Not Too Difficult?
Luke 14:25-35[1]
Like many of you, I do love a challenge. I’ve recently
decided to start taking guitar lessons again. I took them 20 years ago, and
learned to play guitar solos from classic rock songs and chord melodies from
Jazz standards. Over 20 years, you can forget a lot. It’s a bit humbling to
start over again, but that’s life. I’ve tried to keep up on my own, but you
just learn more, and more quickly, when you have a teacher you have to meet
with on a regular basis. I’ve always been that way about loving a challenge. I
took all the “hardest” professors in college, just to prove to myself I could.
I’ve tried to read the books that have been considered “difficult.” And in the
middle of working on my PhD dissertation, I took my family to Germany for a
year of study abroad. One of the reasons I did that is because one of my
professors encouraged me to do so. He believed I would be up for the challenge.
Some, perhaps many, might call taking a wife and two small children overseas
“crazy” rather than stepping up to a challenge. But for me, it made a
significant difference in my ability to step outside the box I had been living
in when I was working in the Baptist world. I don’t regret that, and I don’t
think I’ll ever regret rising to a challenge.
In our Scripture lesson from Deuteronomy for today, Moses
encourages the people of Israel that the challenge of obeying God’s commands
and following God’s ways was not “too difficult” for them. Rather, he urged
them to follow the inclinations of their hearts. He believed that if they only
followed the voice inside that was telling them what was right, they would be
able to live up to the challenge he presented to them. Unfortunately, the
history of the people of Israel demonstrates that it’s not quite that simple.
Because along with the voice of conscience telling us what is right to do, we
all have other voices. Especially the voice that tells us to do whatever we
please. It’s a voice that tells us to take the easy way out and just avoid
having to do what’s difficult. Then Jesus came along and did the most difficult
thing. He gave up his life in obedience to God’s will, and then he called us to
follow him in that same path! I’m not sure we always fully appreciate just how
difficult that is for us to do in our daily lives.
I think our Gospel lesson from Luke illustrates that
difficulty. The call to follow Jesus is one that demands that we shape our
whole identity based on the kingdom of God. It’s a call to a way of life that
defines all of life. Of course, none of us starts out there in our faith
journey. Most of us start out simply hoping to have a better life here, and in
the afterlife a home in heaven. But Jesus spoke about something more: about the
kingdom of God that is in the process of changing all things and all people
here and now. Most of us don’t start out with that in mind. If we continue to
seek God’s kingdom, however, we will have to face a call that claims our whole
lives, just like it did Jesus’ life.
One of the reasons why this can be difficult for us is
because we don’t have to face the likelihood that following Christ will mean
the loss of family ties, being cast out of our circle of friends, or even being
stripped of the means of making a livelihood. We celebrate the fact that in
this country we’re free to embrace our faith without suffering the hardships
that many people have suffered for Christ throughout history, and many others
still suffer to this day. It’s good to have the freedom to worship according to
our conscience. But I think it makes it harder for us to appreciate how
difficult it is to follow as our “Savior” and our “Lord” one who suffered a humiliating
death.
I believe our Gospel lesson for today places this question
front and center. In fact, it’s hard to avoid when you read this passage and
really listen to it. It’s one of the hardest things Jesus ever said. Some of
what Jesus says here about what it means to follow him can sound pretty harsh
to us. Because of the difficulty of this passage, it’s easy to miss the
“forest” for the “trees.” I think the point is that Jesus is calling us to
shape our whole identity, from the roots up, around our commitment to following
him and to seeking God’s kingdom. It’s a call to a way of life that defines all
of life. And that means being willing to “leave everything behind,” at least to
let go of it in our hearts.
Right off the bat we hear the challenge: Jesus says,
“Whoever comes to me and does not hate father and mother, wife and children,
brothers and sisters, yes, and even life itself, cannot be my disciple” (Lk
14:26)! Cannot be my disciple! It’s just plain jarring to hear. As is often the
case with difficult passages of Scripture, we have to look elsewhere to gain
the proper perspective. I don’t believe that Jesus wanted anyone to literally
“hate” their families, or that he wanted anyone to literally “hate” themselves.
But I would say that we have plenty of evidence that the Christians for whom
Luke’s Gospel was intended actually went through this kind of thing. Their
choice to follow Jesus literally put them at odds with their families. Their
choice to follow Jesus meant they had to leave everything behind.[2]
Jesus follows this up with another hard demand, “Whoever
does not carry the cross and follow me cannot be my disciple” (Lk 14:27). For
us, the cross is a symbol of our faith. We decorate it with flowers and make
jewelry out of it. But no one in the First Century would have made jewelry out
of a cross. It would make about as much sense as making jewelry out of a
hangman’s noose. There was nothing “pretty” about the cross in the First
Century. We’re familiar with the sentiment of “taking up our cross,” because
Jesus had earlier called those who would follow him to “deny themselves and
take up their cross daily and follow me” (Lk 9:23). I’m just not sure we
understand what it means for us to take up our cross. After telling them that
his path of seeking God’s kingdom was going to lead him to die on the cross, he
called them to follow a similar path. He called them to “take up your cross
daily.” Again, I think this brings us back to what it will cost us to follow
Jesus: our very lives, and more than that, all of life.
Perhaps even more difficult for us is that Jesus sums up
what it means to follow him by saying, “none of you can become my disciple if
you do not give up all your possessions” (Lk 14:33). This is not so much
offensive as it seems downright impossible. Who can afford to give up
everything they own? But perhaps the idea here is broader than just our
“possessions.” Some translations say, “none of you can be my disciple unless
you give up everything you have” (GNT). That’s the way older versions
translated this passage. I think it’s more to the point: Jesus calls us to
leave everything behind just as he did the first Apostles (Lk 5:11, 18). I
think that means holding everything we have “loosely,” recognizing that it belongs
to God anyway, and holding it with the freedom of offering it all back to God
to use however he pleases. Jesus calls us to a way of life that defines all of
life. And that means letting go of everything else. We may still “have” it, but
we don’t “hold” it so tightly. It doesn’t define us.
I don’t believe that Jesus wanted anyone to literally
“hate” their families or themselves. That makes no sense! I also don’t believe Jesus
expected everyone who follows him to literally become a martyr for their faith,
although many have done so. I believe that Jesus made the shocking statements
in this passage to make clear that the kind of demands it would take for people
to follow him would claim their whole lives. He was calling people to shape
their whole identity based on the way of living he demonstrated for them. And
he said that it was nothing short of leaving everything behind for the sake of
the kingdom of God. And he used the shocking language of this passage to
impress upon all who would follow him how difficult it would be to actually do
that.
Jesus calls us to a way of life that defines all of life.
And here we learn that “leaving everything behind” to follow Jesus applies not
just to the first disciples, but to us all. That’s difficult for us to hear. We
begin our faith journey hoping that it will make for a better life for us. When
we hear something like this it may sound like Jesus is taking all that away.
Because it doesn’t fit in with our approach to faith, we may be tempted to
ignore it. But we cannot do that! Although they are difficult for us to hear, I
believe we must pay attention to Jesus’ demands in this passage. The fact that
they are so difficult for us to hear today, and they probably always will be,
makes this passage so important. They create a tension that I think is purposeful
on Jesus’ part. It was meant to draw us continually deeper into our commitment
to following Christ. I’ve been reading this passage personally, professionally,
and academically for over 40 years, and it continues to challenge me to this
day. I hope it continues to challenge you as well. I think that’s the point: these
demands continually call us to follow Jesus in a way of life that defines all
of life. That means continually learning what it means for us to leave
everything “behind,” to let everything go, for the sake of the kingdom of God! Perhaps
Moses was right in that this means we have to seek to put into practice what
our hearts are telling us is right, even and especially when the whole world
may be telling us it’s wrong! But despite what Moses said about it being “not too
difficult” for us, I think that’s always going to be difficult.
[1] ©
2025 Alan Brehm. A sermon delivered by Rev. Alan Brehm PhD on 9/7/2025 for
Hickman Presbyterian Church, Hickman, NE.
[2] Cf.
Jürgen Moltmann, The Way of Jesus Christ, 204, where he expresses
the value of the decision to follow Jesus in discipleship: “Anyone who
participates in ‘Christ’s sufferings’” becomes a witness “to the coming truth
against the ruling lie, to coming justice and righteousness against the prevailing
injustice, and to coming life against the tyranny of death.” This by definition
sets those who follow him at odds with the current status quo.
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