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Pentecost 16, Year C
The Rev. Vicki K.
Hesse,
Director of the
Whitaker Institute,
Episcopal Diocese of
Michigan
Sermon for September 8, 2019
Preached at St. Michael’s
Episcopal Church
Grosse Pointe Woods, MI
Text
here
May the words of my
mouth
and the meditation of
all our hearts
be acceptable to you,
O Lord, our strength
and our redeemer. Amen
Good morning, St. Michaels!
What joy to be with you
again.
My name is The Rev. Vicki
Hesse
and I serve as the
Director of the Whitaker Institute,
the educational arm of
the Diocese.
It is my honor to be
with you today,
thank you for the
invitation!
~~~~~~~~
This Gospel text today
does not seem like the kind of
thing
that would pass for
an effective marketing message
in today’s world.
Come to the church! Woohoo!
Hate your father and
mother!
Pick up your cross!
This is the kind of thing
that could be trending on the
TV show The List:
Ten Reasons Not To Be A
Disciple of Jesus:
10. You have to hate your family.
9. You have to love your
neighbor.
[As the t-shirt says, “thy
homeless neighbor, thy muslim neighbor, thy black neighbor, thy gay neighbor,
thy immigrant neighbor, thy Jewish neighbor, thy Christian neighbor, thy
atheist neighbor, thy addicted neighbor….”]
The smelly neighbor, the
annoying neighbor,
…you get it.
8. You have to pray
unceasingly, give thanks in all things, and with fear and trembling (Thanks,
St. Paul).
7. You have to be last to be
first
6. You have to be the servant
of all the others.
5. You have to listen to
understand rather than being understood.
4. You have to want to share your
feelings, and that means talking to people you don’t know.
3. You have to give up all
your possessions.
2. You have to carry a cross.
1.
The number one reason not to be a disciple?
You have to sacrifice your
life
and everything you love.
Who
wants to sign up? Because this is hard
work!
Nope, this is not a marketing
message
that would be the least bit
attractive in our society.
Which is kind of the point,
here.
Jesus wanted to be clear
with the “large crowds” that
were following him.
He said:
Sit down, estimate the cost.
See if you have what it takes,
he said,
to complete what you
started.
Sit down, consider this:
are able to oppose what stands
between
you and abundant life?
Are you ready to give up all
your “possessions”?
My guess is that after Jesus
described
what it would really take to
be a disciple,
that large crowd traveling
with him
might have dwindled, a bit.
Jesus sharpened the paradox
between loving the world and
loving God
almost to the point of
contradiction.[1]
Like usual, he provoked the
crowd.
That they take stock.
That they realize the depth of
their feelings for this world.
That they let go of their
white-knuckle grip on the
world as they knew it.
That they confront and expose
to question
what they have always held
dear:
family, friends, respect,
winning.
That they face the many little
deaths as life dealt them.
And so he asked them, in not
so many words,
do you know what you are
getting into?”
I mean, do we know what we are getting into?
Think about your baptism.
Did
you know what you were getting into?
Did you have some inkling
about what it meant to be a
disciple of Jesus?
So, a story:
I was baptized as an
adult.
My friend Lynn was getting
baptized
for his 50th
birthday.
Witnessing his baptism
at this little Episcopal
church I had started attending,
the thought occurred to me,
why can’t I be baptized
too?
So at the next available
baptism Sunday, January 6th,
2000,
I was baptized.
Did I know what I was getting
into?
Nope.
No one showed me the caution
tape
around the baptismal font.
No one turned on the neon
lights
about the cost of discipleship.
No colleague parishioner
cautioned me
about transformation.
All of that was glossed over by
my own blindness…
My eye was on the prize:
The love of God that surpasses
all understanding.
The surprise of grace that
drenched me with joy.
The liberation from shame
driven by job loss.
The salve of healing from
wounds of addiction.
The forgiveness for broken
relationships.
The relief of pretense of
living as a heterosexual person.
The life-giving realization that
this new family,
this faith community,
would have my back forEVER.
But I didn’t really know what I was getting into.
Dietrich Bonheoffer[2],
in “The Cost of Discipleship,”
reminds us that,
“Through the call of Jesus,
[we] become individuals and
each [of us] must stand before
Jesus
and fix our eyes on him.
When Christ calls,
he delivers each person
from
the immediacy of the world and
to
the immediacy of Christ. …
This is no slow growth.
This is no progressive
sanctification.
From the call of Christ (our
baptism)
There is no turning back.”
Do
you know what you are getting into?
The crowds were following, and
Jesus turned. Jesus “turned”
– in other words,
he changed his perspective
as a human
and took on God’s loving
stance.
He taught them.
Jesus turned and
showed the large crowds the
caution tape.
He flipped on the neon lights.
He cautioned about
discipleship.
You really want to follow
me?
Okay, here goes, he says.
And he outlined the cost of
discipleship
“that can demand leaving home
and family
and all those whom the disciple
naturally loves best.
Because Jesus himself had left
the home which he loved.”[3]
And here, in this cautionary
teaching,
he demanded then and he
demands now
the “hating” of those people
and possessions
(hate as “putting distance
between”)
whom the disciple (we) loves
most
–
so as to love God in Jesus the most.
For the prize.
He had his sights on the
prize.
“Jesus is inviting us to a
full-bodied Christian faith
that stands over and against
all those things
that are often presented to us
as “life” by our society”[4]
as what makes for success: accumulation,
reputation,
and security ”[5]
See, Jesus turned, and he showed
them, loved them and
reminded them
over and over
about the caution tape
since the beginning of his ministry.
And this is why Jesus mades
his own sacrifice,
of course,
so that it need not be about our
choices
or our willingness, even.
Because Jesus assures us of
God’s love and forgiveness.
Because God’s promise of life
is always in front of us.
And God’s unconditional love
frees
us to be a disciple with grace.
Because God’s love endures for
ever.
Because God’s love is stronger
than death.
Because nothing, “…neither
death, nor life, nor angels,
nor rulers, …, nor powers, …,
nor anything else in all creation,
will be able to separate us
from the love of God in Christ
Jesus our Lord.”[6]
…. And in turning, Jesus
reminded them
and us
that in “becoming a disciple,”
you will know, and he
promised,
God’s ever faithful love.
That love will set you free.
That love will lighten your
load.
That love will cost you your “life.”
Remember, at our baptism
we renounce Satan, the
spiritual forces of wickedness,
the evil powers of the world
and sinful desires.
And we turn to Jesus Christ – as he turned to us –
and we accept him as our
Savior,
putting our whole trust in his
grace and love
and promising to follow and
obey him.
So in our baptism, it is,
as Bonhoeffer wrote,
a “fait accompli with Christ and in Christ,”
that we live a Way of Love.
And in this Way of Love,
we become a new family,
a new community,
a new people.
So in this fellowship,
we live with the promise and
guarantee
of the love of God for
EVER.
By the grace of God and the
work of Jesus Christ,
we too live in a new fellowship.
With God’s help, we can give
up all our possessions.
With God’s help, we can make
the sacrifice that is love.
For
Love is one thing that only grows when it is given away.
Turn today, my siblings in
Jesus and accept that call.
You do know what you are
getting into.
God knows what you are getting
into.
And, it is a fait accompli
that Jesus will use you.
Jesus will take your life,
your love, your all.
That’s the prize of discipleship.
Amen
[2] Dietrich Bonhoeffer, The Cost of
Discipleship, (New York, Simon and Schuster, 1937, First Touchstone Edition
1995) p. 94-101
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