Read the Fine Print

A vacation should create many happy memories, and usually they do. Even if an afternoon goes a little wrong — let’s say a horrendously bad restaurant — it can become one of those stories that’s funny in retrospect, and therefore still a fairly happy memory. A coworker of mine had an experience that no matter how he looks at it will ever be looked at as a happy memory. In fact, this one experience was so awful, that it forever overshadows the good memories of that vacation.

He had decided to go on a cruise, but he didn’t have a lot of money to spend. He wasn’t encouraged as collected price quotes from different travel agents. But one day he was looking through a travel magazine and came across an ad that was offering cruises for fifty-percent less than the cheapest price he had found. So he booked his cruise and went on vacation.

The weather was beautiful. The food was excellent. He had a nice room. In fact, the vacation itself was exemplary until the very moment that he collected his luggage and was going to disembark. This is otherwise known as the moment he discovered the difference between a cruise and an all-inclusive cruise. In an all-inclusive cruise, he would have paid one price upfront before he ever left home. Instead, he found out at the end he owed a few hundred bucks in port charges (that’s a tax that’s levied every time your boat goes into a harbor). He also didn’t realize that it’s expected to tip the steward, the waiter, and the bus boy each about ten dollars a day.

My friend did eventually make it back on dry land, albeit a thousand bucks lighter. So you can understand why he breaks out into a cold sweat every time a rerun of The Love Boat comes on TV Land. The cruise was enjoyable enough; it just cost him a lot more in the end than he thought it would. His trip is a living illustration of the expression If it sounds too good to be true, it probably is.

Jesus’ speaking tour has been a huge success. His message of second chances and compassion for the needy has really connected with a demographic that isn’t usually too interested in religion! Standing room only venues… The cover of Time Magazine… He even made the Wired list – they moved John the Baptist to Tired… They put his face on some Jesus is My Homeboy t-shirts. The establishment doesn’t seem too happy with ‘em, but then again, when was the last time the establishment did anything for you? While they’re spending time kissing up to Rome, Jesus is making blind men see, lame people straight, and demon-possessed people free.

Everybody wants to follow this guy. But what they don’t realize is that they’re following a man straight to his execution.

Large crowds were traveling with Jesus, and turning to them he said: "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. And anyone who does not carry his cross and follow me cannot be my disciple. (Luke 14: 25 – 27)

Jesus was a carpenter, but personally, I think he would have made an excellent mechanic. He’s not the type to lure you in with a promise of a $12.95 oil change only to tell you that your brakes need replaced. Jesus’ teachings and acts of compassion were the best things that hit that enemy-occupied country in a long time. And people wanted to hang onto him with all their might. But Jesus knew that all too often the dark forces of this world rush in to snuff out whatever rare candle gets to burning. And he wants them to know upfront what they’re really getting themselves into.

Hate his father and mother. What do you suppose he meant by that? It can’t be that he’s suggesting that loyalty to him allows us to be cruel to our family, because Jesus’ ministry was one of compassion. In fact, there’s a story recorded in the Gospel of Saint Mark (chapter 7) where Jesus condemns a practice where a person could donate money or property to the temple and then neglect supporting his parents in their old age. We need to honor our parents. Jesus is using the word hate in an exaggerated way to get his point across, just like in the Sermon on the Mount when he says if your eye causes you to sin, pluck it out or if your hand causes you to sin, cut it off.

What he means by the word hate is love less. Some people’s family lives are better than others. Some family bonds are strong, others are tattered. In Israel, family was everything – it was the greatest source of pride – and a person’s loyalty to it was unwavering. Through thick and thin, right or wrong, a person stood with their family. And Jesus says you need that kind of loyalty and then some if you’re ever gonna learn anything from me.

In fact, an uncompromising commitment to following Jesus must be more important to a disciple than his own self-interest and even his own instinct of self-preservation.

I was so ripped at somebody the other day at work. I knew this person needed my help, so I decided that I was going to be as obstinate as possible. But then I remembered that I needed to forgive as the Lord forgave me. So I got off my butt and helped them. So if my grudge gets in the way of following Jesus, the grudge has to go. Whatever it is that gets between me and intimacy with Christ has to go.

"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? For if he lays the foundation and is not able to finish it, everyone who sees it will ridicule him, saying, 'This fellow began to build and was not able to finish.' (Luke 14: 28 – 30)

Let’s say you want to fix something up around the house. So you don’t plan anything for Saturday morning, you just go pick up what you need at the hardware store and you get working. You know how it goes, right? Sunday night at 10 ‘o clock you’re still messing around with the project and you’ve had to run to the hardware store three times to pick up more stuff! It’s always going to cost more and take more time than you think it will.

Faith in Christ isn’t a one-time event; Faith in Christ is a daily journey. Some days it’s a wonderful journey, and the winds at my back, and I feel like I can run the whole way straight to heaven. The sky grows dark on other days, and the journey is punishing, the hills almost impossible to climb. That’s why I so appreciate Jesus’ frankness in saying that it’s not always going to be easy, because sometimes the only thing that keeps me trudging on is my stubborn commitment that I’m in this with Jesus for the long haul.

"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? 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. In the same way, any of you who does not give up everything he has cannot be my disciple. (Luke 14: 31 – 33)

Pastor David Guzik writes, “In the parable of the tower, Jesus says ‘sit down and see if you can afford to follow me. In the parable of the king, Jesus says ‘sit down and see if you can afford to refuse my demands.’”

Back in the seventies there was a Broadway musical called Your Arm's Too Short to Box With God. What a true statement. He must conquer all to set us truly free. But I’m happy to say from experience that Christ offers highly favorable terms of surrender!

University of Southern California philosphy professor Dallas Willard writes:

In 1937 Dietrich Bonhoeffer gave the world his book The Cost of Discipleship. It was a masterful attack on "easy Christianity" or "cheap grace," but it did not set aside-perhaps it even enforced-the view of discipleship as a costly spiritual excess, and only for those especially driven or called to it. It was right to point out that one cannot be a disciple of Christ without forfeiting things normally sought in human life, and that one who pays little in the world's coinage to bear his name has reason to wonder where he or she stands with God. But the cost of nondiscipleship is far greater -- even when this life alone is considered -- than the price paid to walk with Jesus.

Nondiscipleship costs abiding peace, a life penetrated throughout by love, faith that sees everything in IIw light of God's overriding governance for good, hopefulness that stands firm in the most discouraging of circumstances, power to do what is right and withstand the forces of evil. In short, it costs exactly that abundance of life Jesus said he came to bring (John 10:10). The cross-shaped yoke of Christ is after all an instrument of liberation and power to those who live in it with him and learn the meekness and lowliness of heart that brings rest to the soul. . . . The correct perspective is to see following Christ not only as the necessity it is, but as the fulfillment of the highest human possibilities and as life on the highest plane.