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A sermon for the Thirteenth Sunday of Pentecost
Luke 14:25-33
In the Gospel text for today it says: “Whoever does not bear his own cross and come after me, cannot be my disciple” (Luke 14:27).
This mandate, expressed one way or another, is found in the Gospels sixteen times. In other words, this is not a minor item in a long list but is said again and again.
Notice that it doesn’t say: “What matters is that your good intentions.” Nor does it say: “Try the best you can.” It also doesn’t allow for us to say: “I’m not perfect, but I’m sure better than so-and-so over there.”
This command: “Take up your cross,” is put in specific terms. For example, in the Book of James 1:27 it says: “Religion that is pure and undefiled before God and the Father is this: to visit orphans and widows in their affliction, and to keep oneself unstained from the world.”
In Matt 7:13-14 there is the famous saying that one way is wide and the other way, narrow and hard.
2 Cor 6:14-15 states: “Be not mismatched with unbelievers. . . . For what has Christ to do with the powers of evil? And what have believers to do with unbelievers?”
1 John 3:15: “Whoever hates his brother is a murderer.” But in our text for today it says: “If anyone comes to me and does not hate his own father and mother and wife and children and brothers and sisters, yes, and even his own life, he cannot be my disciple” (Luke 14:26).
Throughout Christian history there have been those who said: “We have to take this seriously.” Already in the Second Century not only do we have the martyrs, but martyrs who said: “He said if you deny me before men, I will deny you before heaven, so I’m going to speak out even if it costs me my life.”
There were also those in the Second Century who said: “I’m going to live this life of radical discipleship,” and they withdrew to live apart from the world. Out of that movement, monastic communities developed, built on the ideas of poverty, chastity, and obedience.
Today Christian monastic communities are found mainly in the Orthodox, Catholic, and Anglican communions. Notice how it is built on a ranked, two-level Christianity. There are those who really live it, the real Christian life, and there are the rest of us who live below them, so to speak, in a broken way and we are forgiven, but we’re lesser.
What about Protestants? We are different, but it is also true that we have a similar mindset among us. Someone will say of a particular good work: “That was a Christian thing to do.” Or at a funeral someone will say: “She was a real saint.” What we are doing when we say that is setting up certain levels of living.
There are a few communes and monastic-type Lutheran communities in Sweden, Germany, and even in the US.
Some newer Lutheran hymnals include a list of saints who can be remembered. This fosters the idea that there are certain works which are more Christian than others.
Many of us grew up in a time when if you were really going to be a Christian, you needed to be a missionary, a preacher, or social worker. These were the saintly professions.
Protestants have not been immune from thinking of levels of living that are considered holier and more Christian.
There are several things that should bring us up short when we are inclined to such views.
First, in all religions there are the holy ones.
This is even true in Judaism. We can see in the Old Testament they have their holy ones and saints.
In Islam in the Sufi tradition and in other parts of it there are the saints.
In Buddhism there are the sages and bodhisattvas who are known for their compassion and holiness.
In Hinduism there are Ashrams, which are like monasteries. We have records of people who were ascetic and separated themselves from the world.
It is also true that Christianity can become established and dominant as it has in the West. When the Edict of Toleration was issued in 313 A.D., Christianity was no longer persecuted and it became the established religion. Gradually Christianity and Western culture sort of folded into each other.
It is important to realize that both of these situations (Christianity withdrawing from the world or being folded into the dominant culture) are problems because in fact, Christianity is neither counter-cultural nor conforming to the culture. In both ways we get caught in spiritual pride.
In both ways, the Evil One tricks us into thinking that doing certain good works contribute to our salvation. In both cases we end up in spiritual pride. Both are guilty of thinking: This is the way the Christian life has to look and has to work.
This is spelled out neatly by the Apostle Paul in 1 Cor 4:3-5: “I am not even to judge myself. God alone judges.” We think we’re not supposed to judge others, but the big thing is that we’re not supposed to judge ourselves. We are not the ones who can judge our situation; God alone judges.
There is quite a bit said in Scripture about this. In Luke 18:19 Jesus says: “Why do you call me good? No one is good but God alone.” Jeremiah 17:9 states: “The heart is deceitful above all things and desperately corrupt.” Romans 3:10: “No one is righteous, no, not one. . . no one does good, not even one,” and Paul goes on like that for ten more verses.
Since we are to be neither counter-cultural nor absorbed into the culture, it’s important to get back to the Gospel. This is the theme of the Book of Romans. Romans 1:16-17 states: “The Gospel is the power of God for salvation.”
And what is that? In the next verse, which was Luther’s famous rediscovery of Paul, it says: “The righteousness of God which he gives us.” It is not a righteousness which the Lord demands of us and which he expects us to match up to in some way or another. Luther says that when he read this verse, it was as if a light went on: “The righteousness God gives us.”
Elsewhere Luther says: “The law says, ‘Do this,’ and it is never done. Grace says: ‘Believe in this,’ and everything is already done” (Heidelburg Disputation #26).
The command: “Take up your cross!” is the voice of the law: “Do this.” The cross becomes something we do.
But the cross is God’s doing, God solving the problem of sin and death. As John 19:30 says: “It is finished.” Luther: “Grace says, ‘believe in this,’ and everything is already done.”
Paul puts it like this: “The wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord” (Romans 6:23).
That’s why he took up the cross. That’s why we’re baptized into his death. Through the cross, through Baptism, we are given the free gift of God, eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.
It makes a difference here and now.
First, because of him, there is more to life than whatever is here, “here and now.” There is his kingdom to come.
Second, because of him, we are free “here and now” to live “in his image,” that is, to take up the task of caring for this world with the best wisdom we can muster.
As Luther said, we are perfectly free lords of all, subject to none, and perfectly dutiful servants of all, subject to all, as Luther said (LW 31:344).
We do this by asking: What works? What habits and laws in this time and place make life work? If everyone can steal and have everybody else’s things, I can’t have my own toothbrush. Because of greed and sloth, we need private property, rules, and boundaries.
Knowing we live by forgiveness and because we are totally his, our salvation is taken care of; it is not by our good works. At the same time, we are called to take care of life now, knowing he takes care of life forever. Amen