Putting God First

Readings:
Wisdom 9:13-18
Philemon 9-10, 12-17
Luke 14:25-33

In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

This week, I read a story about a man at the beginning of the process to be considered for sainthood in the Roman Catholic Church. His name was John Bradburne. Bradburne had quite an eventful life. He was a British soldier in World War II, and he was said to have a very aristocratic demeanor, he was a very intelligent man, and he wrote poetry as his avocation, and apparently set a record for the number of poems he wrote. He wrote thousands of poems. He had this artistic sensibility, but there was something missing in his life, something that he wanted to pursue. This was back in the 1970s. He was in his 50s by this time. The country now known as Zimbabwe had been controlled by the British, and it was then called Rhodesia. There was a revolution going on in Rhodesia, to overthrow the government, which they did. Bradburne inserted himself into this whole thing. He asked a British soldier, who was in Rhodesia, is there a cave in that country where I can go pray. This is what he wanted to do. He wanted to go and remove himself from the world and spend his time in prayer. Well, that’s not what he did. What he did instead was, he went to care for people in a leper colony. That’s what he did. There are amazing photographs of him, and it’s just stunning to see this, because it’s so much like what we read about Jesus healing a person with leprosy in the New Testament. And here he is, John Bradburne, this tall, fit looking guy with a long beard and longish kind of hair for the time, with his arm around lepers. That’s what he did. He took care of these people. Eventually, the rebel forces decided they wanted to get rid of him. They kidnapped him, they tortured him, and they shot him to death. Eventually, his body was recovered and he was buried. He was not a priest, he was a lay person. He was a member of the Franciscan order, so he was a monk. One of the things that he had hoped for, for the end of his life, was that he would be buried in his Franciscan habit, which he was. I mention Bradburne because this is something I saw on the news this week, but it reminds me so poignantly of the Gospel message from today.

Our Gospel message from today is something that, at first blush, does indeed sound shocking. In Luke, chapter 14, Jesus says, “if anyone comes to me without hating his mother and father, wife and children, brothers and sisters, and even his own life, he cannot be my disciple.” A little farther down he says, “anyone of you who does not renounce all his possessions cannot be my disciple.” This message does sound shocking. We’re supposed to hate our family? We’re supposed to renounce all our possessions? We’re supposed to give up absolutely everything? What does this mean? That’s what I want to talk about today.

Jesus goes on to tell his listeners to count the cost of discipleship. He uses images to explain this. Somebody who’s going to construct a building has to make sure they have the supplies they need to build the building. He talks about a King, who’s going to go off into battle, to make sure he has enough soldiers to prevail in the battle. Count the cost, He said. So what is He telling his listeners to do? It says, “great crowds were traveling with Jesus, and He turned and addressed them.” And this is what He told them. He told them these things. These people were following Him on His way to Jerusalem. He knows what’s going to happen to Him. He says, “whoever does not carry his own cross and come after me cannot be my disciple.” He hasn’t been hung on the cross yet. He knows what’s coming, and He’s walking willingly towards his fate. He knows what’s going to happen to Him. Remember, He is God. He knows what’s going to happen. He has been telling people in hints and so forth about what’s going to happen to Him. He gave up everything as a human being. As a divine being, both God and man, He knew he was going to suffer a terrible, painful death and He did that willingly. For the sake of His Father, for the sake of the Kingdom of God – and this is what He’s telling these crowds what they have to do. Take up your cross and follow me. So what does that mean? All this shocking sounding language about hating our family, hating our parents, hating our children? Jesus has one point that I think is chief here. He says it in this shocking way, which is characteristic of Jesus. He tells us things in a big picture kind of way, using strong imagery and strong language so that we can understand what he wants to convey. His point: God comes first in the life of a Christian. If He had just said it that way, it would sound kind of prosaic and unsurprising. If He had turned to the crowd and said, you know, God should come first in your life, people would say, well, yeah, sure. But He didn’t say it that way. He said, you have to hate your mother and father, and hate your children, and renounce all your possessions. But that’s what He means, God has to come first in the life of a Christian. That’s a tall order. It’s a tall order and that’s why He uses this strong language. What He’s teaching the people is they have to learn to be detached from this world in order to be citizens and live in the Kingdom of God. We cannot be overly attached to the things that we love in this world. It doesn’t mean, don’t love your parents. It doesn’t mean, don’t love your children. It doesn’t mean you can’t own anything. It does mean, don’t be so attached to these things that God no longer comes first. God has to come first, and that’s what He’s telling us. He uses this strong language to drive home that point that God has to come first.

For the last few weeks, our message has been, in one way or another, about the high price of following God. The price of following God is a high one. We will talk about the reward, too. But the price is a high one. Here, Jesus is saying the price is total. Total commitment is the price. God has to be number one in our lives, before anything else. How is this possible? How can a person do that? It’s normal for us to put ourselves, family, friends, possessions, first. It’s normal. It’s ordinary. That’s our first inclination, to put all those things around us first. That’s our nature. That’s human nature to do that. So what is it that enables us to overcome our human, natural impulses? The answer is: the grace of God. It’s the grace of God that enables us to do these remarkable things, like learn to be detached from all these things that we still do love and still need. It’s the grace of God that gives us the strength to put God first. But there’s a catch. There is a catch. It’s a gift. The grace of God is a gift. That’s what it means. It is the unmerited favor of God. It’s a gift. It’s not something that we earn by being special or important. It’s a gift that God gives us. But I said there’s a catch. To accept this grace, which is a gift, we have to be willing to accept it. And that means we have to be willing to really put God before everything else. In order to receive that gift, we have to be willing to receive it. That’s true about any gift. We have to be willing to receive it.

I was reminded, too, about somebody I talked about recently, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, the German theologian. He wrote a book called “The cost of discipleship” and a key concept there is the idea of costly grace. Cheap grace, he says, is the kind that says, well, everything is okay, I don’t have to do anything different, I’m fine the way I am, I’m okay, everything’s fine. That’s cheap grace. He says that’s not the true grace of God. That’s not what Jesus died for.  Costly grace is something else. Bonhoeffer, in a way similar to Bradburne you could say, Bonhoeffer was a very ardent opponent of the Nazi regime in Germany in the 1930s and 40s, and the Nazis killed him. They put him in a concentration camp and they executed him, because he wasn’t their kind of guy. He was opposed to the injustice of that regime. He understood and lived costly grace. He lived it. He gave himself for it. He gave up everything. Just like John Bradburne gave up everything for the Kingdom of God. We have to be willing to really put God before everything else in order to receive that grace, that costly grace. There’s only one way to accept it and that’s hard. It’s a hard thing to really be willing to put God before everything else. Yes, we can still love our parents, we can still love our children, we can still have the things that we need – but we have to be willing to put God first. And God will do this for us. God will enable us to live that way.

Jesus talked about counting the cost. What’s the reward? Well, we know what the reward is. It’s the beatific vision of God. This was Saint Thomas’ description. It’s heaven, that’s what it is. It’s eternal life with God. It’s being in the presence, the loving presence, of God. This is something that we can experience. It’s something that everyone else can experience. One thing I’ve said over and over again, this is not about just us. It’s about manifesting God’s grace in our lives, so that other people can see it, too. That other people can experience the love and the grace of God. We can spread this grace through our actions and through our commitment to God. Not only us, but everyone else, too, can experience that beatific vision, that imminence of God, that presence of a loving God. Seeing God face-to-face is the way it’s been put. For us, for human beings, there’s nothing more valuable than that and for this reason it’s worth the high cost of discipleship.

Amen.