Come over here, Jesus. It’s ok to be a little contradictory once in a while, but this is the kind of talk that will crash your site. Telling people to hate their families and even their own lives to get behind you? No more love everybody like you love yourself? Besides the risk of looking like a charismatic cult leader, people are going to drop you faster than hot grease. Sometimes you’ve got to give a little to get a little, but with this talk you’re headed to a big fat zero.

You say dial it down? It’s happened already. People have read this as just Middle Eastern hyperbole, exaggerated language to emphasize the point. Jesus used it plenty. So instead read/hear it like love your family a little less than God, or love in proportion to the love you have for God. Maybe prefer God over family is more palatable. Take out the emotion and turn it into a loyalty statement. Better?

Even so, don’t miss how just before Jesus said this, he’d stopped in his tracks and turned around to face the crowds following him.

Crowd Control

For some time now, Jesus had been on his way to Jerusalem. Throngs of people were behind him on the road, likely all kinds, the wealthy as well as the impoverished. They had their reasons, but you can’t ignore the fact that between his teachings they heard like nowhere else and the impossible healings that came straight out of heaven, he was a success.

The general feeling was Jerusalem was going to be the place where Jesus would take over, change was coming, the best was yet to be with him in charge. Who wouldn’t get behind that? In turning around, facing the crowd instead of forging ahead, Jesus’ words took on an emphasis that gave challenge to what was coming.

Hate your family, even your own life, Jesus says. It was enough to make most persons catch their breath, but his next words were excessive. “Whoever does not carry the cross and follow me cannot be my disciple.” Forget the auras painted around church crosses you see today. These people only saw crosses stained in blood and torture. Stare at that for a few moments.

Up front, Jesus was telling them to prioritize their values. The harshness of his words, renounce what you’ve held dear in life, feel wrong. Cross carrying, suffering for Jesus’ cause, is that what’s up ahead? Did they not realize where this kind of leader would lead them to?

Jesus slashed through his success quota with this kind of statement. Clearly, morphisms crafted to sustain his popularity weren’t in his game. His call to let go of anything that holds back in following him though has a balm. To hang on to your family as much as your possessions makes your kin no more than your stuff. The quality of your love then hangs in the balance. Are they really just your trophies, a well-shot portrait of what you want people to see? So much for family values.

Count the Cost

Actually, Jesus was being fair even as what he said was radical. Two stories he tells present an interesting analogy. One involved the construction of a tower while another presented consideration of a military campaign. Both the builder and the king begin by sitting down. Sit, stop, calculate your expenses. If you don’t have enough financing or well-armed forces, your efforts risk failure, shame, catastrophe.

To continue on this journey to Jerusalem would be a calculated risk, maybe even the price of one’s own life. Jesus wanted them to give informed consent, not blind obedience based in misplaced enthusiasm. Only with that realization would they be able to finish, not just follow, but follow through.

In all, Jesus’ warning was not only for them. Rather, he wanted them to live into the passion he had for God and the primacy it carried.  On a personal level though, he was preaching to himself. Modeling behavior can be limited. He needed to be the real thing both for them and for himself.

“No one can be my disciple without giving up everything for me.”

Can’t get any clearer than that: everything. Only in the relinquishing of whatever entanglements life-chains place on you is it possible to get behind Jesus. True, it’s extreme, not just a weekend hobby. How far does it reach? Possessions can be downsized, greed rejected, overabundance shunned, but this may mean being dependent on the hospitality, generosity of others for basic needs. Relationships may require the “talk” that defines where your values take you. Doors shut in your face hurt. Political views, power structures, privileged living require a discarding so as to align with faith dependent on the movement of God to bring change, to save the world. Too much? One last thing: exchange one’s identity for that of Jesus. No personality types, personal preferences, ambitions, dreams, concepts of self including sexuality get an excused pass. Yeah, he meant everything. There’s your heavy cross.

The Scandal

The Trouble with Jesus is his scandalous rhetoric doesn’t permit domestication of lifestyle covered with a veneer of religion. There’s no “what’s in it for me” in this kind of cost benefit calculation, no column for it on your spreadsheet. Jesus doesn’t need, indeed won’t even risk weak and timid backers on this road. They’d never survive, certainly wouldn’t be an asset.

But cross carrying isn’t total loss. Jesus invested his life in a cross so his followers could follow through it. While the final tally may show heavy debits, the bottom line more than balances the account. He bought into those who come with him so to give a full, abundant new life.

Can you afford otherwise?

Luke 14:25-33