04 Sep SUNDAY, SEPTEMBER 4, 2022
Large crowds were traveling with Jesus. I don’t imagine that dealing with large crowds has ever been pleasant. They can certainly be a hassle unless someone sorts them out. What’s your purpose? Tell me your aim. Let’s focus on one step at a time.
As a large crowd funneled through the parking lot and grounds of FNB stadium, thousands gathered for the last Friday night game with fireworks to see the Harrisburg Senators take on the Erie SeaWolves. Traffic had to be well orchestrated so that those walking on paths did not intersect vehicles driving on pavement.
Pedestrians were further sorted based on ticket status. It was easy enough to read the signs asking if you were a ticket holder or still needed one. Self-awareness and focus helped the large crowd succeed at individual goals: to arrive at their desired destination, find their place and enjoy the experience.
Jesus had his own way of bringing self-awareness and focus to the large crowd before him. After consulting his Messiah Manual. He quickly noticed bullet points in the chapter entitled, How to Whittle Down a Large Crowd Instantly. It read, “Step One: Make unreasonable demands. Tell them unless they hate everyone, including life itself, they cannot be your disciple.”
That would have been a shocking announcement. Imagine if once everyone took their seat at the ballpark, the announcer said, “Welcome. Everyone take a look at family members sitting in your row.” The cameras would pan the crowd. Everyone would be smiling, as each family saw themselves up on the big screen near the scoreboard.
The announcer’s voice would continue, “Unless you are willing to hate each and every one of them, you cannot stay for tonight’s game. In fact, no one can stay without hating baseball itself.”
At the very least, people would realize that something is very different and not at all as expected. What in the world, Jesus? We walked all the way here, planned this in advance and have chosen to cheer on your team. Doesn’t that automatically make me a follower? Not necessarily.
Many could have been like Steve and I: in attendance for the atmosphere, the good weather, food and beverages, free fireworks and other giveaways. We weren’t really fans, though we rooted for the Senators. To be honest, we were just part of a larger crowd who gathered to see players play. I wonder if Jesus will get a hit today and possibly score a run?
Today’s passage highlights that there is a greater cost to discipleship than the most basic entry fee. True fans must do more than recognize who Jesus is and that he has potential for greatness.
Jesus decides that his fan club must pass a test of commitment and loyalty. Wearing team colors or a logo won’t cut it. T-shirts bearing other logos of other kinds or that referred to other places you’ve been or other life pursuits aren’t welcomed either. Fans and disciples have to strip all other loyalties away, or leave.
His tactics seem extreme, but in many ways, our society limits opportunities in similar ways: by pricing things out of range; by narrowing chances for inclusion or advancement, upping requirements for entrance and making it impossible for folks to experience the difference between being part of a large crowd and being in the in-crowd.
Maybe Jesus’ tactics aren’t exclusionary, maybe he’s trying to merely sort them out by saying this: If your primary focus is elsewhere and your loyalties are to family or your personal life, you won’t make it as my disciple.
Like teachers who can’t allow students to be on cell phones in class, Jesus knows that distractions are a big threat to learning. His speech is about equipping disciples to go the distance, to last the whole game, not only early innings. The added phrase, “Whoever does not carry the cross and follow me cannot be my disciple,” has personal meaning.
When I’d ask mom why she endured what I saw dished out by her mother and husband, she’d reply without malice, “I believe this is my cross to carry.” As a child old enough to observe what was going on: that my mother was unhappy, but continued to care for those who did not appreciate her, I felt sad that Jesus asked this of her or that she felt like he did.
But she did not say it with sadness. Her reply described a partnership, a closeness, a willingness to carry the cross with Christ, as if she was honored to support the weight of one tiny square inch, one corner of the beam which crossed the central length of wood upon which the Lord’s body hung in agony.
Strangely enough, the conclusion I drew and kept to myself was this. “That’s not going to be me. No sir. Don’t ask me to live in an unhappy marriage or relationship and endure it, Lord. Surely, you don’t wish me to suffer for your sake.”
And I stuck to my conclusion, leaving arrangements that never improved or seemed destined for long term misery. It’s funny what we learn when people live out their choices and model behavior. We either repeat or reject what we learned growing up.
Speaking of growing up, another story ties to what Jesus said. In the neighborhood where my kids were raised there was a one story brick home without a roof. A flight of stairs led up to what would have been the front door, one floor up from the lowest level. Grass had been seeded. The lawn was maintained, but no family lived there. Weed trees and other foliage soon rose above the brick exterior walls. The story was, a man intended to build a nice home for his wife, but she left before it was completed.
The property was an eyesore in an otherwise nicely maintained residential neighborhood. For me it was a symbol of unrequited love, of energy and resources poured into brick and mortar that did not build a home, only walls. Whoever that guy was, he was remembered for being foolish. As in Luke’s text, “the half completed tower [home] stood as a testimony to someone’s poor preparation and planning.” (NET Notes)
The next verses explain how wisdom deals with preparation: by first determining priorities and what elements are necessary for overall success. Peace becomes the goal when one realizes they occupy a weaker position of strength.
I guess that’s the point my mom was making. Achieving peace meant overall success for the family, not fighting or arguing, but doing what she could to demonstrate a relationship to Christ and her ability to love people incapable of being any other than who they were.
According to NET Bible NOTES, “On a relative scale, God is to be loved more than family or self. Perhaps discipleship does mean having peace with God and family, peace about your life and peace with others.
All earthly attachments that occupy first place must come second to God. (NET Notes) Not because salvation depends upon it, but because our relationship to Christ will suffer. Our ability to learn to represent Christ in this world will be compromised to the extent we are distracted.
Distraction is inability to give one’s full attention or to see one thing because we are preoccupied with another. I’d like to share a poem with you called, “Saint Francis and the Sow,” by Galway Kinnel.
The bud
stands for all things,
even for those things that don’t flower,
for everything flowers, from within, of self-blessing;
though sometimes it is necessary
to reteach a thing its loveliness,
to put a hand on its brow
of the flower
and retell it in words and in touch
it is lovely
until it flowers again from within, of self-blessing;
as Saint Francis
put his hand on the creased forehead
of the sow, and told her in words and in touch
blessings of earth on the sow, and the sow
began remembering all down her thick length,
from the earthen snout all the way
through the fodder and slops to the spiritual curl of the tail,
from the hard spininess spiked out from the spine
down through the great broken heart
to the sheer blue milken dreaminess spurting and shuddering
from the fourteen teats into the fourteen mouths sucking and blowing beneath them:
the long, perfect loveliness of sow.
https://galwaykinnellpoems.wordpress.com/2012/12/06/saint-francis-and-the-sow/
Like St. Francis, Jesus hopes that the crowd he addresses through words and by touch will be reminded of their undeniable worth. Learning sometimes means being reminded of what a blessing it is to be just who you are. Take inventory of you. Accept every part. Feel love through divine inspiration.
Jesus looked at the large crowd and saw every individual as a bud. He knew some would flower and others wouldn’t. Each had it in them. All he wanted was for none to become distracted so they’d fail to discover their true worth as a disciple.
However we exist, we possess intrinsic value. We may support the lives of others like the sow, or we may need support. But because we exist and God made us, whatever form we take, we are loved.
The cost of discipleship involves willingness to be touched, to connect deeply, both physically and spiritually with the oneness that is Christ.
Will you allow your brow to be touched this morning? Can you position yourself at the altar rail like a child or sow? Neither knew they were about to receive a personal blessing from God. Imagine flowering again or for the first time from within, blessed to be exactly as God made you.
Feel the touch of Christ and hear words spoken to you. Taste the blessings of this earth through bread and wine. Relearn the loveliness of you as Jesus’ disciple: empty of goods, undistracted, and ready to receive.
I pray in Jesus’ holy name that you will learn as the sow did, that you are worthy, perfect, nourished and always filled by the one who created you, the one who redeemed you, and the one who sustains you, Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Amen.