LK 14: 25-35 

Laterally Luke…Pentecost + 13…Revised 2019

Jesus’ followers are to be a new kind of family going beyond our traditional ideas of family. When He speaks of ‘hating’ family (in His native Aramaic) English can’t cope with it. Leon Morris suggests: ‘the love the disciple has for Jesus must be so great the best of earthly loves is hatred by comparison’.¹  Understanding what Jesus says in this way may help us develop our passage.

It’s all about us ‘counting the cost’. No-one knows the cost of loving as Jesus does. He uses carrying His cross / our cross, building towers, going to war, ‘saying good-bye’²  to everything that belongs to us, &, then, salt, to illustrate this love we’re to have for YHWH God & each other. Will we try to preach the whole passage, or choose from the above, or other options?

Jesus warns us the cost of warring within our families, other relationships, or on the wider scale will be a cross costing us peace with each other & peace with God! Look at a family portrait; do we see anyone we’re ‘waging war’ on - or vice versa? When we look at our congregation do we see  a ‘Simon of Cyrene’ or two who stand out as helping the rest of us bear our varying crosses? Can we encourage cross-bearers, & others, too, to take up their crosses & help others of us take up ours? 

Warfare is more sophisticated today than depending on building towers - to be prepared to attack from, or take refuge in. Personal lives, too are likely to be more sophisticated. Jesus’ imagery, though, still holds good. We still need to be prepared for what might face us on all fronts. In our churches, &, on the wider scene all round us. Are there, though, defensive 'towers' of various kinds we don't ever need to build, let alone cost, before we go to war against anyone, in any sense? For instance, are we prone to start projects, building, or otherwise, without counting the cost to God, our-selves, or others?

The books of LEV & NUM prescribe salt - an expensive item then - as a sacramental sign of covenant between God & us. Temple Sacrifices were to be offered with salt. Dare we think of the very salt on our tables as a ‘Sacrament’? A daily outward & visible sign of the inward & spiritual grace we experience when we keep covenant with God as God covenants with us? We are to be as genuine as God is, or we’re being worthless. Though this sounds harsh, it is Jesus saying so. We need to take it on board & tease out what it may mean in our case - for our church & the wider community.

Brian

Afterthought: One I’ve made before, but regarding carrying the cross, Kosuke Koyama makes the point that a cross has no handle. Carrying such an awkward thing can’t ever be convenient or comfortable, & is always a one-way trip! (No Handle on the Cross, SCM, 1976)

¹ Luke, IVP, London, 1974, p.236   ²  Complete Gospels ad loc.