Sermon for Sunday, September 8, 2013
Rally Day/God’s Work, Our Hands
Sunday
Luke 14:25-33
PREACHER: Pastor Carrie Smith
Grace and peace to you from God our
Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.
Now, large
crowds were traveling with Jesus, because summer was finally over and it was
Rally Day in Galilee. So Jesus turned and began his “welcome back to church”
sermon by saying: “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.” Amen?
Yeah, I
think it probably went over just as well when Jesus preached it, too! This was
one heckuva sermon for Jesus to deliver, especially after a dinner party during
which he proclaimed “all are welcome!” Now that all those sinners, outcasts,
and other folk have heard his message and rallied around him, he says “hate
your family” and “carry the cross or you can’t be my disciple?” Well played,
Jesus, well played.
Jesus must
have been at least somewhat excited
to see that his message was reaching more and more people. But the words we
hear from him today indicate his concern, too: Do the people really understand
what they’re signing up for? Do they realize this is an “all or nothing”
proposition? Do they know where this path leads? Looking out at the crowd, Jesus
may have noticed how some folks seemed to have one foot on the path with Jesus
and one foot back at home. A few were keeping one eye on the door in case
someone more important or interesting showed up. Others appeared to be listening to the sermon, but were in fact mentally
making a shopping list for later on (go ahead and nod if you know what I mean. And
don’t worry – I’ve actually written sermons in my head while listening to other
preachers’ sermons! In the name of + Christ, we are all forgiven! Amen?)
It may not be
a crowd-pleaser, but this passage from the 14th chapter of Luke
represents one of Jesus’ central messages: All
are welcome, grace is for everyone, but following Jesus is a costly affair.
This was literally a “come to Jesus” talk for the rallying crowds that day!
Jesus says to all who would follow him: “No one comes any further on this
journey until you know what you’re getting into and where we are going. I need
you to be all in: Both feet forward,
eyes on the prize, and, most importantly, hands free of possessions so you can
carry the cross and follow me.”
Yes, Jesus
calls us to practice “hands-free discipleship”. He asks us to relinquish all that
stuff we love to hold so tightly—our over-packed schedules, our control over
everyone and everything, our personal comforts and privileges, our strongly
held beliefs, and everything else we’re proud to possess—so our hands will be
free to carry the one thing Jesus requires of us: the cross of Christ.
The other
day, when I preached on this text at the nursing home, I asked the little
congregation assembled there what crosses they have to bear (thinking they might
mention aging or facing their own mortality) but one resident right away
offered: “Being cheerful to my roommate is the cross I must bear!”
Carrying the
cross certainly can be a deeply personal struggle with any number of things:
loving our neighbors, dealing with an addiction or an illness, or overcoming
adversity. Some days, carrying the cross and following Jesus means just putting
one foot in front of the other in spite of what life throws at you. Day by day,
we all seek to see him more clearly, to love him more dearly, and to follow him
more nearly. (nod if you just started humming the music of Godspell just now…)
Today, when
we hear Jesus ask us to “take up the cross and follow”, we most often think of
our daily discipleship walk. We imagine ourselves enduring life’s difficulties
and coming out a better Christian at the end. But in Jesus’ time, the only
people who carried the cross were criminals. Carrying a cross meant only one
thing: a death sentence. The only people you saw with a cross on their backs were
trudging through the city to their execution. This was not an attractive lifestyle choice. Carrying a cross didn’t make
you a better person, build character, help you win elections, or give you
better arm muscles. It just made you dead.
So for Jesus
to say to the large crowd rallying around him “Listen, you can’t be my disciple
unless you carry the cross and follow me” must have been quite a shock to the
hearers. How many do you suppose turned around and went home? How many do you
suppose turned to each other to ask, “What
did he just say? Carry the what? Where are we going?”
For those
who stayed for the whole sermon, the point was made clear: discipleship is
serious business. It’s time to get real about what it’s like to follow Jesus, and
to trust in God, when the party’s over, when the crowds are gone, and when Rally
Day is finished. It’s time to contemplate just where Jesus is leading us in
this cross-carrying itinerary—because it sure looks like we’re all headed to
Calvary.
On Thursday
I was called to the bedside of Bethany member Bill Kohl, 89 years old. (I’m sad
to tell you that Bill died early this morning.) Please keep the Kohl and Romano
families in your prayers. As many of you may know, Bill was a dentist for over
45 years. I mentioned to the family that I had been thinking about a good
“theme verse” for Bill’s life. Unfortunately, there just aren’t many Bible
passages about dentists or teeth! But Bill’s wife, Lois, said she had been
thinking for several days about the hand blessing we experienced in worship
here at Bethany last week. She was deeply moved by this ritual, when each of
you had the opportunity to come forward and have your hands anointed with oil
and blessed for the godly work that they do. “I wish he could have been there”
Lois said. “He cared for so many people, so many teeth, and so many smiles with
his hands.”
And then
Lois went on to tell me how when she was called to the nursing home the night
before, as Bill’s health started to quickly deteriorate, she walked in and saw
a crowd of people working on him. Nurses, doctors, hospice workers, the chaplain—all
gathered around her dear husband. All were using their hands to do God’s work
of loving, comforting, and healing. All were accompanying Bill and his family on
his final journey. “All their hands are
blessed hands” said Lois.
Sisters and
brothers, I can think of no better example of what it means to carry the cross
and follow Jesus wherever he leads. While we all have personal crosses to bear,
discipleship is not chiefly about our own daily struggles. Carrying cross of
Christ means lightening the load for others. It means keeping our hands free to
do God’s work of loving our neighbors, bearing one another’s burdens, and yes, accompanying
the condemned and the dying to the very end.
Today we are
celebrating “God’s work, our hands” Sunday, in honor of the 25th
anniversary of the ELCA. This afternoon we will be out in the community,
serving our neighbors at two different PADS sites, at the new LSSI Gable Point
senior housing, at the Queen Anne home for disabled adults, and at the Fruits
of Faith community garden. Behind us you can also see some visual examples of
all the ways in which this beloved community does God’s work with our hands. This is a day to celebrate. It’s a day
to roll up our sleeves and get to work, in the name of Christ.
But let’s be
clear about one thing: we seek to do God’s work not to puff ourselves up, and
never to save ourselves or become better people, but rather to join with God in
the work of loving our neighbors, and sharing their burdens. Because we are
free in Christ—free of sin and death and everything else that would possess
us—our hands are available to take up the cross and become instruments of God’s
love, peace, and mercy—whether we are providing shelter at PADS, food through the
food pantry, making music to soothe souls and draw people closer to God, taking
communion to shut-ins…or being present at the bedside of someone who is dying,
using our God-given gifts and talents to comfort and to heal.
Sisters and
brothers, on this “God’s Work, Our Hands” day, I give thanks for each of you
and the ways in which you practice “hands-free discipleship”. Your hands are
truly blessed! (Let’s do a very non-Lutheran thing right now and raise our
hands in the air, saying “Thank you, God, for using my hands!” And now,
everyone E-L-C-A!)
And now,
dear friends in Christ, as we prepare for a busy season of work in the church,
and as we celebrate all the work we do with our hands, let us also give thanks
to God for the work we DO NOT do. Let us
rejoice again in the work that God’s already got covered, for it is in Jesus Christ, our brother, that we
see God’s work most clearly:
We see God’s
work of love for the world through the birth of Jesus Christ.
We see God’s
work of compassion in the life of Jesus Christ.
And we chiefly
see God’s work of redemption for all sinners in the walk Jesus made to Calvary,
carrying the cross, and loving us to the end—even to death on that very cross.
Sisters and
brothers, God’s work is love. God’s work is sacrifice for the sake of others.
God’s work is redemption for all of creation. In Christ, our hands are free to carry
on God’s work for the sake of our neighbors, easing their burdens, and loving
them as we have been loved – to the very end. Amen.
