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The Seven Days account of Creation reaches its true climax in Sabbath (2:1-3). After six days of crafting, molding, and filling the formless void of Gen 1:2 with life, God rests. “Very goodness” is not the destination of time—rest is. The God of the Bible has woven rest in the fabric of his handiwork. God takes the first Sabbath and embeds the Sabbath pattern into the world that he has created. This speaks a profound word into the crushing disorder that confronts the masses. In the ancient world, humans were typically considered to be the slaves of the gods who exist for their pleasures as well as those of earthly kings. The modern world has substituted new mythologies, but not the end results. Yet the biblical narrative from the beginning announces that disorder and chaos are not the inevitable verdicts in life and reality. Moreover, “very goodness” is not even the pinnacle. Instead, the biblical narrative of Creation ends with God ceasing from work. God rests. God blesses the Sabbath and sets it apart from the other days. God models rest for the remainder of Creation. Sabbath follows work; work does not follow Sabbath. Sabbath is a reminder of God’s creative work. It invites humanity to work meaningfully and purposefully for six days and then pause as the Creator did to remember and honor God’s work.

The importance of Sabbath is implicit by its placement in the opening scene of Genesis. The cynic might wonder if God rests only because he can rely upon humanity to work in his place (cf. 1:26-31 and 2:15). The witness of the Scriptures disabuses any such notion. The importance of Sabbath becomes clear in the Sinai covenant. Exodus 20:8-11 (cf Deut 5:12-15) weds the Sabbath with the ethos of holiness that God prescribes for his people at Sinai. Freshly delivered and redeemed from Egyptian bondage, God calls his people to live as a new kind of people—a people that embodies and reflects the character of God to/for/among the nations. Such a witness includes embracing Sabbath as a key community practice. The Sabbath commandment stands at the center of the Ten Commandments. It serves as a bridge. The initial commandments establish key boundaries for relating to the LORD by forbidding idolatry and the dishonoring of the LORD’s name. The latter commandments present foundational prescriptions for community. The Sabbath commandment combines both the vertical and horizontal dimensions of Israel’s life. Keeping Sabbath honors God before the nations. God’s people alone among the nations receive God’s gift of Sabbath. Sabbath is intrinsic to the world created by God, but the masses of humanity live as though it were not. God’s people provide the witness, but this witness to Sabbath extends beyond the seventh day. The pattern of six days for work and one for rest serves as a model for God instructions for freeing indentured slaves (Exod 21:2), allowing fields to lay fallow (23:10-12 cf. Lev 25:1-7), and establishing the Jubilee (Lev 25:8-55). The creation-wide implications of Sabbath are seen in the commandment itself. Sabbath is not merely for God’s people. It is for all creation. This reality is adumbrated by the manner in which God’s people are ordered to keep it. Sabbath means rest for God’s people, but this rest is also extended to immigrants to the land, slaves, and even animals.

In the Gospels, Jesus offers a definitive human-centered reading of Sabbath “The Sabbath exists on account of humanity, not humanity on account of the Sabbath. Thus the Son of Man is lord even of the Sabbath.” The context of this statement occurs in response to a challenge by the Pharisees regarding the legality of Jesus’ disciples picking grain for food on the Sabbath (Mark 2:23-26). Moreover, Mark 3:1-6 Jesus engages the question of the rightness of healing a man on the Sabbath. He responds with a question of his own that reframes the issue: “Is it right to do good on the Sabbath or to do evil? To save life or to kill?” (Mark 3:4).

Jesus’ framing of the issue brings it above the simple legalism of the day (as well as ours). Exceptions do exist. Doing good and achieving authentic rest are in fact the true embodiment of Sabbath. Such practices honor God. Sabbath is not merely a boundary that restricts the behavior of God’s people or marks the line between insiders and outsiders. Sabbath is a way of life that witnesses to God’s creational intentions and points others to the rest that only God can provide.

How does your community of faith embody the mission of Sabbath? How do your practices witness to the nations?

© 2010 Brian D. Russell

Tags: Biblical Studies, Community, Creation, Genesis, Gospels, Luke, Mission, New Testament, Old Testament, biblical theology, ethos, humanity, idolatry, missional hermeneutic, missional hermeneutics, missional reading, world mission by brian
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In the book of Joshua, God fulfills his promise to God’s people of life in the land of Canaan. God originally promised the land to Abram at the time of Abram’s initial call (Gen 12:1, 7). This promise was reaffirmed to Abram’s descendants Isaac and Jacob and remained a central theme of the Pentateuch (Genesis - Deuteronomy). As we read and study the book of Joshua over the coming weeks, it is vital to set God’s promise of land into the context of God’s overarching plans for humanity. God promised Abram and his descendants the land of Canaan not merely for their own sake but for the sake of all nations. Genesis 12:2-3 reads, “I will make of you a great nation, and I will bless you, and make your name great so that you will be a blessing. I will bless those who bless you, and the one who curses you I will curse; and in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed” (italics added). In other words, God raised up Israel as his agents through whom he would bless all peoples. Israel’s vocation to serve as a means of blessing was reaffirmed at the feet of Mount Sinai. In Exod 19:5-6, God announced, “Now therefore, if you obey my voice and keep my covenant, you shall be my treasured possession out of all the peoples. Indeed the whole earth is mine, but you shall be for me a priestly kingdom and a holy nation.” Precisely because God is king over all Creation he has appointed Israel to serve as a special people among all of the other peoples that inhabit the earth. They are to serve a priestly or missional function of connecting the nations to God by reflecting and embodying God’s character before the nations.
How does the promised land of Canaan fit into God’s mission? The land represents a foothold for God’s kingdom as God works to bring blessing and salvation to humanity and all creation following the spread of disobedience and sin as described in Genesis 3-11. God establishes a tiny foothold in the world because it will be in this land and through this people Israel that God will reveal himself most fully in the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth. But we are getting ahead of ourselves in the biblical story…Nevertheless it is vital to understand the broad story of God’s salvation in order to make sense of the book of Joshua.

As the book of Joshua opens, God’s people stand on the cusp of entering the land. But there are three challenges facing them: Moses is dead, the land is not empty, and Joshua, the new leader, must lead the people forward. But God’s people have a key advantage - they are not alone. God is powerfully present.

The book of Joshua begins with a commissioning speech by God for Joshua. It occurs after the death of Moses. Moses’ death was reported in Deut 34. Moses died with Israel still outside of Canaan on the plains of Moab. God now speaks to Joshua directly in order to empower him to lead God’s people forward in fulfillment of God’s promises. God begins by stating the obvious, “My servant Moses is dead.” The implication is clear. Joshua is now God’s man. It is his time to step into God’s call for his life. The mission is a big one–Joshua is to cross the Jordan River and move into the land that God has promised to them. The emphasis here is on the gift of the land. God is giving it to them. But the gift does not come without action. If our text is steadfast in its insistence that the land of Canaan is a gracious grant from God to God’s people, it also clearly assumes that Joshua and the people must actively move to occupy it. Verse three affirms that God’s promise of land corresponds to the places where the people will actually place their feet. The land is a gift, but it is Israel’s role to occupy it. Verse four describes the boundaries of the land. The land that God is giving to God’s people is a vast one. It extends far beyond what we commonly think of as Canaan. It represents approximately the amount of land that Israel will possess during the heyday of the empire of David and Solomon (2 Sam 8:3-14; 1 Kgs 8:65). The vastness of the gift emphasizes to Joshua the generosity of God. But a gift without the possibility of success is a fleeting one. The reader must remember that Israel is not a super power. It is a people without a land. It is a people without the primary weapons of war: the horse and chariot. Israel is not a military power. It is a people who were enslaved only a generation earlier. The story of Israel’s move into the land is not an invasion by a superior force of arms. Israel will not be successful because Joshua is a skilled general and the people are fierce warriors. Verse five reinforces the previous promises by emphasizing presence of the Lord. The name of Moses is again invoked. The LORD will be with Joshua just as He was with Moses. This language echoes the LORD’s promise of presence to Moses at the burning bush (Exod 3:12). In other words, the God of the Exodus who delivered Israel mightily will now work through Joshua to bring God’s people into the promised land.
The preceding promises serve as the basis for a final exhortation to Joshua in v. 6 “Be strong and courageous.” God’s promises open up a new future for Joshua and Israel. But it is a future into which Joshua and Israel must enter. The future is not dependent upon the physical strength, battlefield ingenuity, or military prowess of Joshua. The LORD is with Joshua. The LORD has guaranteed victory, but Joshua must act. He will be the human agent through whom the LORD will bring Israel into the land. Therefore, Joshua is exhorted to be resolute and courageous. Courage is the key that opens the door to the future that God is offering his people. Joshua must embody this virtue because He is God’s chosen servant for this mission. Courage is the key for Joshua to obey faithfully the LORD’s commands.

Tags: Charles Wesley, Daniel, Gospels, Leadership, Leviticus, Luke, New Testament, Old Testament, Origins, calling, compassion, ecclesiology, incarnation, missional leadership, missional reading by brian
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27 Some of the Sadducees, who say there is no resurrection, came to Jesus with a question. 28 “Teacher,” they said, “Moses wrote for us that if a man’s brother dies and leaves a wife but no children, the man must marry the widow and have children for his brother. 29 Now there were seven brothers. The first one married a woman and died childless. 30 The second 31 and then the third married her, and in the same way the seven died, leaving no children. 32 Finally, the woman died too. 33 Now then, at the resurrection whose wife will she be, since the seven were married to her?”
34 Jesus replied, “The people of this age marry and are given in marriage. 35 But those who are considered worthy of taking part in that age and in the resurrection from the dead will neither marry nor be given in marriage, 36 and they can no longer die; for they are like the angels. They are God’s children, since they are children of the resurrection. 37 But in the account of the bush, even Moses showed that the dead rise, for he calls the Lord ‘the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob.’ 38 He is not the God of the dead, but of the living, for to him all are alive.”

Jesus is a mysterious and profound figure in the Gospels. His teaching continually calls his hearers to make paradigm shifts in their lives. Jesus’ instructions are anti-intuitive, counter cultural, and offer a decisive challenge to the status quo. Just when we are tempted to think that we have figured Jesus out, he explodes the box that we have put around him and challenges us to a deeper life.

Jesus is like a late-comer to a local fishing tournament held many years ago. All of the big name locals are present, and they are competing neck and neck for the prize. Each person has his or her secret bait, and the most successful have modern bass boats, high-end fish finders, and the best rods and reels available. By the time that the late-comer enters the fray it looks as though he is hopelessly behind. Those who are watching the tournament shrug their shoulders as the late-comer calmly puts his canoe into the water and pushes off. Some even begin to laugh when they realize that he does not even have a fishing pole. Yet the mysterious entry calmly rows out into the river and moves into an area unoccupied by other fishing boats. Then as the clock ticks down to the finish, he opens up a bag that he carried with him. To everyone’s surprise he pulls out a half-stick of dynamite. He lights it and tosses it overboard. A few moments later there is a geyser of water near the point of entry. The late comer then rows to the spot and begins to collect the fish that have now floated to the surface because they were stunned by the detonation. After the closing bell is rung, he paddles to shore and his load of fish is triple that of his next closest competitor and sets a new tournament record. There are shouts of protest, but it is found that this technique was not against the rules. It was simply a game changer. In our text for today, Jesus likewise challenges foundational assumptions about the nature and meaning of resurrection.

Jesus is confronted by a group of Sadducees who attempt to trip him up with a question related to marriage and the resurrection. On the surface, Jesus’ conversation with the Sadducees may seem non-confrontational, but Luke 20 records several challenges that Jesus receives from the religious leaders of his day. Moreover, the Sadducees as a group were well known for their denial of the resurrection. This was a point of contrast between the Sadducees and Pharisees. In other words, the very fact that the Sadducees ask Jesus about life in the resurrection suggests that there is an agenda behind their question other than mere interest.

They offer Jesus a scenario in which a woman ends up married to seven brothers each of which dies and is replaced by the next brother in faithful fulfillment of the levirate marriage law from the Old Testament. This law obligated a brother to marry his sister-in-law in the event that his brother died before producing children. The firstborn child of the new union would then be considered the offspring of the deceased brother. The Sadducees then ask Jesus, “In the resurrection, therefore, whose wife will the woman be? For the seven had married her.”

Our Worthiness of Resurrection Life
The Sadducees must have believed that they had handed Jesus an unsolvable Gordian knot. For the Sadducees, the very idea of the necessity of Levirate marriage was proof that there was no resurrection. For them, a person lived on only through his or her offspring so Levirate marriage provided a means of a childless male to have offspring “from the grave.” But as Jesus often did, he adroitly side-stepped his way out of the apparent trap and used the question as an opportunity explode the status quo assumptions of the Sadducees and to point all within ear shot to the deeper reality of God’s kingdom. In other words, Jesus demonstrates the irrelevancy of the Sadducee’s scenario and pushes them to confront the truth about God’s kingdom and the resurrection.

Jesus transforms the conversation away from the question of marriage and focuses on the paradigm shift that occurs between this age and the coming age of God’s kingdom. Some have taken Jesus’ answer as proof that marriage relationships are not part of the afterlife. This however is not the intended teaching of the passage. Rather Jesus focuses on the profound contrast between an existence focused solely on one’s current life and one that is shaped by the future life of the resurrection. Notice that Jesus uses the language of “those who belong to this age” and “those who are considered worthy of a place in that age and in the resurrection” (italics added).

Through his use of the language of worthy, Jesus invites all of his hearers including us to ask ourselves, “What makes a person worthy of life in God’s coming future of resurrection?” Jesus does not directly answer this question for us in this context, but if we have been careful readers of Luke’s Gospel, there have been several recurring themes that serve as markers to this life.

Whereas Jesus offered several scathing rebukes of life in this age as “faithless and perverse” , Jesus’ stories consistently portray a different mode of existence for those who will embody the way of Jesus. In Jesus’ teaching in Luke’s Gospel, we encounter exhortations to eat and associate with “sinners” for sake of extending God’s grace to them. We discover that we are to live by an expanded definition of love for neighbor and recognize that our sworn enemies may in fact embody this ethic better than we. We are exhorted to love others and show mercy extravagantly and indiscriminately. In short, the way of Jesus turns cultural assumptions upside down and overturns tendencies to exclude from access to God those on the peripheries and margins of society.

Jesus’ use of worthy was a subtle critique of the exclusivity of the Sadducees who were drawn primarily from the upper classes of society and who were ultimately the persons most invested in the status quo because they had the most at stake in the world as it currently operated. Their primary interest was in maintaining their own privileged position in society.

The initial part of Jesus’ response is clear: the Resurrection is real and each of us needs to be ready to enter into to it. It is not about marrying and being given in marriage – it is about being a child of the resurrection.

Interpreting Scripture
But Jesus is not finished. He pushes the envelope with the Sadducees by citing Moses. The Sadducees prided themselves on their conservative approach to Scripture. They believed a doctrine only if it was rooted in the text, and for the Sadducees, only the Law of Moses, Genesis – Deuteronomy was recognized as authoritative Scripture for life. Their rejection of the resurrection was based in their insistence that Moses had written nothing about resurrection. Yet in verses 37-38, Jesus introduces the conversation between God and Moses at the burning bush on Mount Sinai as proof that Moses believed in the resurrection. Jesus paraphrases Exodus 3:8 “I am the God of your father, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob.” By speaking of his relationship in the present tense, Jesus suggests that God’s words imply an on-going, beyond the grave relationship between God and Israel’s ancestors.

Jesus’ words are bold and daring. He has challenged the Sadducees on their misunderstanding of the nature of resurrection and invited them to reflect on the character of their own lives. Now he clearly suggests that they do not even understand their own Scriptures!

The Game Changer
This text is subversive and deeply unsettling. As we reflect on our lives today, do not we find ourselves occupied primarily by the “busy-ness” of the world in which we live? Are not our lives more about “marrying and being given in marriage” than about learning to reflect, cultivate, and embody the sort of existence that bears witness to the reality of resurrection? Moreover our communities of faith and our homes overflow with copies of the Bible. We hear the Scriptures read and proclaimed from our pulpits. We pour over texts in daily devotional times. We engage the Bible in our conversations with one another. This text challenges us to consider the real possibility that we may be misreading the Scriptures as a means of squelching the new work that God is seeking to do in our midst.

Jesus was a game changer. His life, death, and resurrection have changed everything. Are we willing to realign continually ourselves and our communities in order to reflect the game-changing life that God offers to those who follow Jesus?

Tags: Biblical Studies, Luke, Mission, missional church by brian
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Vv. 44-49 contains the meat of Luke 24. It ties up several of the recurring elements noted in our reflection on the previous verses. It serves as a basis for a missional hermeneutic.

44 Then he said to them, “These are my words that I spoke to you while I was still with you– that everything written about me in the law of Moses, the prophets, and the psalms must be fulfilled.” 45 Then he opened their minds to understand the scriptures, 46 and he said to them, “Thus it is written, that the Messiah is to suffer and to rise from the dead on the third day, 47 and that repentance and forgiveness of sins is to be proclaimed in his name to all nations, beginning from Jerusalem. 48 You are witnesses of these things. 49 And see, I am sending upon you what my Father promised; so stay here in the city until you have been clothed with power from on high.”

1) Jesus’ suffering, death, and resurrection was God’s Plan all along. In verse 44 Jesus reminds the disciples of his message before his death. This is crucial. Beginning in Luke 9 following Peter’s confession, Jesus had consistently spoken about his impending death: The Son of Man must suffer many things, and be rejected by the elders, chief priests and teachers of the law, and he must be killed, and on the third day be raised to life (9:22, cf. 9:44, 12:50, 17:25, 18:31-33 etc). This is important for apologetic reasons. It is not a matter of Christians reinterpreting the Bible in order to explain the death of Jesus. Instead, Jesus himself understood the Old Testament to predict the sort of life and death that he lives as well as his resurrection. What happened to Jesus was not haphazard. It was God’s plan all along to which Jesus the Incarnate Word and Son willingly submitted.

2) The Message of the Scriptures Points to Jesus the Messiah as the Climax of God’s Mission. In verses 45- 47, Jesus (re)teaches the Scriptures to his disciples. I like the phrasing of this passage, “He opened their minds to the Scriptures” He showed them the way to read the Scriptures in a manner consistent with the mission of God in Jesus the Messiah. Notice the points that he emphasized:

a) Suffering Messiah (v. 46)
b) Resurrection on Third Day (v. 46)
c) Proclamation to All Nations of Repentance for the Forgiveness of Sins (v. 47)
Verse 47 is key. It links the necessity of proclamation to the nations with the saving acts of the Messiah. In other words, the mission of the Church is the natural response to the mission of the Messiah. So much so that the Scriptures, says Jesus, foresaw this worldwide proclamation. Christopher Wright has stated that the Church does a much better job of reading the Bible messianically than it does reading it missionally. When we talk about a starting place for talking about missional hermeneutics, this is a good one. Missional hermeneutics is a way of reading Scripture that takes seriously the missional heart of God and his creational intentions for humanity to live as a missional community that reflects/embodies God’s character to/for/in the World.

3) Jesus’ life, death, and resurrection sends the Church forth in mission.

Jesus opens the disciples minds to the Scriptures. Unlike too much of our teaching and preaching today that merely transfer information, Jesus ends his teaching with a commission:

The language here is more emphatic that our English translations are able to convey.

1) YOU are witnesses. Disciples move from frightened and demoralized people to serving God’s vanguard. Jesus emphasizes the missional role in which each disciple will serve. This makes explicit what has been implicit throughout Luke 24-an encounter with the Risen Jesus unleashes believers into the world as witnesses. Mission is the reason for the existence of God’s people in the post-Resurrection era. Notice now that the Christ-following movement as God’s people becomes a “go to” group rather than a “come and see/experience” group.

Notice the scope of the sending: all nations. Jerusalem represents the starting point. The world is in view.

How large is my understanding of mission?

2) Witness is empowered by Holy Spirit. God’s missional movement is Spirit-drenched. This is so important that Jesus emphatically orders the disciples to wait for the filling of the Spirit. The emphasis on the work of the Spirit is a good reminder that ultimately the fulfillment of God’s mission is the work of the Spirit through us. We are not called to be super men or women. We are called to be Spirit-filled, sent out humans. The work of God in the world is about power. This power comes only through the Spirit.

© 2007 Brian D. Russell (revised 2009 & 2010)

Tags: Biblical Studies, Community, Gospels, Hermeneutics, Luke, Mission, New Testament, Old Testament, calling, church, ethos, missional church, missional hermeneutic, missional hermeneutics, missional leadership, missional reading, resurrection by brian
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The resurrection scenes in Luke are profound and memorable. They build slowly toward a resounding climax. Luke 24 consists of three interlocking narratives: 1) 24:1-12 Women Find an Empty Tomb, 2) 24:13-35 Two Men Encounter Jesus on the road to Emmaus, 3) 24 36-49 Jesus Appears to the Eleven. Let’s begin with some observations on Luke 24:1-12–

NRS Luke 24:1 But on the first day of the week, at early dawn, they came to the tomb, taking the spices that they had prepared. 2 They found the stone rolled away from the tomb, 3 but when they went in, they did not find the body. 4 While they were perplexed about this, suddenly two men in dazzling clothes stood beside them. 5 The women were terrified and bowed their faces to the ground, but the men said to them, “Why do you look for the living among the dead? He is not here, but has risen. 6 Remember how he told you, while he was still in Galilee, 7 that the Son of Man must be handed over to sinners, and be crucified, and on the third day rise again.” 8 Then they remembered his words, 9 and returning from the tomb, they told all this to the eleven and to all the rest. 10 Now it was Mary Magdalene, Joanna, Mary the mother of James, and the other women with them who told this to the apostles. 11 But these words seemed to them an idle tale, and they did not believe them. 12 But Peter got up and ran to the tomb; stooping and looking in, he saw the linen cloths by themselves; then he went home, amazed at what had happened.

In the opening scene (Luke 24:1-12), a group of women including Mary Magdalene, Joanna, and Mary the mother of James go to the burial place of Jesus early on the 1st day of the week (they had rested on Sabbath (23:56) and discover that Jesus’ body is gone. They are suddenly joined by two angelic beings (24:4). The angels say (24:5a-8):

NRS Luke 24:5 The women were terrified and bowed their faces to the ground, but the men said to them, “Why do you look for the living among the dead? He is not here, but has risen. 6 Remember how he told you, while he was still in Galilee, 7 that the Son of Man must be handed over to sinners, and be crucified, and on the third day rise again.” 8 Then they remembered his words…

These verses affirm several key elements about the resurrection:

1) It was a bodily resurrection. The tomb was empty. This is affirmed across the NT. To deny a bodily resurrection in favor of a spiritual resurrection is to move outside of the biblical evidence. This part of Luke’s narrative makes little sense if Jesus’ body was present at the tomb.

2) In verses 5-8, there is the beginning of a pattern (24:5-8, 25-26, 44-49) in which Jesus’ earlier words are recounted (e.g., 9:22). What happened to Jesus should not have been a surprise. It was God’s plan to which Jesus willingly submitted for Jesus to suffer and die and be raised on the third day. It becomes a central element of early Christian teaching to move toward a Christocentric reading strategy for Scripture. In other words, God’s actions through Jesus becomes the key to understanding the overall movement and message of the Scriptures. A crucial learning for us today is that this reading is not only messianic but also missional. The good news about Jesus must be shared with the nations. A key Scriptural pattern emerges: an encounter with the Risen Messiah (or a hearing of its reality) becomes an commissioning for announcing this Good News for others.

3) Resurrection creates the Church as a missional movement. The women in this story shift from mourners taking spices to the tomb to proclaimers of the Resurrection Story. This group of women (only the two Mary’s and Joanna are named) become the initial witnesses and servants of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. Profoundly in the 1st century, the testimony of women was not valid in a court of law. Thus, the first witnesses to the Resurrection come from the margins of society. God entrusted the Gospel to a band of marginalized women to become his initial preachers. Mission is the shared stewardship of all followers of Jesus the Messiah. Notice the implication for preaching here: proclamation is the sharing of testimony. The women experienced the resurrection of Jesus - now they have a message to announce.

4) The proclamation of the Resurrection is received with skepticism (24:11). This is worth pondering. Sometimes we think that the ancients were gullible and believed anything. Resurrection is an anti-intuitive and supraexperiential claim. Dead men and women are not raised. Bodies do not disappear from tombs except at the hands of robbers. Yet because of the witness of these women Peter responds by running to the tomb to check it out for himself (24:12).

How do you respond to the testimony of these women?

© 2007 Brian D. Russell (Rev 2009 and 2010)

Tags: Biblical Studies, Community, Gospels, Luke, Mission, New Testament, Preaching, calling, church, early church, missional church, missional leadership, missional reading, missionary, resurrection by brian
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Here is a draft of a sermon that I am writing for publication.

25 Large crowds were traveling with Jesus, and turning to them he said: 26 “If anyone comes to me and does not hate his father and mother, his wife and children, his brothers and sisters—yes, even his own life—he cannot be my disciple. 27 And anyone who does not carry his cross and follow me cannot be my disciple. 28 “Suppose one of you wants to build a tower. Will he not first sit down and estimate the cost to see if he has enough money to complete it? 29 For if he lays the foundation and is not able to finish it, everyone who sees it will ridicule him, 30 saying, ‘This fellow began to build and was not able to finish.’ 31″Or suppose a king is about to go to war against another king. Will he not first sit down and consider whether he is able with ten thousand men to oppose the one coming against him with twenty thousand? 32 If he is not able, he will send a delegation while the other is still a long way off and will ask for terms of peace. 33 In the same way, any of you who does not give up everything he has cannot be my disciple.

Church planting consultant Alex McManus holds training events in various parts of the United States for persons who sense a call from God to launch new communities of faith. For several years now, he has promoted these events with this invitation: “Heroes wanted for a quest to save the universe. Safe return doubtful.” In deploying such language, McManus captures two often-neglected elements in Jesus’ core message: mission and cost.

The story that Luke tells in his Gospel is driving toward Jesus’ climactic death on a cross and resurrection from the dead. This is the heart of the good news. But it is a message that must be lived out and shared. After Jesus’ resurrection, all of the disciples are immediately commissioned as witnesses of Jesus’ death and resurrection and sent out to announce to all people beginning in Jerusalem the reality that repentance and the forgiveness of sins are found in Jesus (Luke 24:44ff cf. Acts 1:8). This is a high stakes mission. The entire Scriptural story from Genesis to Revelation tells of how God has moved to restore and redeem humanity from darkness. The coming of Jesus marks the climactic act of God through Jesus’ life, death, and resurrection. The power of this moment in history shatters the status quo and opens the future for the announcement of God’s salvation in Jesus.

This is the backdrop to our Scripture lesson. Apart from its context, we may be tempted to hear Jesus’ words simply as a call to an unattainable or perhaps even to an undesirable life. Who among us wants to embrace a view of life in which family members including spouses and children are hated? Who among us can imagine what it would mean to completely renounce and give away all of our possessions? But if we walk away from this text with only these questions in our mind, we have missed the true force of Jesus’ words. For in these words we are reminded of the Gospel’s call to the only true life worth living—a life of full commitment to God’s mission as a follower of Jesus.

Counting the Cost
The central focus of Jesus’ words in our lesson is the cost of being a disciple. Verses 28-32 contain two parables that Jesus deploys in order to emphasize the vital necessity of recognizing Jesus’ call for what it is—a truly transformation experience. How does one prepare adequately to be Jesus’ disciple? The answer is provocative and one that subverts typical cultural norms for attaining advancement and security. Jesus’ teaching calls his hearers to reassess their understanding of wealth, family, and notions of self-preservation. The parables are poignant in communicating the riskiness of following Jesus apart from a full assessment of the cost. The assumption is that no one wants to be a builder whose grand design ends in mockery for lack of preparation. No one wants to be a king whose supposed military power wilts in the presence of a greater force and ends in surrender.

The parables beg the question: What is the true cost of following Jesus? When we ask this question, we will hear our text as an invitation to a bold and daring new way of life.

The Shadow of Jerusalem
Jesus words must be understood in light of Jesus’ journey to Jerusalem. Verse 25 reminds us that Jesus is traveling. But Jesus is not merely continuing his itinerant ministry around Palestine. His movement is intentional and has an end in mind. Since 9:51, Jesus has been on the road to the cross. Living as a disciple of Jesus involves embracing the cross as a central value in life. This does not mean wearing a cross as jewelry or as a tattoo or displaying stylized crosses as pieces of art. For the biblical era, the cross represented a mode of execution reserved only for slaves and for the gravest of crimes against the Empire. Verse 27 makes the cross central to our text by declaring that disciples by definition are cross-bearers. We must resist all attempts to romanticize this call or attempts to spiritualize it in terms of mere ascetic attempts at self-denial. At its core, Jesus is reminding his would be followers that God’s mission will be advanced by women and men who embrace the cross as a call to die up front so that they can follow Jesus into places where only dead men and men dare to go. God’s mission through Jesus is a bold and daring one. There can be no mistake on the part of his disciples that it is a life altering and future transforming call. The allure of our world screams: “Look out for #1. Protect your own interests. Market and promote yourself.” Jesus’ call is the opposite. Embrace the cross. Find life by willingly giving your own away for the sake of God’s mission in the world.

Renouncing of Allegiances
Jesus puts additional flesh on his description of the cost of discipleship by describing a new personal identity for disciples rooted in the provocative language of hatred for family. In the ancient world of Jesus’ day, one’s network of family and clan represented one’s primary set of allegiances in the world. The call to follow Jesus however cuts against this understanding of life. Jesus’ disciples are marked by an all encompassing allegiance to Jesus the Messiah that transcends all other relational bonds including family, ethnicity, socio-economic status, political affiliation and social clubs. The language of “hate” is not literal in the way that we commonly deploy it in our day. For Jesus’ audience, to turn one’s allegiance from family was paramount to hatred.

Embrace of a New Status
Finally, Jesus concludes our text with a summative statement about possessions. Preacher Robert Tuttle of Asbury Seminary is known to say, “The last part of a person to be converted is his or her wallet.” A person’s possessions tell much about how a person understands status. If we are to count carefully the cost of following Jesus, we must embrace a status void of possessions. Jesus’ followers are not defined or limited by the size of their bank accounts or the amount of stuff that they possess. This text calls us to relinquish freely any appearance of status for the sake of God’s mission. Arguably, the status that we embrace establishes the limits of our ability to reach others with the Gospel. Appearances of superiority or class may puff us up, but they negate our witness as followers of Jesus.

A Concluding Call
In sum, this text invites us to ask: “Am I all in for the sake of the Gospel?” What does it mean to be “all in” for the sake of the Gospel? It begins with a life transforming encounter with Jesus.

If you’ve ever met a surfer, you have likely observed his or her commitment and passion about riding waves. Surfers love to surf. Surfers will cut class or even take vacation days from work for the chance to paddle out into a good wave producing ocean swell. Yet one of the most common questions asked of surfers by non-surfers is this: “Aren’t you afraid of getting attacked by a shark?” It’s a natural question, but given the obvious fun that surfers have and the reality that everyone who has ever dipped a toe into the ocean or watched the movie Jaws has probably at least fretted for a moment over the possibility of encountering a shark in the water, it is clearly a question that misses the point of surfing. Surfers surf because riding waves is intrinsically satisfying and life changing. When a person stands up on a surfboard and feels the power of the ocean for the first time, he will never be the same again. Every trip to beach represents a new opportunity to reexperience the exuberance of riding waves. Surfers don’t worry about sharks because they are more interested in catching the next rideable wave than they are in worrying about a potential meeting with a sharp-toothed predator.

Our text today calls us to a similar counting of cost versus gain. Following Jesus Christ into the world on mission is the highest expression of human life. It is the life that each of us was created to live and experience. But this calling and mission has costs. It calls us to reassess and realign our values, our priorities, and our very lives with those of the Gospel. Our highest calling is no longer defined by allegiance to family, clan or culture. Our raison d’etre is not mere survival. Our worth is not measured by our bank accounts or possessions. These all become secondary to God’s mission. This text reminds us that God’s call is to live for a kingdom bigger than ourselves. It begins with the decision to follow Jesus Christ.

Ask yourself: What if following Jesus Christ were the only true way of living the life that I was created to live? What is keeping me from being “all in” for the Gospel? Amen.

Tags: Biblical Studies, Holiness, Luke, Mission, New Testament, church, missional church by brian
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