Title: No Ifs, Ands or Buts!
Text: Luke 9:59-62
Thesis: Real discipleship is demanding… it takes a lot for a spur-of-the-moment impulse to become a lifetime commitment.
Introduction
I mentioned last week that author, Eric Weiner, described himself as a “Confusionist” when it came to matters of religion and faith. He, like Sergeant Schultz of the old Hogan’s Heroes series, could honestly say, “I know nothing!” So he set out in a series of what he called “Flirtations with the Divine” to find his God. (Eric Weiner, Man Seeks God, Twelve, Introduction)
I know there are many things that weigh on a person’s mind when we choose a religion or embrace a faith… choosing a faith is in and of itself an act of faith.
But certainly these three questions figure into our choosing:
1. Where do we come from?
2. What happens when we die?
3. How should we live our lives?
So with those basic needs in mind a “Confusionist” might set out to see what faith best speaks to those questions best.
Eric Weiner assumed that people do not find all gods equally appealing just as people do not find all potential mates equally appealing. If you think like that you might assume that a flirtatious encounter is a safe way to see if there is any chemistry, so to speak, between you and a potential god. Seemingly he thought he could have something of a brief encounter with a religion and from that little flirtation decide if he had a future with that god or not…
Then he discovered what we call “The Rational Choice Theory.” The Rational Choice Theory suggests that we choose our religion in much the same way we choose a car.
I’ve been having a love affair with the new Fiat 500 Abarth Turbo Cabrio. It’s turbo-charged, has a performances suspension, high-back performance bucket seats with a racing harness, dual exhausts, 16” performance wheels, 5 speed transmission, and 7 air bags. Those are just some of the benefits!
In The Rational Choice Theory you weigh the benefits against the costs. And when I consider the costs of the Fiat 500 Abarth Turbo Cabrio – I don’t care! I still want one! But if I were making a rational choice I would have to say $28,000 is too much and the fact that I can’t get into it or out of it pretty much eliminates the Fiat 500 Abarth Turbo Cabrio for me.
In our text last week the enthusiast who waved his hand wildly in the air volunteering to follow Jesus anywhere soon learned that while there are certainly benefits to following Jesus, there are also costs.
He learned that if he wished to follow Jesus he had to understand that in order to engage people with the love of God in Christ; he could not do that from the safety and security of his cocooned, home environment.
The two men in our text today, as are we, confronted with the challenge of The Rational Choice Theory to not only consider the benefits but the costs of following Jesus as well.
I. The Crucial Moment, Luke 9:59-60
Jesus said to another person, “Come, and follow me.” The man agreed, but he said, “Lord, first let me return home and bury my father.” Luke 9:59
In our first scenario today Jesus invited another man who was walking with him along the way to become a Christ follower. Our text says, the man agreed, but he said, “Lord, first let me return home to bury my father.”
In my way of thinking this is a fairly reasonable request… We have buried my father. We have buried a son. We have buried Bonnie’s mother. Would Jesus have us call the mortuary and inform our relatives that they could do whatever they needed to do but we had more important things to do than grieve for and care for our deceased loved ones?
Surely Jesus was not a hypocrite. When he learned that his friend Lazarus was sick he went to Bethany. But Lazarus died before he could get there and the bible says, “Jesus wept.”
So what did Jesus mean when he said to the man who wished to go home and bury his father before he began to follow Jesus, “Let the spiritually dead bury their own dead! Your duty is to go and preach about the Kingdom of God.” Luke 9:60
Commentators tell us that it is unlikely that the man’s father was dead. In that culture a son had a responsibility or obligation to his father until his father died. What he likely said and what Jesus likely heard the man say was, “I want to follow you but first I need to go home and work and wait until my father dies… then I will come and follow you.”
One of the costs of following Jesus is that…
A. One of the costs in following Jesus may be change.
“But first,” are the words of a person with some reservations… if following Jesus meant he had to become a follower before he had fulfilled his familial obligations, it probably wasn’t going to happen. It was not his grief that kept him from following Jesus; it was the challenges and changes he would need to make that held him back.
William Barclays says that for this man the issue was even deeper than his familial obligations for his father. Barclay says that in the mind of Jesus this was a crucial moment for this man. He would either follow Jesus or he would not follow Jesus. And this crucial moment decision would likely define his life from then on.
Underlying his reluctance to change was his reluctance to decide period.
B. One of the costs in following Jesus is seizing the crucial moment of decision.
In Robert Frost’s The Road Not Taken the poet wrestles with deciding which road he would take and he even notes that despite the hope that he might one day get to walk the other road, he knows deep in his heart that doing so was not going to happen. And as you well know, he concluded that his original choice would define his life forever…“ And that [choice] has made all the difference.”
The Road Not Taken
Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;
Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim
Because it was grassy and wanted wear,
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same,
And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way
I doubted if I should ever come back. (The crucial moment of decision defined his lifetime…)
I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I,
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference. (Our choices define us…)
When I was a young man I felt the inclination to become a pastor. I thought of it as a call and I felt some compulsion to follow that inclination. So I set out to prepare to become a pastor.
The summer after I completed my education I returned to my old job as a concrete laborer and finisher for the construction company I had worked for every summer after my graduation from high school. It was hard work but a great job and even back in the mid-sixties I was taking home over $400 a week.
I enjoyed my work on highway construction. I enjoyed my co-workers. It was like a big family reunion every summer when I would go back to the crew to work for the summer. But this year the summer extended into the fall as I waited for the call to a place of ministry. And this year was different because the superintendent took me aside and offered me permanent position as a foreman with the company if I would stay on… I’ve had three or four offers like that in the last 43 years. And to be honest, they were all probably more of a fit for where I came from and who I am.
But each was in its own way as much a crucial moment as that moment I first decided to invite Christ into my life.
Jesus simply laid it out clearly and plainly, no ifs, ands, or buts. Do you want to follow me or do you want to go home and wait for a more convenient time to make the commitment to Christ?
We love obligations! If we do not love them we feel compelled “do our duty” so to speak… sometimes our sense of duty or our obligations or our vested interests or our choice of lifestyle or our hobbies and passions are more powerful than our desire to follow Christ. Jesus essentially stood before the man, opened his arms and said, “There are two roads… which will you choose?”
In our text today there is a second cost that any person wishing to make a “rational choice” regarding his or her commitment to Christ must consider.
II. The Longing Look, Luke 9:61-62
Another said, “Yes, Lord, I will follow you, but first let me say good-bye to my family.” Luke 9:61
This is not the first time in the Bible that someone who was wished to say good-bye to his family before setting off to follow God’s leading. In I Kings 19:19-21 the Prophet Elijah saw Elisha plowing a field with a team of oxen. Elijah went up to Elisha and threw his cloak over Elisha’s shoulders and walked away. In that culture placing your cloak on another person’s shoulders meant that person was passing the torch, so to speak, to his successor. Elisha was to follow Elijah and learn to be a Prophet and eventually take the place of Elijah as the new Prophet in Israel.
Elisha left his oxen standing in the field and chased after Elijah and said, “First, let me go and kiss my father and mother good-bye, and then I will go with you!” And Elijah said, “Go on back, but think about what I have done to you.”
Elijah told Elisha to go on home and kiss is parents good-bye but “think about what I have done to you.” You need to make an important choice in your life so think about it really, really hard.
So to the man who wished to go home and say good-bye to his parents Jesus said,
“Anyone who puts a hand to the plow and then looks back is not fit for the Kingdom of God.” Luke 9:62
I understand that farmers today have all manner of GPS and Sensor Devices on their farm tractors and implements. Apparently it is possible to plow or plant or do just about anything without having to actually steer the tractor… in which case you can gawk all about and even look out the back window of the tractor cab all the while the tractor continues in a perfectly straight line. But that ain’t natural!
When Jesus posed that agrarian image anyone of that culture would understand and if you’ve a smattering of a farm background you understand that when you plow or push a lawn mower or look in your rear view mirror too long or whatever… if you look back at where you’ve been you will veer off course.
When you follow Jesus you cannot be looking back wistfully or with regret. What’s done is done. Even the Apostle Paul understood that principle, “Forgetting what lies behind I press forward toward the prize of the high calling in Christ Jesus.”
Our culture is rife with things to love… love Jesus, love your family, love and enjoy your life, love sports, love your body, love your pleasures, love your hobbies, love your work, love your hopes and dreams, love your neighbor.
Jesus seems to create a terrible tension when it comes to our family ties. Once Jesus said,
“If you love your father or mother more than you love me, you are not worthy of being mine; of if you love your son or daughter more than me, you are not worthy of being mine. If you refuse to take up your cross and follow me, you are not worthy of being mine. If you cling to your life, you will lose it; but if you give up your life you will find it.” Matthew 10:37-39
We love our families!
Jesus did not blow off his own family ties. One of the last things he did before he died was entrust the care of his mother to his friend, John. Jesus is not anti-family. Jesus is not an abusive husband or wife who would sever ties between a spouse and his or her family. Jesus is not cult leader who would have his followers reject and disown their families.
So what was Jesus getting at? Why would Jesus say such a thing to a man who was at the crossroads of following him?
Jesus knew and Jesus knows that we can love our families so much that we forget about God’s larger family… one of the costs a serious follower of Christ will grapple with is the willingness to love beyond the family circle.
A. We can love our families so much that we are so engrossed with our families that we cannot and do not engage the people of the world.
A pastor friend of mine recently told me about a community event designed to bring people together so they could get to know each other. He noted that one family arrived: patriarch, matriarch, sons and daughters along with their spouses and all the grandchildren. He observed them pulling tables together and rearranging the chairs so the whole clan to could sit together. And they did… When it was over the patriarch of the family told the organizers of the event, “This was fun, we should do this again.”
There is a time and place for families to be engrossed with each other. Family dinners are great. Family vacations are great. Reunions are great… I hope to make a pass through Winterset, Iowa to mark the Newton Family Reunion soon.
But between loving our homes and cocooning in our homes and loving our families so much that we do not engage with others, we miss the call of Christ on our lives to follow him into the world with the love of God and the gospel of Good News in Christ.
Being engrossed with loved ones inhibits our ability to engage our neighbors.
B. We can love our Church family so much that we are so engrossed with each other that we cannot and do not engage our neighbors when they visit us.
This is really as simple as “Being Nice 101!”
1. Nice people greet and befriend and make an attempt to get to know the people they meet… especially guests in their home.
2. Nice people actually sit down with and visit their guests over dinner.
When we have a potluck dinner or a community picnic or whatever the occasion and there are guests among us, they are guests in our home! We would never in a million years seat guests in our homes by themselves. No one should be left sitting off in the corner by themselves! No newcomers should sit alone while our Church family makes a point of sitting together.
In the mind and heart of Jesus we must move beyond being so engrossed with family that we cannot or will not engage others.
Conclusion:
In Luke 9:51-62 there are four buts:
1. “But” the people in the Samaritan village did not welcome Jesus.
2. “But,” Jesus replied, “Foxes have dens and birds have nests but the Son of Man has nowhere to lay his head.” We can be followers of Christ “but” not if we are so cocooned in our homes that we cannot or do not engage the world.
3. Thirdly, the man agreed, “But” he said, “First let me go home to bury my father and tend to some other stuff that needs tending to.”
4. Another said, “Yes Lord, ‘But’ first let me go say good-bye to my family.” Essentially, I would love to follow you but I’m pretty engrossed with my own family right now and I lack the time and the desire to engage the people you are yet to become members of your family.
Perhaps you’ve heard it said by your parents or have said to your own children at one time or another, something like, you will do your homework or mow the lawn or clean your room or finish your chores, “no ifs, ands, or buts.”
Perhaps you’ve heard the adage, “If ifs and buts were candy and nuts we would all have a merry Christmas.” Ifs and buts are excuses. “No ifs, ands, or buts,” is something said by someone to someone else when something is to be done without any excuses being used.
Most difficult choices we make are not between good and evil but between good and best!
What Jesus wants is for us, after having counted the costs, is to make The Rational Choice to follow him:
To Shed our cocoons and enter the world!
To Seize the moment and engage the world!
To Share His love and embrace the world!
