disciple of Jesus Christ. Jesus is more concerned with fundamental principles than detailed rules and regulations. The Great Mystery of faith is that it is only as we surrender the false ego of the individual will to power to the Divine Love of God in Jesus Christ that we discover the authentic, unique personal identity God the Father has given to each of us.

What we are willing to give up to be the people God created us to be defines who we are willing to become. It is the cost of discipleship. It is the way of redeeming sacrifice that is willing to give up the illusion of control to discover true freedom in the infinite and eternal Presence of the living God.

There is no such thing as a free lunch.  There is always a cost, always a price to pay. As we count the cost of discipleship and pay the price of sacrificial transformation Jesus assure us that there is available to us the banquet of blessing that begins here at the altar of sacrifice and forms us in our thoughts words and deeds to receive the blessing, to live the blessing and to be the blessing of God now and forever.