St. James' Episcopal Church
Jackson, Mississippi
September 9, 2001
14th Sunday After Pentecost

This Above All
The Rev. William A. Kolb

Gospel: Luke 14:25-33

Our Gospel reading is quite clear: if we are to be a disciple of Christ, we must first count the cost, we must know what is expected of us. But I am not sure that that is always possible. One of the great adventures of being a Christian is that we never know for sure what our faith will require of us. As the old saying goes, "A sign of God in our life is that we end up where we didn't plan to go."

There is, however, one thing that is certain: we will be expected to put God first in all things. As we hear from Deuteronomy this morning, we are to love God first, above and beyond all else. The way Jesus puts it is that we must hate mother and father, even life itself, if we are to be his disciple. A lot of us have trouble with that. Modern interpreters try to help us out by saying he didn't really mean we are to hate our loved ones. And in fact, elsewhere in scripture we are instructed in many places to love family, to honor father and mother, to love our neighbor. But if Jesus had said, you must hate surgery and broccoli and pain in order to be my disciples, that would have been easy. He chose family and our very lives as those things we are most likely to love beyond all else. Only in that way could he make his point. Our first allegiance must be to God and to what God demands of us.

If our wife or husband wants us to join them in taking drugs, for example, and we realize that drugs can hurt our body, reduce or kill our ability to work and serve, kill our spirit and our love for God and cause us to hurt those around us, we would be in a position of having to choose between spouse and God.

Or, let's say my son has made soccer his god and is desperate to be on a winning team. Let's also say that I am a coach of his soccer team. His team is losing. I see a way for the team to cheat and win. I know that doing that will hurt others, eventually hurt my son, make me ashamed and cause others who admire me to question their own values of honesty and integrity, and if I go ahead and cheat to win, I have chosen family over God. I am carving out the path to life that is less than life, that puts God less than first.

Or, if being perfect is our uppermost value in life, if I am a perfectionist, I am putting God less than first. To strive after perfection (instead of excellence) is to make perfection our god. It is to feel bad about myself every time I am less than perfect and certainly every time I fail. It is also to expect perfection of those around me (for this is one of the symptoms of perfectionism), and, because no one can be perfect, it means that I will either think less of others or I will criticize them and put them down. In doing these things I will not be loving my neighbor or myself. I will be putting God less than first. And I may be making me my god, for if I think I can be perfect, I can be god and I don't need the One God.

A lot of us also have trouble with Jesus' teaching that we must give up all our possessions in order to follow him.

To love God is to love and follow God's instructions. One of those instructions is to have no other gods and their demands - to love only the One God and God's demands. If my possessions are the uppermost consideration in my day-to-day decisions, then I have made my possessions my god. For example, "I am the Lord your large house and you shall have no other considerations but me. If you need to cut corners and cheat others in earning enough money to make payments on your mortgage, then you must cut corners and cheat others." or, "I am the Lord your stock portfolio; you are to have no higher consideration than me. If you are called on to help another and that means to sell a stock that is on the rise, you are to keep the stock and not help that other person, for I am the Lord your stock portfolio." Whatever we make our god, and we can have only one god, those are the demands that will be out bottom line. A friend gave me a needlepoint pillow some Christmases ago. It carries a quote from Mark Twain: "If I cannot smoke cigars in Heaven then I shall not go." Cigars over God?

Do our possessions define us? What do you think when you hear the name Bill Gates? Perhaps the phrase, the richest man in the world. What do you think when you hear about homeless people? Perhaps those who have no possessions and not even the tools with which to keep themselves clean and neat. If these are anywhere near the truth of what we think, we are defining others by what they have. If I define myself by my possessions or lack of them, my possessions have come to define me. And if I lose all my possessions, what will I then be? Nothing? If I define myself, on the other hand, as God's creation, then I can never be nothing.

Think about doing this when you get home today: write on five pieces of paper each of the five things in your life that are most precious; e.g., family, work, health, heritage, faith. Then tear up one of those pieces of paper, choosing the one that you can most easily give up. That leaves you with four. Then do that three more times. You are left with one piece of paper that represents the one thing that means most to you in the world. It is your god. If the item you are left with on that last piece of paper can be taken from you--if it can die, be destroyed (by fire...), or be stolen... if that happens, you will then be nothing. That is who you are.

But if being a creature of God is your most valued consideration in life, nobody can ever take that from you - not death, or stock market crashes or automobile crashes - and so you already have eternal life.

To love the Lord our God above all else is the path to true life, here and in eternity.

Amen.

Copyright 2001 The Rev. William A. Kolb

Gospel: Luke 14:25-33
Now large crowds were traveling with him; and he turned and said to them, "Whoever comes to me and does not hate father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters, yes, and even life itself, cannot be my disciple. Whoever does not carry the cross and follow me cannot be my disciple. For which of you, intending to build a tower, does not first sit down and estimate the cost, to see whether he has enough to complete it? Otherwise, when he has laid a foundation and is not able to finish, all who see it will begin to ridicule him, saying, 'This fellow began to build and was not able to finish.' Or what king, going out to wage war against another king, will not sit down first and consider whether he is able with ten thousand to oppose the one who comes against him with twenty thousand? If he cannot, then, while the other is still far away, he sends a delegation and asks for the terms of peace. So therefore, none of you can become my disciple if you do not give up all your possessions. NRSV

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