Saint Luke 14:25-33
I must confess to you that I do not read any of our neighbouring churches websites or newsletters. I don’t know why but I don’t. However, I do peek in on what other churches in far away places like Boston, Atlanta, Cincinnati, Charlotte and a couple in New York City are doing and it seems like all of them are planning big celebrations this weekend.
They come in all different names like “Get Connected Sunday”. One church was preparing for what they called “Homecoming Sunday” with pictures on their Facebook page of one of the pastors stocking the pews with those little pencils – popular in churches and golf courses – and another of their pastors eating a corn dog.
Those with exceeding long memories will remember that this day was known as Rally Day in which everybody received a ribbon with the year printed on it. The ribbons were designed to be pinned to one's clothing, and the colors of the ribbons would change through the years. I remember some members, who at the time I thought to be quite old, but who are probably younger than I am now, had long flowing strands of ribbons that showed how long it had been since they have been attending this annual event.
At your Academy we try to match the Chicago Public School schedules and so we had all of our fun with backpack blessings, a tour for members of the church, student families and friends, an amazing lunch, followed parents and children romping in the playground serenaded by the music of Los Perros Cubannos in the middle of August. Even so, for some of us who always returned to school on the day after Labor Day, it all seemed a little early for summer to call it a day.
So, we might envy those churches who are having today what we had a couple of weeks ago even as we wonder Jesus words from today’s gospel might put a real damper on things. One of my favourite preachers has titled his sermon for this Sunday: “Envisioning My Year.” And another has promised in a promotional post that if you came to church you would find “fantastic music, revels, and clergy in unusual hats.” Envisioning a year filled with revels and unusual hats? It’s just a guess but I doubt any of this will be based on Jesus words: “therefore, none of you can become my disciple if you do not give up all your possessions.”1
You have to hand it to Jesus: he believes in truth-in-advertising. He doesn’t sugarcoat his message in order to sell it. He doesn’t cut corners, and he doesn’t soften the blow.2 Jesus is not like one of those slick, smiling, television preachers who tell us that if you just follow Jesus we’ll get everything we want.
In fact, he says that if we follow Jesus, it may cost us and cost us dearly. We just may wind up like Mr. Rich Uncle Milbourn Pennybags from the Monopoly game. He is dressed well, in perhaps a Georgio Armani morning formal complete with spats on his shoes, but his pockets are empty. He’s broke. Maybe that’s how we come to Jesus?
We come empty-handed which is pretty uncomfortable for us self-sufficient people.
We even had diluted the idea of carrying our crosses as something we can do. “Bearing a cross has nothing to do with chronic illness, painful physical conditions, or trying family relationships. Cross bearing requires deliberate sacrifice and exposure to risk and ridicule in order to follow Jesus.”3
In our age we don’t even risk that. Announce to someone that you are a member of a mainline Christian denomination and, if there is any reaction at all, it will be a shrug. Perhaps you’ll be asked what church you go to. Perhaps they’ll announced something like, “Oh yes, I was baptized a Lutheran. Or was it a Presbyterian?” but after this exchange the conversation will most assuredly move on to something else.
To be a follower of Jesus in the early centuries of the church, as we know, meant being cut off from family, friends, society, and maybe even losing one’s life. In some fundamentalist Moslem countries to embrace Christ is to bring a death sentence upon oneself. And if you are a Mormon, even though you are a member of “The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints”, or like David Auchuleta embrace who you are and your sexual identity, and you will be “dis-fellowshipped,” a polite way of saying, dead to your family and friends.
Jesus wanted his followers to count the cost and choose wisely so many took another look at Jesus, really heard what he had to say and bolted for the door. Some translations point out the obvious, that at this point the crowds become significantly smaller. I’ll bet!
Jesus is asking us to worship something other than our possessions, our accomplishments, maybe even worship something other than our family and friends.
Several years ago, I was presiding over a funeral that – even though there have been hundreds between then and now has stuck with me to this day. It was all because of a sign on one of the “memory boards” that the family had put together. The pictures, the crowds, the family all lead me to believe that the man was a good guy albeit a guy who had lots of stuff. There were pictures of him on his speed boat, an on his jet-skies, and at his “cabin” (which was nicer than my house), on snow skies, and water skies. The man had even souped up his lawn mower to make it go faster. At the center of all the pictures was a sign – the most inappropriate sign I have seen in my 50+ years in and around funeral homes. It said: “He who dies with the most toys, wins.”
I’m not making that up. I looked at the sign and then I looked at the 67-year-old dead guy in the casket. I looked at the sign and then I looked back at him and then back at the sign and back at him and the only thing I could think of was: “No, he who dies with the most toys is just dead.”
While this man may have had more stuff than you or I could ever hope to have, in the end he was dead. Stone cold, definitely dead.
He may have tried to build his own personal towers of wealth and possessions, but he failed to count the cost.
The painfully sharp point in Jesus’ words is that the sign just doesn’t work. Toys won’t do it for us. In fact, to have chosen them over everything else is not to have chosen life, but death. You have chosen life – a full, rich, life maybe – but still a life that is less than was intended.
This is the bottom-line truth that Jesus is insisting upon.
Choose to place your career in the hands of Jesus and it may not come back exactly as you wanted but it will come back raised to a higher purpose.
Choose to place your family, your friends, your dear ones, in the hands of God, and those relationships will come back tempered with a deeper love.
Choose to place your hobbies, your joys, your frustrations, your satisfactions, your sorrows, your joys, your money, your church, in the hands of Jesus and they will all come back to you with a higher and deeper meaning because you have chosen to place them where they belong.
If we are to follow Jesus, we have to do it with everything we have. It’s an all or nothing deal. It a core affirmation of the faith that when you place everything – your riches and your worries, your health and well-being, your family and friends, in the hands of Jesus in the end it won’t matter how many toys we have but it will matter that we have given it our all.
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1. St. Luke 14:33. (NRSVUE) [NRSV=The New Revised Standard Version Updated Edition]
2. Debie Thomas, “What It Will Cost You,” Journey with Jesus, September 1, 2019, https://journeywithjesus.net/essays/2346-what-it-will-cost-you.
3. Brian Stoffregen, “Luke 14.25-33 Proper 18 - Year C,” Exegetical Notes, accessed September 6, 2025, https://www.crossmarks.com/brian/luke14x25.htm.
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