Jesus Is Number One

Jesus does not promise that our walk of faith will be easy. To paraphrase the title of a song recorded by Loretta Lynn, Jesus never promised us a rose garden here on earth. In fact, he makes it quite clear that there will be a cost. At this point in Luke’s Gospel, Jesus is on his way to Jerusalem, and he knows that when he gets there he will be arrested, tried and crucified-a sacrifice that he has to make so that we can be restored to a relationship with God. Now God is not calling us to make this kind of sacrifice like Christians in the Third World often have to do. He is also not calling us to sell everything we have and lead a life of a travelling missionary, although some great souls such as Mother Theresa have done that in the past. Most of us have far too many responsibilities to do that, but we can take some small steps in that direction. We can do things such as donating extra clothes or furniture that we don’t need to the poor or by donating time and money to help the less fortunate in our community. For example, the local food bank has seen the demand for its services increase at a faster rate than the increase in donations. The situation has reached the point where the food bank has almost run out of money and has had to discourage people from using the food bank.

Jesus calls on us to look again at those society sees as “outcasts” and see them as valued members of society. He himself was considered by many people, especially the Pharisees and Sadducees, as an “outcast’. His life and death placed him with the outcasts. Those who believe in him and his life, death and resurrection are often considered by our society to be outcasts because they, like Jesus, choose to go against society’s rules.

When Jesus said that we must “hate father and mother”, he was talking figuratively, not literally. Good thing, because that would mean disobeying the commandment to honour our parents-a commandment that I take seriously especially with my dear, sweet mother (and especially if I want to continue living at home!). As I mentioned earlier, what Jesus means is that we must have a secondary attachment to everything in our lives except Jesus. He must be our number one priority. Even then, there will be times when we will have to make choices that put our discipleship in the line. There will be times where we will have to say “No” to what seems to be alternative or easier ways of doing things. There will be times where we will be tempted like Christ was when he was in the wilderness. Following Christ is not a guarantee of a conflict-free life. In fact, Jesus was quite capable of blistering verbal assaults and even violence when he drove the money-changers out of the temple. In the words of General Dwight Eisenhower when he addressed the troops on the eve of the D-Day invasion in World War II, “There will be no victories at bargain-basement prices”.

The most famous book on the meaning of discipleship, which is entitled “The Cost of Discipleship”, was written in the 1930s by Dietrich Bonhoeffer. He was a German pastor and theologian who tried to lead his church in resistance to the Nazis and was martyred in 1945 at the Flossenberg concentration camp for his part in a conspiracy to murder Adolph Hitler. Bonhoeffer wrote these words in the book, “Where will the call to discipleship lead those who follow it? What decisions and painful separations will it entail? We must take this question to him alone who knows the answer. Only Jesus Christ, who bids us follow him, knows where the path will lead. But we know that it will be a path full of mercy beyond measure. Discipleship is joy.”