TRAVELING LIGHT

Sermon preached by the Rev. Michael Anderson Bullock

[Deuteronomy 30:15-20; Philemon 1-21; Luke 14:25-33]

One of the lessons that I hope the participants in the “Sunday Morning Lectionary Study Group” have learned is clearly illustrated by the gospel lesson for this day.  In our time together, what we have tried to help one another remember is that when our internal Geiger counter red-lines in negative reaction to what scripture presents (in other words, to the stuff we don’t like), rather than dismiss the material out of hand, our negative reaction is actually a sign to us to pay more attention to the passage.  This is to say that the parts of the Bible that refuse to be sanded smooth to meet our standards quite often pan out to be surprisingly – even shockingly – important.

So, if you managed to avoid completely shutting down at the admonition that if we don’t “hate” our parents, our family and even our life itself – not to mention the Lord’s unrealistic-sounding directive that we must sell all that we have before even considering following him – well, if you managed to avoid letting your mind slip into how you might spend the rest of this day, then (together), let’s ask: What is Jesus saying in this gospel?  More to the point, will we stick around long enough to find out?

In this sermon, I hope to offer some assistance to those of us who are still curious about what Jesus is saying and to pose the challenging possibility that his words are actually loving and life-giving.

One toehold to penetrating these hard gospel words lies in the first verse of our reading.  The opening verse resets the context of what, in his 12^th chapter, Luke has been conveying to us all summer long.  The 12^th chapter of Luke’s gospel is all about Jesus heading for Jerusalem and to his life-story’s climax on the cross.  That the opening verse says that “large crowds were traveling with Jesus” simply and descriptively reminds us that Jesus is back on the road again.  He is on the move toward Jerusalem and the culmination of his life and ministry.  All summer, using Luke’s 14^th chapter as our GPS, we have traveled with Jesus; and with him, we have logged some significant mileage, made some necessary pitstops, and also garnered others who are attracted to Jesus and his pilgrimage.

In this, I am reminded of the scene in the movie, Forest Gump, where the enigmatic, emotionally innocent Gump takes to running cross-country, as if he is single-mindedly seeking something “out there” that he needs to find.  In this, his personal odyssey, and in his unswerving devotion to keep moving onward, crowds of people begin to join him.  From all appearances, they assume that the lazer-focused Forest knows something that they don’t know but need to know.  So, the people run with Forest until the movement is so large and intriguing that it makes the national news.  I think that something like this was going on as Jesus made his way to Jerusalem.  “He must know something about the secret to life.  Let’s follow him.  Let’s run with him.”

However, the unrecognized point about Jesus’ journey is that he does know the secret to life.  It’s just not the secret we wish to discover – at least at first blush.

Unlike the quiet, solitary Forest Gump, Jesus regularly speaks to what his journey is about and what it entails, what it costs.  He is constantly revealing the “secret”, speaking about it in terms of the “cost of discipleship”.  And in today’s gospel this is precisely the point at which Jesus sounds so harsh, so demanding, and so unrealistic.

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.  Whoever does not carry the cross and follow me cannot be my disciple.[1]  

(Talk about a hard admissions policy!)

As I said, words like these refuse to be sanded smooth for our convenient handling, which often results in folks like us simply leaving for greener (and easier) pastures.  Yet, not wanting to sidestep the unsmoothable, I, nonetheless, believe that it is important to note that Jesus often speaks in the rabbinic tradition’s mode of exaggeration to make an undeniable point.  Luke conveys Jesus intentionally shocking the crowd (and us, the readers) with the hyperbole of “hating” those closest to us as a way of compelling us to come to grips with the priorities of our life and the costs involved in honoring those priorities.  In this gospel’s context, the singular meaning of “hating” folks we are called to love is to identify and weed out those interests that have the capacity to compete with -- or at least distract us from -- the call of God at the center of who and what we area.  In other words, the truth about life at the center is that there are no “short-cuts”, no interchangeable parts to avoid what the cross represents and what God-in-Christ provides.  In truth, this is the hard news of the Good News.  The letting-go as the prerequisite for new life.

Jesus is on a journey to bear the cross, and his cross is not the neutered, common cliché we so frequently voice for bearing life’s burdens or chronic problems.  Rather, Jesus’ cross entails the confrontation with what so habitually gives shape to our lives: namely, the power of fear and death.  In the cross of Christ, the stunning and counterintuitive reality of life on God’s terms is demonstrated – demonstrated to reveal life which is larger than fear and stronger than death.

So, in terms of today’s admittedly harrowing gospel, what I am suggesting is this.  Perhaps what the hard and off-putting words we hear from Jesus this morning are ironically and actually life-saving and loving wisdom – rules for the road

In considering this, I think of an illustration that comes from the American settlers of the early 19^th century who in their Conestoga wagons headed west in search of a new life and its alluring promises.  Specifically – and (as it turned out) at a high cost, they had to learn how to travel light for that journey.  It is also a lesson we need to embrace in our own lives, a lesson that lies at the heart of the cross.  Following Jesus to the cross requires that we learn how to travel light so that we can reach our destination and goal: specifically, having life that is not defined or controlled by fear and death.

In preparation for their journey west, these settlers organized their move by obtaining Conestoga wagons and oxen to pull them overland – land that was largely uncharted and in fact was overwhelming in many cases.  The Conestoga wagons were distinctively built for demanding land travel.  They were freight haulers: built with a curved, boat-shaped bed to prevent cargo from shifting; large wheels to navigate rough roads; and a white canvas cover for protection from the elements.  These wagons could haul up to six tons of freight, but that reality also required eight yoked oxen to move over good roads.

With great hopes and not a small amount of anxiety, they loaded their families and their belongings onto the wagons.  Many of the items they packed were solid, heavy wooden pieces of legacy furniture.  As they headed into the plains and toward the western hills and mountains, they realized that all that they were carrying was too heavy a load.  If they hoped to make it to the other side, off-loading precious possessions and the inherited memories they contained -- those tangible connections to their past lives and familiar routines – all this would need to be released.

Consequently, the trailways westward were littered with cast-offed items of an out-lived past.  With the experience of the wagon master came the directive to lighten the load.  Such hard, upsetting, painful news was surely not welcomed, but hard emotions notwithstanding, this news was life-saving and fundamentally caring.

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…Whoever does not carry the cross and follow me cannot be my disciple.

In Jesus’ gospel words, what hits us as harsh and too demanding is actually a caring and life-saving directive to reduce (if not eliminate) what pre-occupies us from knowing God’s love and from receiving that life-giving gift.

There is a “Collect of the Day” that we will hear in two weeks’ time.  Its wording is less of an “in-your-face” proclamation than today’s gospel holds, but in its softer approach, the same message applies.

Grant us Lord, not to be anxious about earthly things, but to love things heavenly; and even now, while we are placed among things that are passing away, to hold fast to those that shall endure…[2]

The cross of Christ confronts us with our fear of death in all of death’s demanding forms.  It is this fear that is the last and most important weight we need to jettison in our lives because in jettisoning this fear, we become truly free – free to have the life we need and cannot provide for ourselves; free to have the life God reveals and gives in Christ Jesus our Lord.

So, together, following Jesus and keeping our eyes on the prize, may we keep moving forward.  Thanks be to God.  Amen.

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[1] Luke 14:26-27.

[2] Book of Common Prayer. Collect for Proper 20, p. 234.