Spiritual Message - September 5, 2010
Whoever does not carry his own cross and come after me cannot be my disciple. Luke 14:27

Chapter fourteen of Luke’s Gospel, from which today’s passage is taken, presents a picture of Jesus having a bad day. 

First he is invited to dinner, but the guests are eyeing him with skepticism, ready to trip him up.  He cures a man with a withered hand, but people consider that unseemly work for a Sabbath, much less for a dinner party such as theirs. 

Then he proceeds to tell a story about people jostling for a place of honor at the table, a pretty clear rebuke for the practice he saw unfolding before his very eyes. 

He rebukes his host for not inviting the poor to his table, and finally, he gives a discouraging response to a fellow guest who is trying to make some pious small talk.

Then comes today’s passage.  Jesus looks at the crowd coming after him, and speaks some of the most apparently discouraging words of all.  If any one comes to me without hating his father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters, and even his own life, he cannot be my disciple.  Whoever does not carry his own cross and come after me cannot be my disciple.  (Luke 14:26-27)

Who would want to follow someone with a message like that?  Jesus must think pretty highly of himself to make such demands on his disciples. 

Yet I don’t think the Lord was simply having a bad day, nor that he was trying to turn people away from following him.  Rather, he is being honest and straightforward with those who are drawn to his message and experience its appeal. 

In the following chapter, Jesus will present some of the most heartfelt stories of reconciliation and restoration—the shepherd and his lost sheep, the woman and her lost coin, the father and his lost son.  But Jesus does not hide the price of this reconciliation.  The shepherd puts his life at risk to seek out and find the lost sheep.  The woman labors to turn her house upside down until she finds her lost coin.  And the heart of the father aches as he awaits the return of his wayward son—and deals with the anger of his elder son.

These stories of reconciliation are inseparable from today’s message of the cross.  God does not play games with us, or trick us into following him.  God sought us out and found us, and God’s heart aches as he awaits our free response to his love. 

If we truly want to take our place in the Kingdom, at the table of the Lord, on the way of  discipleship, we will also ache with longing for those who are wandering, lost, and alone. 

“Hating” everything is a harsh way of putting it.  But if we are not ready to despise our own comfort, reputation or standing in order to reach out to the one who is lost, then we will not be able to follow where the Lord is leading us. 

Yet this Lord who calls us is infinitely patient, despising everything else for the sake of one thing—taking up his cross to save us, seeking us out, and aching with love until at last we are found.                               -Fr. Tom