For Sunday, September 8, 2013 – Luke 14:25-33
Things don’t go the way we plan. I don’t turn out to be who I thought I would be. I notice you don’t either. The plans we’ve made for our future change. What it means to follow Jesus changes, too.
Jesus, his message and his acts, are growing popular; he is drawing larger, more admiring crowds. He knows what he has to do. He must speak the truth in love, the kind of truth that separates the serious from the curious, the idle listener from the devoted disciple. He must give the gift of disillusionment.
You won’t find the love you’re seeking, he says, until you have learned to hate. Hate anyone and anything—even life itself—that gets in the way of wholehearted intention. You won’t find the joy you’re seeking until you take up your own bed of nails, your own electric chair. Carrying these for awhile will help you clarify whether or not you’re ready to commit to total solidarity with suffering. You do know this is what it means to be my disciple, don’t you?
Don’t assume mine will be the winning team, not in the way you expect. Don’t assume you will get what you want in this life, that you will propose and oppose freely, that you will win all your battles and defeat all you have called enemies. Even the things you love will come to an end. People will leave; callings will wither and die. Don’t place so much hope in your own meticulous blueprints. Better to look into the face of Now—all its challenges and dangers—with surrender in your heart, peace treaty already in hand. Was that what you had in mind?
You never know—I might love those you hate, and hate those you love. Will you still follow me then? Will you let me be who I am so that you can become who you are? I think you’ll be surprised how it all turns out–despising everything and everyone that has possession of you is the only real love.
