Pentecost XIV, Proper 18, Year C

Deuteronomy 30:15-20
Philemon 1-20
Luke 14:25-33

Traditionally the Presidential election does not really kick into high gear until this week. We've clearly dumped that tradition. The ferocity of the campaign in August suggests that the next couple of months will be quite unpleasant. The level and the tone of discourse thus far is profoundly distressing. Like you, I love my country and remain full of hope.

I have hope in part because vitriol, calumny, dissembling have been a part of presidential elections since George Washington left the White House, though there's definitely some ebb and flow. Nonetheless, our democracy could use a big dose of civility now. For Christians, this has many implications, two of which I mention briefly.

First, we should recognize that our Lord does not have a political party. He didn't have one two thousand years ago, and he certainly is not a Democrat or a Republican today. That'd be a great slander, a blasphemy. Faithful Christians will disagree about who should be the President, and it is not our place to condemn one another ever, and in particular about for whom they choose to vote.

Second, we should recognize our Christian call in this election, and in every election: live by the Spirit. S. Paul tells the Galatians, the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. (Gal 5:22-23) That must characterize our behavior, even if we don't find much of that from the campaigns. No matter what the stakes, Christians try to abide in the Spirit.

Besides having concerns about the civility of the campaign, I'd be willing to bet the farm that neither candidate will ask major sacrifices from us. We might be told that we need to sacrifice - in general terms, but there will be no real specifics about it. No one is going to propose re-instituting the draft or broadly raising taxes or cutting social security or limiting oil consumption or scaling back subsidies. The last major presidential candidate to do something that foolish had his head handed to him. Twenty years ago, Walter Mondale told us that he'd raise our taxes. What political incompetence! Ronald Reagan, of course, had to raise taxes, but he was not so reckless as to talk about it during the campaign.

In our market culture, politicians sell themselves by making promises not of what you'll give up, but of what you'll get, and the promises are often outlandish, Panglossian, contradictory. Can you imagine a serious presidential candidate saying, "I'm going to increase the number of hours you work and cut back on the benefits you receive from government - Medicare, educational funding, road construction, police and fire protection. I'm going to pursue policies that reduce your standard of living, that make your mortgage payments higher, even to the extent that you have to leave your homes. I'm going to require that you part with much more of your wealth. I'm going to set up initiatives that will require you to be separated from your family. I'm going to make you put your life on the line." If you are a Bush or a Kerry supporter, you'd love the other guy to start talking that way.

That's the way Jesus talked. His message is: "If you want to follow me, to follow God's way, you have to renounce your wealth, to hate your family, to receive abuse, to suffer and die." God's ways are not our ways. Jesus is very clear about warning the crowds that following him is no casual endeavor. When we have confirmation here in this parish, when adults receive the strengthening gifts of the Holy Spirit and commit their lives to following Jesus, the Bishop lays his hands on the confirmand's head, prays for the coming of the Holy Spirit on this person, anoints with chrism, and then slaps the newly confirmed Christian on the cheek. It's a gentle slap, but the point is not. Being a Christian is not easy. Discipleship, following Christ, being faithful, has a cost.

The central section of Luke's gospel is a travel narrative. At the end of chapter 9, Jesus is in Galilee, and he sets his face toward Jerusalem, where he arrives in chapter 19. Jesus is going up to Jerusalem, to the place of his agony and death. As we heard in today's gospel, Jesus has many followers, who eagerly join him because they think of Jesus as a worldly politician, someone who will give them what they want - not what they need. The crowds are flocking to him, but when he does not fulfill the crowd's desires, when the crowds finally get the message that following Christ requires real sacrifice, they desert him. Jerusalem is a place of abandonment and death for Jesus.

As he's going up to Jerusalem, Jesus senses the coming conflict and suffering, and he cautions the crowd against their ignorant enthusiasm. The crowds don't understand what they're following. In today's gospel, Jesus is saying, "Do you really want to follow me? Are you willing to pay the cost?"

Probably the most shocking thing to our ear is Jesus' demand that we must hate our father, our mother, our wife, our children, our brothers and sisters, and our own life. S. Matthew records the same saying from Jesus, but puts it better for us: "Whoever loves father or mother more than me is not worthy of me. . ." (Mt. 10:37) Luke's use of the word 'hate' derives from a Semitism meaning to turn away from, to detach yourself from. It's not a vicious, emotional loathing. God doesn't ever want that from us.

The way of Jesus is the way of love, and he's not telling us to hate anyone. We're not supposed to hate ourselves. Indeed, Jesus tells us to love not only our neighbor, but also our enemy, persecutor, and slanderer. Love is always the primary Christian imperative, and it is so because the demands of Christ take precedence over all other demands in life. That's the point he's making in today's gospel. Our primary allegiance, above all things, is to Christ. If we are faithful followers, faithful disciples, then all of our relationships are secondary to our relationship with Christ. And our relationship with Christ transforms our relationships. We still love our father, and mother, and spouses, and children, but now we love them as Christ loved us - not loving to get something back, but loving because loving is its own reward. We also try to love those who don't love us, including those who treat us disrespectfully and spitefully.

Our decision and efforts to try to love everyone, including those who offer us nothing in return, including those who treat us poorly, is bearing the cross. This is the Christian lifestyle. It is a choice we make, a challenge we accept, a way we walk. This is the purpose of life. The cross of Jesus is not something that happens to us, not something we consider to be bad fortune. The cross of Jesus is not a disappointment, an illness, a sadness, bad luck. The cross of Jesus is something we choose to take up and bear, and we do our best to bear it through fortune and misfortune.

Bearing our cross is the cost of discipleship. In today's gospel, Jesus warns us, "Size up the cost of discipleship. Size up the cross. Do not casually accept it." But as we size up the cost, let's also consider that nothing else worth anything. For if we're not Christians, if we don't bear our cross, ultimately we have nothing.

This point struck me recently as I read of review of a new biography about Joe Namath, the legendary quarterback of the New York Jets, one of the most celebrated athletes of his day, the biggest apple in the Big Apple. Broadway Joe had everything the world tells us we need: success, money, fame, adulation, and a very active social calendar. Jonathan Yardley writes, "[Namath] brought show biz to football and ultimately to all professional sports." ⁽¹⁾ In other words, he was instrumental in making the NFL, and professional sports, the most popular idol in our society. In his day, few seemed more with it, more hip, more envied - a bon vivant extra ordinaire. Yardley reports, "Now in his early sixties, [Namath] travels the Joe Louis circuit, a has-been jock picking up gigs as a TV pitchman or an actor on the straw-hat trail." ⁽²⁾ Broadway Joe hasn't had much of a second act. In the eyes of the world, he's washed up: from A-list celebrity to object of pity.

From what Yardley writes, Namath seems a likeable guy with some real virtues as well as some weaknesses. In other words, he's like each of us: some good, some bad. His story, however, depressed me. It made me wonder whether Namath has become a Christian. If he only has his worldly fate, if the arc of his career is everything to him, then he's a mess. He no longer has stunning fame and fortune to divert him from the ultimate realities of existence. If he's a Christian, then he sees through the lies of worldly values. He knows he's not a failure, but a beloved child of God, growing into what God wants him to be. If he's a Christian, he knows that he's not a circus act curiosity, but a noble, dignified person.

One of the ways God transforms our lives when we follow Christ is we know our inherent dignity, our infinite value to him. There's more to life than the surface. Character is far more important than fortune and fame. You read about Namath's life, and you know that he's had a lot of pain and suffering, and you just want that pain and suffering to mean something. It does if you are a Christian. The cost of following Jesus, of choosing to bear the cross, is heavy. It's all or nothing. But giving everything to God and accepting the cross is infinitely better than the pain and suffering of life without purpose.

+ In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

1. Jonathan Yardley, review of Namath: A Biography, The Washington Post, "Book World," 22 August 2004, p. 2,

2. Ibid.