Counting The Cost

Luke 14:25-33

This Sunday we came to the end of our summer survey of Jesus’ parables. The parables before us in Luke come up in the context of very sobering challenges to committed discipleship. In the passage as a whole Jesus says things that really set you back on your heels when you take them in. If they don’t set you back on your heels then you are not really hearing them with the force Jesus intended.

A disciple of Jesus must:

* hate father and mother
* hate his or her own life
* carry the cross
* give up all of his or her posessions



What does Jesus mean by all of this? Does the one who said love your neighbor as yourself really mean that one must embrace an asceticism that is equal to self-loathing in order to be a faithful disciple? Does the one who said that he did not come to contradict the law but fulfill it mean quite literally that one must hate one’s father and mother instead of honoring them? Is every person to take a vow of poverty in order to be Jesus’ disciple?

It is in the parables in this passage that we get some clues as to how to read rightly Jesus’ sobering challenges. New Testament scholar, T.E. Schmidt offers this helpful interpretive insight with regard to the parables before us and I paraphrase just a tad: ‘When trying to decide what Jesus means by counting the cost the crux of the issue does not lie in ‘counting the cost’ in order to make sure one has enough resources within oneself... the point is that no matter what calculus one uses, no matter what resources one believes one can bring to bear, those assets will be insufficient to secure one’s status before God. Alternative and decisive action is thus required for everyone....”

Schmidt’s insight is very helpful because he offers a framework whereby we can understand at once the seriousness of Jesus’ call to take up the cross and the fact that we cannot fulfill these demands without the grace that comes through “alternative and decisive action” (i.e. repentance).

So, when Jesus challenges his followers to renounce family, life itself, and possessions his goal is not so much to scare people away but to challenge people to move into a deeper and more genuine love of God through him. It is like a person who is so in love with another that they keep saying things like this to them: “I love you, I want to be with you forever, but I really wonder sometimes if you love me in the same way? I mean you seem like you love your family more than you love me; it seems like you love your stuff more than you love me; it seems like you want to keep your options open. When a lover says this to their lover, normally it is not to dissuade the beloved from committing. Rather, those hard words are said to them with the hope that they will respond in a deeper love that leaves no questions about the trajectory they want for the relationship.

Jesus says what he says here so that we understand what the stakes are in following him. To follow Jesus as a disciple we must learn to renounce idolatrous relationships to the things that this world offers us as identities to be assumed or as security to be clung to. Instead, we must look for our identity to be formed not according to what our culture offers us but according to what Jesus gives us as renewed human beings who belong to a new family and a new humanity.

What Jesus is saying is that we can relate ourselves to the resources that this life offers in such a way as to draw us away from a truly life-giving experience with Jesus by enslaving us to patterns of living that are ultimately idolatrous. Our relationships to family, material things, and “life itself” all offer plenty of opportunities for cheap substitutes for the life God wants for us. Let’s look at family first.

Jesus says unless you hate your family that you cannot be my disciple... well, what is going on here? In the social setting in which Luke recorded this strong teaching of Jesus, family ties were far more than sentimental connections that drew people together for holidays. Family honor was all important. One’s identity was drawn from one’s family. To walk away from family and to follow Jesus would have often been interpreted by the family and the friends of the family as an act of hating one’s family, particularly if the family did not approve of Jesus. The point is that even when the heart of the disciple has nothing but love for his or her family, the family might declare the disciple to be a hater of family and an embarrassment to the family, particularly if the family disapproved of Jesus.

Connections to biological family are still powerful in our socio-cultural setting. Let’s say that in your family growing up that the most important value in the family was to not upset the ‘honor’ of the family, even when the ‘honor’ was propped up at the expense of the truth. The power of this family dynamic may make it hard for you to even hear Jesus and the gospel when the gospel makes it clear that what is truly honorable in life is to confess that you have no honor apart from the honor bestowed on you as a forgiven sinner. In this way your relationship to your family’s honor may keep you from even being able to tell what Jesus is saying because you can’t imagine he would ask for that sort of honesty and humility. For example, the older son in the Story of the Prodigal Son cannot think of honor working in this way but the father points the way to how a true disciple thinks of family honor when he runs out to greet the son who had brought dishonor on the family.... talk about a different calculus at play.... the father in this story says, ‘I don’t care what the village thinks about honor’ - the father knew that true honor is when reconciliation happens no matter how dishonorable were the actions of the son.


Those of us who did not learn or see the gospel in our families (none of us did perfectly anyway), may find it very hard to truly and strongly yearn to have our identity reconstructed in Christ’s new family. Until we do, we will find ourselves repeating destructive patterns with our partners, spouses, other family members, children, or closest friends.

With regard to material possessions:

Jesus wants us to know that an obsession with material possessions, an obsession with keeping what we have or getting more can often become the negative energy that keeps us distant from the riches of his kingdom. This is very tricky because you don’t have to have much to be distracted by material things. Just the obsessive desire to have more can draw our focus away from our need to use the life we have to bless others. Addiction to having more just brings so much static into our lives that we can’t listen to God because our passions are obsessed by wanting to have that handbag we really can’t afford or that car we can’t afford but is something we must have at any cost.... or the extra nights of partying that don’t fit in our budget.... etc. But there are still other, more subtle, ways to allow an inappropriate relationship to money to distract us from faithfully following Jesus. There are some who choose under-employment for all of the right reasons and as a result of a wise process of discernment. There are others who, in the name of a simple life, choose to not work much or choose radical under-employment; in so doing they have become a burden on those around them. For these folks, they have allowed their frustration with the materialism in our culture to lead them into a life-style they have called holy according to their own ethic of personal comfort instead of really asking Jesus how they should live and work.

What about lust? Well lust is especially tricky because Jesus makes it clear that the path that leads us to join our sexual desires with the kind of love that Jesus brings into our lives cannot be walked according to simply what we don’t do physically. We all remember his famous words about lust - you have heard it said that you must not commit adultery.... I say not to lust in your hearts. This teaching of Jesus shows us just how how easy it is to objectify others with our sexual passions without ever touching them; and a life consumed by such lusts - not interrupted by repentance - will, of course, lead us away from the life giving love of Jesus. Well, in those moments of life consuming lust, you turn to Jesus and say - give me your clothes - I repent of objectifying this person in my heart - I repent of wanting sex more than I want to be controlled by your life-giving love.

When we repent of our sins that relate to our desire for material things, when we repent of not breaking with certain family patterns that lead us away from the gospel, when we repent of the sort of lusts that lead us to a really unsatisfying and destructive life - when we repent in all of these areas we are kept on a journey of discipleship, a journey to wholeness... and a journey to human flourishing. In the end, probably the best way to talk about what Schmidt refers to above as “alternative and decisive action” is a life-style of thoughtful reflection upon the truth of one’s life, followed by regular repentance.

Questions for discussion:

1. Can you think of a pattern in your family of origin that has made it difficult for you to hear and live the gospel? Can you think of a pattern in your family of origin that has made it easier to hear and live the gospel?

2. Can you think of times when the desire for some experience that cost money kept you from something you should have been doing? For example, one thinks of Miroslav Volf’s simple observation that it requires effort for parents to make the time and resources to play with their kids and otherwise be good parents, given the plethora of adult distractions on offer in our culture.

3. If you had to put in a couple of non-prudish sentences why God cares about what people do sexually, what would you say? How would you inform your thoughts with the gospel - in other words, how would you say something about sex that could not be said simply according to the Old Testament?