Oh, Boy!

September 8, 2019

Hope Lutheran, Eau Claire

Rev. Mary Erickson

Luke 14:25-33

“Oh, Boy!”

Friends, may grace and peace be yours in abundance in the knowledge of God and Christ Jesus our Lord.

Many of you may remember the old TV show “Quantum Leap.” The show was about a quantum physicist named Dr. Sam Beckett. He had developed the technology to leap into the past and into the body of some other individual. The only problem was that all the bugs weren’t ironed out of the process before Sam stepped into the leaping chamber. Now he is stuck in a cycle of leaping from one situation into another. He can only hope that his next leap will be the leap home.

There seems to be some force directing where Sam leaps. In every situation where he is placed, something is very much wrong. Sam seems to have been sent there on a mission. He needs to do what he can to help bring resolution.

By the end of every episode, Sam had accomplished what he was sent to do. The time had come for him to take another quantum leap. He found himself thrust into another time and place. It doesn’t take long for him to figure out the gravity of the new situation. Each show typically concluded with some type of cliff hanger predicament. And then it was time for Sam to utter his classic tag line. He said, “Oh, boy!”

“Oh, boy!” That’s what we say when we realize just how BIG something is. We might say it when we walk into a fudge store in Hayward and see three dozen types of fudge before us. Or we say “Oh, boy!” when we see the dark wall of a storm front moving in from the west.

It’s something we say, when, like Sam Beckett, we step into a new situation and realize just how big this really is. We didn’t realize the full scope of this project, this endeavor.

Every year at this time there are several college freshmen who step into a very new environment. Any of us who have been through that experience can relate to the feeling! There you are, in a whole new situation. Your world has changed and there is no going back. “Oh, boy!”

You might want to say “Oh, boy!” when you start a new job. It’s one thing to sign on the dotted line and commit yourself to this new endeavor. But when you start the job and you begin to realize the scope of everything that your new job entails, now it’s real. “Oh, boy!”

Or first-time parents: it’s one thing to want a baby and to look forward to having that baby enter your family. But it’s quite another thing once baby arrives. You might find yourself saying “Oh, boy!” even if it’s a girl!

Question: If we had known the full extent of the demands that would be placed upon us, would we still have said yes to the endeavor?

In the gospel story we hear today, Jesus is journeying to Jerusalem. He going there for a reason: to be crucified. While on the way he sees crowds of people all clamoring to be near him. And they’re not just crowds. They’re LARGE crowds. They’re following him to Jerusalem like he’s the Pied Piper. The crowds followed Jesus naively. They didn’t fully know what following him meant.

Or, perhaps, they were following him without commitment. Fair weather followers, they were. And they would soon fall away when the temperature heated up. Indeed, this was true even of his disciples!

Or maybe they would follow for as long as they heard what they liked. But as soon as Jesus’ words don’t fit their notions, they’ll go back home.

Jesus eyes them and he STOPS. He stops dead in his tracks and turns around to face them. He says the words we hear today. And they are hard words. What Jesus says is difficult to hear. He speaks about a cost, the cost of discipleship.

His words shocked them then and they still do today. He uses strong words. We must HATE mother and father, family and children – even our own life! And then he uses cross language.

In our day and age, we don’t fully get the full impact of talking about crosses. For us, the cross is THE primary symbol of Christianity. It’s everywhere. You see blingy crosses on jeans pockets. You see big, gold crosses around the necks of athletes. Crosses are everywhere.

But the cross was a devastating feature in Jesus’ day. It was downright horrible and ominous. It was so terrifying that it wouldn’t become a symbol for Christianity until after the Roman emperor Constantine ended persecution of Christians. Until then, crosses were a very real thing for many Christians.