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Now great multitudes went with Him. And He turned and said to them, "If anyone comes to Me, and does not hate his father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters, yes, and his own life also, he cannot be My disciple. And whoever does not bear his cross and come after Me cannot be My disciple. For which of you, intending to build a tower, does not sit down first and count the cost, whether he has enough to finish it -- lest, after he has laid the foundation, and is not able to finish, all who see it begin to mock him, saying, 'This man began to build and was not able to finish.' Or what king, going to make war against another king, does not sit down first and consider whether he is able with ten thousand to meet him who comes against him with twenty thousand? Or else, while the other is still a great way off, he sends a delegation and asks conditions of peace. So likewise, whoever of you does not forsake all that he has cannot be My disciple.
"Salt is good, but if the salt has lost its flavor, how shall it be seasoned? It is neither fit for the land nor for the dunghill, but men throw it out. He who has ears to hear, let him hear!"
- Luke 14:25-35
In Friday's reading, we were told that Jesus was invited to the house of one of the rulers of the Pharisees to eat bread on the Sabbath. There, they watched Him very closely. He asked, "Is it lawful to heal on the Sabbath?" Saturday's reading gave us further events at this Sabbath meal. He also said to him who invited Him, "When you give a dinner or supper, do not ask your friends, your brothers, your relatives, nor rich neighbors, lest they also invite you back, and you be repaid. But when you give a feast, invite the poor, the maimed, the lame, the blind. And you will be blessed, because they cannot repay you; for you shall be repaid at the resurrection of the just." Now when one of those who sat at the table with Him heard these things, he said to Him, "Blessed is he who shall eat bread in the kingdom of God!" Then He said to him, "A certain man gave a great supper and invited many, and sent his servant at supper time to say to those who were invited, 'Come, for all things are now ready.' But they all with one accord began to make excuses. The first said to him, 'I have bought a piece of ground, and I must go and see it. I ask you to have me excused.' And another said, 'I have bought five yoke of oxen, and I am going to test them. I ask you to have me excused.' Still another said, 'I have married a wife, and therefore I cannot come.' So that servant came and reported these things to his master. Then the master of the house, being angry, said to his servant, 'Go out quickly into the streets and lanes of the city, and bring in here the poor and the maimed and the lame and the blind.' And the servant said, 'Master, it is done as you commanded, and still there is room.' Then the master said to the servant, 'Go out into the highways and hedges, and compel them to come in, that my house may be filled. For I say to you that none of those men who were invited shall taste my supper.'"
Now great multitudes went with Him. And He turned and said to them, "If anyone comes to Me, and does not hate his father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters, yes, and his own life also, he cannot be My disciple." My study bible tells us: "God has commanded man to love and honor, not to hate his father and mother. the word 'hate' here represents a Semitic expression used in reference to ultimate commitments. A follower of Christ works for loving relationships toward all, but his commitment to God carries absolute priority over family ties." Let us also note that St. Paul tells parents not to provoke children (see Colossians 3:21, Ephesians 6:4), and that Christ Himself extends the statute against murder to include provocation through name-calling (Matthew 5:22). Before all other relationships, God calls us to live life in a certain way, and gives commands regarding how we are to live those relationships to one another, and even to ourselves and our own lives.
"And whoever does not bear his cross and come after Me cannot be My disciple. For which of you, intending to build a tower, does not sit down first and count the cost, whether he has enough to finish it -- lest, after he has laid the foundation, and is not able to finish, all who see it begin to mock him, saying, 'This man began to build and was not able to finish.' Or what king, going to make war against another king, does not sit down first and consider whether he is able with ten thousand to meet him who comes against him with twenty thousand? Or else, while the other is still a great way off, he sends a delegation and asks conditions of peace. So likewise, whoever of you does not forsake all that he has cannot be My disciple." A note here reads: "Jesus gives several examples of what it means to carry one's cross, the cost of discipleship. To be a disciple means to count the cost, and pay it." The word for disciple means "learner" or "student" in the Greek. As disciples, we watch the Teacher, we learn from His life as He lived it, how He lived it, and this is how we count the cost. Jesus is giving us, in a sense, "barriers to entry" (to use a term from economics) -- what are those things that prohibit us from discipleship? There are certain things that give us this capability, requirements for the capacity to be His students.
"Salt is good, but if the salt has lost its flavor, how shall it be seasoned? It is neither fit for the land nor for the dunghill, but men throw it out. He who has ears to hear, let him hear!" My study bible says, "To recover lost flavor, the true quality of discipleship, is not easy. without it, a disciple becomes as useless as salt without seasoning power." The word my study bible uses here, seasoning "power," is an important word for us to consider. When Jesus speaks of being unable to be a disciple, the root word He uses here for ability denotes "power" or "strength." The potency of the salt is what is important, even essential, for it to perform its task and be worth something. So, as salt, Jesus is asking us to consider our potency, our ability for the task, the strength of commitment to discipleship, as His students.
There are many things that we can see in today's reading, many ways to view what it means to be a disciple, many things to think about. But most of all, what strikes me today is Jesus' emphasis on our own strength or capability. The commitment really has to be "all in." As disciples, we look to His leadership and we have to think about what it means. Certainly His life was committed to this Kingdom. What He had to do He did to please God the Father about the way He lived His life, the commitment He made, the people He took as disciples and trained and sent out as apostles. In each of His healings and miracles, Jesus is careful about how He lives His life in the world, because it is through how He lives that He teaches us what is God-like. And this is what we take as potency, capability, commitment. We don't have to do all the things that Jesus did to be like Him. But we do have to take in how He lived His life. First and foremost is the love of God, and this regulates all else that we have. This is our real strength, that teaches us the how and the what of how we are, in turn, to live our lives. Each one of us cannot be a duplicate of the other, we are not all the same "what." But we do look at the how, at the love of God, the commandments about relationships, discipline, and ultimately justice, to learn what it means to be "like God" and to do likewise. In this way, we become His disciples. It is in His "how" that we count the cost, and make sure we have the ability -- with His help!
