Readings: Deuteronomy 30.15-end, and Luke 14:25-33
Some words from tonight’s first reading, from the Book of Deuteronomy in the Old Testament: “Today I offer you the choice of life and good, or death and evil.” The setting for these stark words is Moses preparing the people of Israel to cross over into the Promised Land to which the Lord has led them. And now, says Moses, “You must love the Lord your God and walk in his ways, keep his commandments, decrees and laws.” And if they do, God will bless them.
But there’s no room for a half-hearted response. The challenge Moses lays before them is this: If you’re not fully up for life in this new land, then you should stay this side of the river. God has brought you to this land, and if you’re going to cross the river to claim it, then with all your heart you must be committed to serve him and to keep his commands.
I was reading the other day on the sports pages about a star player who’d been dropped for the Saturday game. But he’s our best player, fans were saying. Not surprisingly, the coach was challenged as to why he’d dropped him. “I’ve the highest regard for his skills,” the coach insisted, “but his head’s not in the right place, his heart’s not in it - he’s not in the right place to play and I shan’t play him till he is. Just now, he can’t give me the commitment I need. It isn’t how good he is, it’s whether he can play his part in a team game.”
Ability isn’t enough, unless there’s also commitment. You need to be on-side, and part of the team. Moses said to the people that they must turn to the Lord with all their heart and soul and mind and strength. Let me connect that to the really hard thing Jesus said at the beginning of our second reading: “Unless you hate your father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters, you can’t be my disciple.” That really jars, doesn’t it? How can he ask us to hate our own kith and kin? What sort of a Christian would hate their own nearest and dearest? Surely what God want from us is to be loving and caring and dutiful, as parents, as partners, as siblings? Doesn’t the commandment say, “Honour your father and mother”?
Yes, he does of course; and in fact what Jesus is saying - though in quite a tough way - is much the same thing as Moses: to do with commitment. What Jesus is saying is that nothing must come before our allegiance to God, not even our duty to those we love most in the world. Of course we should be caring and dutiful parents, children, siblings, friends - but these things follow from our duty to God, they don’t take precedence over it.
And while of course none of us should act badly, spitefully or without care to those who have a right to expect our love, not even the closest relationship, not even our love of our own life, should be allowed to stand in the way of the first call placed upon us if we’re disciples of Jesus, which is to love the Lord our God with all our heart and soul and mind and strength. As William Ruskin said many years ago: “He who gives God but second place in his life, gives him no place.”
So just as Moses told the people not to cross the river unless they were totally ready to serve the Lord in the land he was giving them, Jesus now says “Don’t come with me unless you’re totally ready to put what my Father asks of you before everything else." Religion can’t be just a hobby, because God asks us to offer him “ourselves, our souls and bodies” - in other words, to hold nothing back.
And while we may express this offering of ourselves in being in church and coming to God in prayer, Jesus tells us we must take up our cross to follow him. That’s about everything we do: our use of time, our allocation of money, our thought for others, our care for the world and for the environment, and the moral standards we set and keep to.
Religion on its own can even become a godless thing - perverted and misused by false prophets who use their power for their own ends. So we get cults and religious extremism - and even mainstream churches aren’t totally immune. There’ll always be - in every faith - those who set themselves up in God’s place, those who misappropriate the enthusiasm and desire of those who want to believe and to serve.
And I think that’s why Jesus spoke about taking up the cross. He warned his friends that others would claim his name, and would try to lead folk astray. So how do we test the truth of what we’re told and taught? The way of the cross is the test of truth. God’s love is cross shaped, God’s love offers peace and healing and understanding, forgiveness and compassion and justice. It is inclusive, it invites everyone in, and it’s sacrificial, it gives, it doesn’t take. And any word that leads us away from those things cannot be the true word of God, however plausibly it’s preached. In Philippians chapter 2 verse 6 the apostle Paul wrote that Jesus was by his very nature God, and yet he humbled himself, taking the form of a servant. There’s the test we should apply, whether we’re looking inwardly at our own selves, or reflecting on the teaching others give us.
To “love the Lord your God with all your heart and soul, with all your mind and strength” is of course the first part of the Summary of the Law; and the second section naturally follows: “Love your neighbour as yourself.” You must love God before all else, Jesus tells us, but the true love for God will be cross-shaped, reaching up to God, and also reaching out, to be proved in our care for others, and in our readiness to live generous and giving lives.
Here we are on the Lord’s Day, and once again that simple yet profound and crucial question is posed, as we look to the challenge of being Christian disciples through this new week of opportunity and challenge: Are we up for this, or not? Will we cross the river, will we accept the cross? Moses said: “It’s your choice - life and good, or death and evil.” Our Servant King died on a cross to make us his people, and to open the way to a new Promised Land. So are we people of the cross, or are we not? And are we committed to him, does he have our full attention, and our complete allegiance? As the old hymn puts it, “Jesus speaks, and speaks to me - say, poor sinner, lov’st thou me?”
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