September 4, 2016 - Sixteenth Sunday after Pentecost - The Cost of Discipleship

The 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.

One of the subjects of Pastor Michelle's sermon this Sunday was the difficulty of today's Gospel reading. This does not seem to be the Jesus of Matthew 11:28 Come to me, all ye that labor, and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest  This seems designed to discourage half-hearted followers from attempting to follow him.  This is about following number one of the Ten Commandments and putting God first.

How does this fit in with the distinction Bonhoeffer makes between "cheap" and "costly" grace. According to Bonhoeffer,  "cheap grace is the preaching of forgiveness without requiring repentance, baptism without church discipline. Communion without confession. Cheap grace is grace without discipleship, grace without the cross, grace without Jesus Christ."

Cheap grace, Bonhoeffer says, is to hear the gospel preached as follows: "Of course you have sinned, but now everything is forgiven, so you can stay as you are and enjoy the consolations of forgiveness." The main defect of such a proclamation is that it contains no demand for discipleship. In contrast to cheap grace, "costly grace confronts us as a gracious call to follow Jesus, it comes as a word of forgiveness to the broken spirit and the contrite heart. It is costly because it compels a man to submit to the yoke of Christ and follow him; it is grace because Jesus says: 'My yoke is easy and my burden is light.'"

So here the yoke does not seem so easy nor is the burden light.  Are we to follow the Ten Commandments and practice our Christianity with single-minded devotion?  Can that lead to a sort of fanaticism or is it fervor?  Is our Christianity a low cost and low risk endeavor that we pursue until it becomes challenging?