Our first reading comes from the hebrew scripture – we are reading Psalm 1
Psa. 1:1 The truly happy person
doesn’t follow wicked advice,
doesn’t stand on the road of sinners,
and doesn’t sit with the disrespectful.
2 Instead of doing those things,
these persons
love the LORD’s Instruction,
and they recite God’s Instruction
day and night!
3 They are like a tree
replanted by streams of water,
which bears fruit at just the right time
and whose leaves don’t fade.
Whatever they do succeeds.
Psa. 1:4 That’s not true for the wicked!
They are like dust
that the wind blows away.
5 And that’s why the wicked
will have no standing
in the court of justice—
neither will sinners
in the assembly of the righteous.
6 The LORD is intimately acquainted
with the way of the righteous,
but the way of the wicked is destroyed.
Our second reading comes from the Gospel according to Luke, reading from chapter 14, verses 25 through 33.
Luke 14:25 Large crowds were traveling with Jesus. Turning to them, he said, 26 “Whoever comes to me and doesn’t hate father and mother, spouse and children, and brothers and sisters—yes, even one’s own life—cannot be my disciple. 27 Whoever doesn’t carry their own cross and follow me cannot be my disciple.
Luke 14:28 “If one of you wanted to build a tower, wouldn’t you first sit down and calculate the cost, to determine whether you have enough money to complete it? 29 Otherwise, when you have laid the foundation but couldn’t finish the tower, all who see it will begin to belittle you. 30 They will say, ‘Here’s the person who began construction and couldn’t complete it!’ 31 Or what king would go to war against another king without first sitting down to consider whether his ten thousand soldiers could go up against the twenty thousand coming against him? 32 And if he didn’t think he could win, he would send a representative to discuss terms of peace while his enemy was still a long way off. 33 In the same way, none of you who are unwilling to give up all of your possessions can be my disciple.
The word of God for the people of God.
Thanks be to God.
A few weeks back, when Stephanie and I spent a week working at Montreat, I was having a conversation with one of the other small group leaders. We were discussing the oddities of generations, generational labels we assign to different groups and the quote norms of each generation.
At most times in history there are 7 living generations. Currently those are The Greatest Generation (born 1901–1927), The Silent Generation (born 1928–1945), Baby Boomers (born 1946–1964), Generation X (born 1965–1980), Millennials (born 1981–1995), Generation Z (born 1996–2010), & finally Generation Alpha (born 2011–2025)
As the conversation went on we talked about how each generation has certain expectations of others, and communicates with others in specific ways. Each generation has a particular understanding that is attached to it. Based on most determiners of how the generations are calculated I am part of Gen X – sometimes called the forgotten generation. From the greatest generation & the silent generation, to the baby boomers, Gen X to Millennials, and on to Gen Z and Gen Alpha we are all human, we are all related, but often we get lost in arguments that come down to differences in communication and style. In Gen X we speak baby boomer, our parents language, and we speak millennial, our siblings language – but we are not part of either one. I believe the same is likely true of most of us. We understand the language of the groups on either side of our own but jump more than that and there will be some communication challenges.
I remember the 80’s and the 90’s. I remember that time, those movies and the music that comes from them with great fondness. I am also fully aware that my parents and my grandparents feel a similar fondness for the music and media that defined their generations.
From the swing music of Count Basie and Cab Calloway, to the folk of Peter, Paul, and Mary, & Simon and Garfunkel – from the rock and roll of the Rolling Stones and David Bowie – to bands like Alice in Chains, or Nirvana, Joywave or Little Nas X – the music and media of each generation helps define its language and the ways in which it communicates.
In recent years there has been significant ink spilled over the disagreements between Baby Boomers and Millennials. There has been additional coverage about challenges between Gen Z and baby Boomers. All in all there has been lots of ink spilled hyping up conflicts that do not serve any purpose other than to divide people.
I get it, Conflict sells. In the movie Switching Channels, a 1988 remake a 1928 play – a story that could resonate with the both the Greatest Generation, Baby Boomers & Gen X – the cable news editor tells one of the channel programmers, find me a fire or a war, everytime there isn’t conflict on screen, I can hear a 1000 people changing the channel. You don’t have to look any further than the headlines of any print newspaper to see that conflict is what they lead with. Pull up your favorite news site – whether on tv or a website and see what the biggest stories are. Conflict, in some way, shape, or form, seems to be the common element.
The root of these conflicts between generations seems to come down to a problem with communication – it could be challenges with the communication of expectations, a difference in communication styles, or a difference in how we choose to communicate, but at the root – communication is a primary factor in the challenges between generations.
How we communicate, the methods we use to communicate, how we use words and how we intend them to be received shifts over time. It also changes for each generation. For example, the connotations and understanding of certain words are hugely different throughout history. Ever wonder why “awesome” means excellent but “awful” means really bad when they both derive from “awe”? In Old English, awe meant “fear, terror or dread.” From its use in reference to God the word came to mean “reverential or respectful fear.” By the mid-1700s, awe came to mean solemn and reverential wonder, tinged with fear, inspired by the sublime in nature—such as thunder or a storm at sea. Originally, awful and awesome were synonymous, but by the early 19th century, awful absorbed the negative aspects of the emotion and the word was used to mean frightful or exceedingly bad. The earliest citation in the Oxford English Dictionary for awesome meaning “marvelous, great; stunning or mind-boggling” is from the Official Preppy Handbook, 1980. Just like our words the cultural impact of our surroundings and the cultural reference points we use to communicate change over time.
In his sermon “Sinners in the hands of an Angry God” written in 1741, Jonathan Edwards uses fire – a common and understood, if feared, tool – as a way of describing the pain of separation from God and how that affects humans on an eternal scale. He references a wrath of God that burns, a fire made ready, a furnace that is hot, and flames that rage and glow. If we were to update Edward’s language for today, we might talk about enforced solitude, or the inability to communicate no matter how hard you try and how that separates us from one another and from God.
In the 1700’s – fire was probably one of the most common touchpoints culturally. Everyone had interaction with fire. They used it. It was in every house, either in the kitchen or candles or lamps. But fire wasn’t considered to be tame. Kitchens were outside of the home in separate buildings, to keep the risk to the living quarters at a minimum. In towns, when one house caught fire, it often resulted in far more than just one house catching fire. Unlike today, fire was on everyone’s mind daily. By comparison in the current era, we might have a fire pit in our yard, or we might build a fire when we go camping. Fire is more commonly a luxury and something to be enjoyed, not something that might have, in recent memory, taken homes and lives.
At its core, the message of Edwards’ sermon is not about hell or about fire but rather that – we are or have been separated from God and the choices we make can and do exacerbate that separation. Edward’s used language that would have been shocking to his congregation to drive that point home. The challenge for us reading it 300 years later comes as we try to understand what he was articulating – that is – if we understand the separation from God as fire that consumes and destroys everything in its path, or if we update the words and understand that separation from God as isolation where we cannot communicate. In either case the separation is all consuming. Different words – different ways of communicating.
All of this is to bring us back to today’s passage. Right at the beginning Jesus says to the people traveling with him “Whoever comes to me and doesn’t hate father and mother, spouse and children, and brothers and sisters—yes, even one’s own life—cannot be my disciple. Whoever doesn’t carry their own cross and follow me cannot be my disciple.
I did a lot of reading in preparation to write this week’s sermon. There was quite a bit about this passage that made me pause. The Jesus I know and love cannot be telling me to hate, can he? What I found was that there was a rhetorical device, a use of language intended to have an effect on its audience, that was common to the era in which Jesus was teaching. That technique was to put things in exaggerated or extreme contrast to each other as a way of highlighting their differences. This was done as a way of pulling out a deeper meaning. Ok. Even with that knowledge this passage still uses language that is a lot to take in and what Jesus says seems like a pretty steep ask. You want me to hate? – that doesn’t seem to make sense… Next, I went to look at the Greek. The word Luke used in the gospel writings can mean hate, but it can also mean “to regard with less affection, love less, or to esteem less”.
To regard with less affection – This starts to make more sense if we translate the passage as “Whoever comes to me and doesn’t regard with less affection their own father and mother, spouse and children, and brothers and sisters—yes, even their own life— than they regard God – they cannot be my disciple. Whoever doesn’t carry their own cross and follow me cannot be my disciple.
Another translation, the Message paraphrase, by Eugene Peterson translates this passage “Anyone who comes to me but refuses to let go of father, mother, spouse, children, brothers, sisters—yes, even one’s own self!—can’t be my disciple. Anyone who won’t shoulder his own cross and follow behind me can’t be my disciple.
I feel like the words are still somewhat turned around. Perhaps if we restate this in a more positive way – Jesus might be understood as saying to everyone – following me is hard. You need to love God more than you love anything else – your father and mother, your spouse and children, your brothers and sisters, even your own life. Loving God means being willing to carry your own cross, wherever that may lead. If you cannot do those things, you cannot be my disciple.
Loving Jesus means considering how the choices we make will reflect the work that we have been asked to take on. The way we communicate those beliefs and intentions tells the world who and what we are. The work of discipleship is the work of building the kin-dom. It is not an easy task and is one that asks us to consider the choices we make in our lives against what it is that Jesus has called us to do. The work of being in Christian community requires that we acknowledge the great challenge, and the fearsome requirements of living into what it is that Jesus expects of us.
So what are we supposed to do? How do we become what Jesus asks of us?
The great reformer, John Calvin counseled a simplicity of life in which we understand ourselves to be on an earthly pilgrimage toward home. To this end, he offered four guiding rules for balance in life: (a) we should indulge ourselves as little as possible; (b) if we have small resources, we ought to do without things patiently; (c) we must understand that God entrusts all things to us for an accountable stewardship; (d) in all of life’s actions we should look to our calling from God.
If we take the time to consider our actions, and how they affect those around us and how they affect us, we might find that Calvin’s suggestions for living a Christian life make sense for us here and now.
In our lives as disciples of Jesus, there is no call toward those objects or ideologies that serve to tear a person down or which will cause us to be less loving. Those things that cause us to be less loving, distract us from following Christ and from being kin-dom builders. As Calvin was writing in the 1500’s it may be helpful to understand indulging ourselves a little as possible as an escape from selfishness. Calvin is defining Selfishness as only being concerned with what affects ourselves and not considering how our own actions and choices may affect others. In Calvin’s understanding of Jesus’s teachings, the person who fails to deny themself is not able to love God or neighbor, Instead he argues that self-denial leads to the very positive affirmation of the power of love in human relationships between God and neighbor.
Friends, the call to discipleship is one that initially may feel hard. But as we engage in the work and the call to be kin-dom builders, the joy that comes from honest work, and sharing community with each of our neighbors, is pervasive. That joy overflows into all areas of our lives, shaping and reshaping the contours of our hearts as a people that follow Jesus. That joy comes from living lives defined by loving one another, serving one another, and ensuring that everyone is welcome and invited.
As we embrace our call to discipleship we become the people that prepare the way of the lord in the wilderness. We are a people called to do the work of justice and love in the world, feeding and caring for strangers and neighbors. As we live into that call) we take the time to hear each other, we take the time to embrace each other across the generations, and find ways to communicate across any barrier – real or imagined.
Jesus says to us follow me, love God more than you love yourselves, and in the process of loving God, we will continue to build the already present kin-dom of God for all people.
May it continue to be so.
Amen.
Matthew Messenger 