Thirteenth Sunday after Pentecost September 7, 2025

Prayer of the Day
Direct us, O Lord God, in all our doings with your continual help, that in all our works, begun, continued, and ended in you, we may glorify your holy name; and finally, by your mercy, bring us to everlasting life, through Jesus Christ, our Saviour and Lord. Amen.

Gospel: Luke 14:25-33
25 Now large crowds were traveling with [Jesus], and he turned and said to them, 26 “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. 27 Whoever does not carry the cross and follow me cannot be my disciple. 28 For which of you, intending to build a tower, does not first sit down and estimate the cost, to see whether he has enough to complete it? 29 Otherwise, when he has laid a foundation and is not able to finish, all who see it will begin to ridicule him, 30 saying, ‘This fellow began to build and was not able to finish.’ 31 Or what king, going out to wage war against another king, will not sit down first and consider whether he is able with ten thousand to oppose the one who comes against him with twenty thousand? 32 If he cannot, then while the other is still far away, he sends a delegation and asks for the terms of peace. 33 So therefore, none of you can become my disciple if you do not give up all your possessions.”

Reflections: There’s a preacher known for addressing tough topics in his sermons by saying “if you can’t say ‘amen’, say ‘ouch’. Today is an “ouch day”.

The great paradox at play requires us to take Jesus’ words with utmost seriousness without taking these particular words literally. Plenty of churches justify their true hate, violence and oppression in religious garb and language. Such folk are happy to take a passage like this one literally—and to lose its meaning in the process.

Let’s clear the decks with four sweeping motions to separate what Jesus is and isn’t saying:
First: Jesus’ whole life was resistance against ‘hate’. Remember his instruction to love our enemies?
Second: Jesus isn’t calling us to reject family. Remember his last words as he was tortured to death? He asks John his disciple and Mary his mother to look after each other as family.
Third: A word Jesus uses that means “to regard less” or to relegate. The word “misteu-ow” was mistranslated into the word “hate”.
Fourth: The major arc of Luke’s Gospel traces Jesus’ journey to Jerusalem and into the hands of a coalition of imperial and religious authorities who want to end him. As the crowds are captivated by their ideal of him and by their hopes of all he will do for them, Jesus speaks forcefully about who he is and what he’s about. To follow Jesus doesn’t entail the religious equivalent of a red carpet gala—it means confronting systems of power and social conditions that contradict God’s vision of wholeness and Shalom for everyone.

With the decks cleared somewhat we’re still faced with highly uncomfortable and inconvenient truths about what it means to follow Jesus—the speed bump Jesus tosses out comes in the form of parables about people biting off more than they can chew.

Most interpreters of scripture view the Gospels as instruction and inspiration for faith communities—these days we might says these are words for the whole church to hear.

For instance, when we say we welcome people do we mean it? One Lutheran church in North Minneapolis says right in their website that they do. They’ve kept the major aspects of our worship forms and then taken risks within it. Their website invites all to participate and makes physical and social accommodation for those with special needs.

When we say we share the same reverence for creation that Jesus does, are we ready for that? How seriously do we take the carbon footprint our church buildings and even our make? How many trees do we need felled for our convenient bulletins? How much are we willing to give to programs like the Friends of Creation that seeks to help finance the reversing of climate damage in Chad?

What does it cost us to follow Jesus by working for justice and peace? We get dismissed as ‘woke’ when we object to hateful rhetoric directed at our LGBTQ siblings and our siblings from other countries or races. We might lose friends and when we advocate for just economic conditions for everyone.

The truth is we’re a lot like the first disciples, writing cheques with out mouths that our bodies can’t cash. The Good News is that the arduous path Jesus calls us to doesn’t dead-end at futility. Along the way, we discover our higher selves and that our lives wrapped up in the loving intentions God has held for us all along—the restoration and healing of all things.