Wow!  Can you believe the way Jesus treats these people?   Jesus is supposed to be this red-hot lover who is so kind and affectionate towards people.  But he turns off the first guy who is so very eager to follow him by saying, “If you think you’re going to be staying at the Hilton, Buster, when you follow me, you’ve got another think coming!”

            He turns off the second guy in the most crass way by telling him he can’t even go to his own father’s funeral if he wants to be a disciple of Jesus!  Furthermore, he insults the guy’s family by implying that they are a bunch of zombies, a bunch of dead people walking, when he says, “Let the dead bury their own dead.”

            He turns off the third guy by telling him he can’t even go home and say goodbye to his family before coming to be Jesus’ disciple.  What kind of cold fish is this Jesus, anyway?

            How would you feel if Jesus spoke to you that way?  Would you be inclined to be his disciple?  If I treated you all that way, I’d have an empty church!

            Or, are we missing something when we read this passage?  I want you to ask yourself this question: if this is the way Jesus came across to people, why in the world was he so popular?  Why did people enjoy being around him?  Why did people flock to hear him?

            Let me suggest to you that our world has lost touch with this incredible human personality.  We have wrapped him in our traditions, we have filtered his words through our culture, and we just plain don’t get him for the most part.  We need to rediscover this amazing human being and find out why he was so very popular during the days of his ministry.  Jesus was popular because he was highly attractive!  You don’t attract huge crowds by making everybody feel like a lump of dirt.  You attract huge crowds by challenging them, by making them feel wonderful, worthwhile, important.  Let’s look a little closer at these few verses from Luke to see if we can’t understand this engaging, exciting man a little bit better.

            First, notice that Jesus is no control freak.  When you encounter a religious control freak, for example on a television show – you know: the guy who’s saying, “It is God’s will that you send me your money!” –  what’s your instinctive reaction?  Right!  No way am I going to listen to this turkey!

            But do you notice Jesus cramming the gospel down the throats of these guys who are considering following him?  No way!  And check out the rest of the gospels: find me even one place where Jesus tries to manipulate or control the people he invites to follow him.  He offers himself and his gospel, he invites us to join up with him, but we are free to refuse his invitation.  And we remain free at any time to leave his fellowship.

            Second, we need to remember something about funerals in the first century.  If the father of the second guy was really dead, the guy wouldn’t have been out there in the Galilean countryside chasing after Jesus.  On the contrary, he would have been at home with his family sharing with them the mandatory grieving that went on at such a time.  No, the reality was that the guy’s father was still alive.  William Barclay tells a story from the 20th century of a brilliant young Arab student who was offered a scholarship to Oxford.  He said, “I will take [the scholarship] after I have buried my father.”  His father, it turned out, was in his forties, very much alive, and not likely to die in anything but the distant future.¹  This young man was saying, politely, “I’m not interested in the scholarship, at least not now.  Some time down the road I may be.”  The same with the man Jesus called to follow him: he was saying, “Not just yet, Jesus, let me live a little, sow a few wild oats, have a little fun, and then when I’m quite a bit older, I’ll come and follow you.”

            Third, Jesus shows by his response to the man who wants to go say goodbye to his family that he knows the man is not yet serious about following him.  Is Jesus anti-family?  No way!  But he knows that this prospective follower is going to be a mediocre disciple and, really, a mediocre family man unless he has his priorities straight.  First, love God with all your heart, soul, strength, and mind, and then you will know how to love your neighbor as yourself.

            Now, I’d like you to consider a paradigm shift when you think of Jesus.  Maybe this paradigm shift is old stuff to you, but maybe not.  When Jesus says words like the ones in our scripture lesson to his disciples -- and to us -- do you think he says them with a stern expression on his face?  Is he angry or disappointed with those guys he meets on the road?  Or does Jesus  have a twinkle in his eye?  Is he eager and enthusiastic to have us as his followers when he says such things to us?  Or does he enjoy turning people off and insulting them?  Which is it?

            And what is Jesus’ objective when he says such things: is his objective to make us feel like a piece of dirt?  When Jesus tells that eager candidate for discipleship, “Foxes have holes, and the birds of the air have nests, but the Son of Man has no place to his head,” is he really hoping that the man will slouch away with his shoulders down muttering angrily?  Or is Jesus challenging the guy in the hopes that he will have a clear-eyed view of discipleship and be even more eager to follow Jesus?  What do you think?

            Parenthetically, when Winston Churchill told the English people in the first dark days of World War II that he had nothing to offer them but blood, sweat, and tears, do you think he hoped they would say, “Well, it’s hopeless, let’s surrender to the Germans!”  Or something else?

            Before you answer these questions, and I do want your answers, I want you to ask yourself: what does Jesus know about God that we don’t know?  For example, is God’s basic attitude toward us one of extreme love, of extreme delight, or is he extremely disappointed in us at all times?  In a given 24-hour day, does God spend the majority of his time -- say thirteen hours or more -- frowning at the world, and the minority of his time -- eleven hours or less -- smiling at the world?  When you think of God looking down on you, do you picture God with a smile on his face, or do you think of God as someone who is constantly frowning at you?  And while we’re asking this interesting question about God’s facial expressions, tell me this: in your mind, by chance, does the face of God look a whole lot like the faces of either or both of your parents?  And does the way your parents came across to you have any influence on the way you think of God? 

            I asked this question in a Bible study group about whether God frowned more or smiled more at us humans.  One of the men said, “If God does smile at us, I think it’s a very sad smile.”  Anyone agree with that?

            Earlier in my life I would have agreed with that.  But I’ve changed my paradigm and my mind!  My mother, bless her heart, was the grand mistress of sad smiles.  I used to get a lot of her sad smiles.  Guess why!  She gave me sad smiles when I was messing up!  When I got bad grades, I’d get a sad smile.  When I stole cookies from the cookie jar that she intended for company, I’d get a sad smile.  I got plenty of happy smiles from my mom, don’t get me wrong.  She was a wonderful, encouraging mom, my biggest fan.   But, listen to this: I identified the sad smiles with God.  I couldn’t imagine God bestowing a happy smile on me, just a sad one.  Can any of you identify with that?  I knew God loved me, but I didn’t think God liked me very much!

            One more question: do you think of God as a being who is full of happiness at all times, or full of sadness at all times?  Does God exult in his creation, or does he sit in a corner and mope because nothing he created has turned out quite right?  Now listen to these words from Psalm 104: “How many are your works, O LORD! In wisdom you made them all; the earth is full of your creatures.  There is the sea, vast and spacious, teeming with creatures beyond number-- living things both large and small.  There the ships go to and fro, and the leviathan, which you formed to frolic there.  May the glory of the LORD endure forever; may the LORD rejoice in his works.”²

            There’s a picture of God delighting in his creation, smiling on his world, enjoying the work of his hands.  Is that an accurate picture of God?  Do you think that picture of God is more accurate than the picture you may have of God eternally frowning on the world, constantly disappointed with you and your performance?

            Now, the point of all this.  If you’re tracking with me on that paradigm shift, apply it to this question: when Jesus asks us for a 100% commitment to follow him, what is his objective?  When God calls us to be a 100% committed church, what’s he after?  Is Jesus eager to make you sad or depressed?  Does God want to turn us into a collective bunch of sour pusses?  Is that what a  church that is committed 100% is like: people who look at all times as if they’re about to have root canal surgery?

            Let’s get back to those earlier rhetorical questions.  How many of you think when Jesus spoke the words in our scripture lesson, all about foxes having holes and letting the dead bury their own dead, that he delivered these words with a frown on his face?  Is Jesus trying to motivate us to follow him when he says such things to us?  Or does he get a kick out of turning us away?  How many vote for Jesus saying these things with a frown on his face?  How many think he said them with a smile on his face, or at least a twinkle in his eye?

            Or, how about God: does God like us?  Is God’s basic attitude toward us one of extreme love, of extreme delight, or is he extremely disappointed in us at all times?  How many think God likes us?  How many think God is extremely disappointed in us at all times?  How many think God is depressed about his creation, sad that everything has gone wrong?  How many think that God delights in his creation and looks toward the time when wrongs will be righted and evil will be destroyed?

            God is love, and God loves us 100%.  It is God’s great pleasure to love us 100%.  God calls us to love him 100%.  Why?  To make us miserable?  Not at all.  God calls us to love him 100% because he knows that the more we love him, the happier we are.

            You’ve heard, perhaps, of the Pareto Principle, the famous 80/20 rule.  Vilfredo Pareto, the distinguished Italian economist, was the first one to notice that 20% of our efforts produce 80% of our results, and vice versa.  I’ve seen this 80/20 rule at work in every church I’ve served.  As far as a I’m concerned, the 80/20 rule is a fact of life.  But is it an absolute fact of Christian life?  Can we do better than 80/20?

            Consider the 80/20 Christian:³ he lives an 80/20 life in his church.  He is the kind of man you can always count on to give a full 80% to everything he does.  Well, not always, but at least 80% of the time.  When he became a Christian, he decided to give 80% of himself to God.  He believed in 80% of the teachings of Jesus, although sometimes that 80% dipped down to 60%.  He attended church four out of every five Sundays, which was more than 80% of the congregation did.  But he only listened to 80% of the sermon, prayed 80% of the prayers with four-fifths of his heart, and when it came to singing the hymns, well, he sang 20% of them with 80% enthusiasm.

            And so this 80/20 Christian was 80% happy 80% of the time, but with only an 80% commitment, he found himself in a surly mood 80% of the time, criticizing his wife, yelling at his kids, arguing with his pastor, hating his boss, angry at the hand life had dealt him, paralyzed with fears, and otherwise generally frustrated with his life.

            Until one day in church when he heard his pastor preach on the text, “Any of you who does not give up everything he has cannot be my disciple.”⁴   At first he thought to himself, “That’s the sort of thing every preacher has to say.  Me, I know better!”  But then he began to think about his life: his anger with his spouse, his conflict with his children, his hatred for his boss, and his disappointment with the way his life had turned out.  And he said to himself, “I wonder if giving 100% of my life to God might not work better than the way I’m living?” 

            And so this 80/20 Christian prayed a prayer like this: “Lord, if you want all of me, you’ve got me.”  He started his day praying, “God you gave 100% of yourself for me when you sent Jesus to die for me.  Today I want to give 100% of myself to you, so walk with me, Lord, and help me.”  He and his wife, both of them formerly 80/20 Christians, got involved in a study and fellowship group in their church and began to grow and mature.  There was no sudden transformation in their lives, but things definitely began to get better as the days went by.  Their marriage improved, they were able to communicate with their kids more effectively, and when he started taking seriously Jesus’ command to love his neighbor, his boss actually got nicer!  From the outside nothing much looked very different about these people, but both of them knew that everything was different!

            I don’t often do anything like this, but I feel moved to lead you all in prayer.  Because I’ve gotten to know you pretty well in the past few months, I know absolutely that many of you are 80/20 Christians, or even 60/40 or 50/50 Christians, and you’re getting very little satisfaction from your Christian faith.  There’s a reason for this, and I think you know what it is.

            Now, maybe you’re 100% committed, and you don’t need to pray this prayer.  In that case, pray for your neighbor.  Or, pray for me: since although I’m 100% sold-out for Jesus, there are times when I revert to an 80/20 lifestyle.  Or, maybe if your first quick reaction is to say, “Nah, I don’t need to pray this prayer, I’ll pray for my spouse who really needs it, maybe, just maybe, you need this prayer as much as, or even more than, your spouse or your neighbor.

            However God leads you, please listen to this prayer, and if the words fit you, you can just say your own silent amen to it.

 

PRAYER: God, when I joined the church, I said before the congregation that Jesus Christ is my Lord and Savior, that I trust in him, and that I intend to be his disciple, to obey his word, and to show his love.  I want to renew those vows of membership this morning.  I’m tired of being an 80/20 Christian. You went 100% of the way for me in Christ at the Cross.  I now want to give 100% of myself to you.  Take me, sins and all, and start changing me so that I’ll be more and more like Jesus Christ.  In his name I pray.  Amen.