Cost of Discipleship

So when I joined the seminary, I had to buy black dress shoes that I could wear daily. So what did I do? I went to the mall and went to payless shoes and got me some cheap shoes for less than 20 dollars. Well, two weeks later, I’m walking around the seminary and I feel this flop on the ground, I look down and it’s the sole of my shoe coming off!

I was hoping that those shoes would last me at least 2 to 3 years. The problem was that I wasn’t willing to give what it cost for good shoes.

Sisters and brothers, how often are we like this when it comes to our faith, when it comes to following Christ? We want all the benefits of God’s graces but we are unwilling to give what it costs. We put in our one hour a week and then we ask God why nothing in our lives changes. What we want is cheap grace, a cheap discipleship: Jesus says to each one of us, “Come follow me”… and our response is “God what’s the least I can give… God what’s the minimum it’ll cost me to follow you? That’s how much I want to give…”

But here’s the thing. The Lord doesn’t want half-disciples. Jesus doesn’t want a cheap discipleship. Instead, what we find in today’s Gospel is Jesus raising the bar, he “ups the ante”. He’s not content to have people just stumble into the Kingdom of God.

In the past few weeks, we been hearing how the people of God are invited to the banquet of God, the great feast. Many rejected this invitation or made excuses. So the invitation went out to anyone and everyone. Well in Matthew’s version of this, the King comes out to greet the guests, and sees a man not dressed in a wedding garment. He’s not dressed and prepared for the occasion and so the King throws him out.

All are invited but there are conditions. To follow Christ to the banquet will cost us. Jesus, in today’s Gospel is making his way to Jerusalem, the place where he will pay the price for our salvation, the place where he will be betrayed, suffer and die on the cross for us. And as he approaches this goal, he wants to make sure that those who are following them know what they are getting themselves into.

Jesus wants us to know the cost of real discipleship: 

“If anyone comes to me without hating his father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters, and even his own life, he cannot be my disciple.”

Now this doesn’t mean that Jesus is telling us not to love our parents or not to value our lives. This is not what Jesus is saying. But what he is saying is this: That in so far as these things keep us from following Christ, in so far as these things become like gods for us and dictate our lives, we are to hate them. It is a question of priority. God comes first and insofar as we put God first, insofar as we love God first, then we are called love others, our parents, our lives becauseof that love of God. Christ comes first and we cannot prefer anything before Christ: not our parents, not or siblings, not even our own life!

The German Theologian, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, who went up against the Nazi government said this about grace and discipleship: “Discipleship (grace) is costly because it costs a man his life.”

Discipleship, to be a disciple is a great undertaking: it is greater than any Olympic event, it is greater than any business proposal, it is greater than any capital campaign, greater than any social endeavor. And it has eternal consequences! Jesus offers us eternal life. Jesus says in John 10:10, “I came so that they might have life and have it more abundantly.” And in John 15:11 he says, “I have told you this so that my joy may be in you and your joy may be complete.”

Jesus came so that we can live fully alive and filled with his joy! But he also doesn’t hide what it will require us… Discipleship costs us everything, everything. If we are to follow Jesus as a disciple, we have to be willing to leave everything behind. Even my own dreams and desires in this life.

I remember when I was discerning my vocation in life: I was like “God, I’ll follow you but if you are calling me to not get married, then deal’s off.” I had my own dreams of a family, children of my own and even a dog of my own. Now there’s nothing wrong with having dreams and desires and sometimes God does call us to those things. The problem is that sometimes we think our happiness; our fulfillment depends on those things.

The truth is that our happiness our fulfillment depends primarily on Christ. And insofar as these other things lead me to Christ, these other things participate in the joy that Jesus wants to give us.

So today, right here, right now, I want to ask you to take some time and pray to God. Say to him, “Lord, what am I holding back? What am I hiding from God? (Sometimes we think that just because we desire this thing that God doesn’t want us to have it, but sometimes God does give us what we desire. The key is to seek Christ first, and all things will come through him.)

St. John of the Cross, said that it doesn’t matter how small the tether (the attachment), it doesn’t matter how small the string that is attached to the bird, it will still keep the bird from flying. Jesus wants our souls to soar with his joy, but we have to be willing to cut any attachment that keeps us from flying. So “what’s keeping you from being a real discipleship of Christ?” “What are you still holding back and not willing to give to God?” Today, in this Eucharist, when the gifts are offered on this altar, I ask you, to surrender anything and everything that you have held back from God. Give him everything, so that he can give you eternity.