Fifteenth Sunday After Pentecost: The Benefit/Cost Analysis of Discipleship

Last night on Facebook I enjoyed a conversation with a friend about the subject of religion.  The friend I am speaking of says that he doesn't believe.  Through out the conversation as I carefully wrote about my own story and beliefs the individual who started the conversation demonstrated a kindness and forwardness that I thought was exemplary.  As we got to the end of our exchange I wrote that I found him to have more virtue in spite of the fact that he was not a believer than many devout believers.  

One of the important things to consider about Christianity is that no matter where we are on our faith journey, Jesus Christ welcomes everyone.  I am borrowing some of that from the statement that belongs to St. Mark's Episcopal Cathedral in Minneapolis. Our desire to be part of the Christian faith challenges all of us to make room for everyone who might wish to get closer to God, as well as those who do not wish for whatever reason. 

Today's Bible readings challenge us to do a benefit/cost analysis of discipleship.  

Luke 14:25-33 (NRSV)

Now large crowds were traveling with Jesus; 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."

It seems quite disturbing to hear Jesus suggesting that we should hate our father, mother, wife, husband, partner, brother, sister or children.  The remark that Jesus makes here is one that is all too familiar to those of us who come out as lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgendered, questioning or queer people.  Out in Scripture gives some examples of how this can be applied to us.

Anyone who has come out as lesbian, gay, bisexual or transgender knows how costly that can be. Friends and family may ask, "How can you do this to us? How can you be so selfish? How can you turn your back on the life we'd all hoped for?"

People who came out as followers of Jesus often got the same reaction. They were accused of despising, even hating their friends and family. Jesus seems to confirm everybody's worst suspicions: "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" (Luke 14:26). We suspect this is a case of hyperbole, an attention-getting overstatement. But hyperbole or not, it doesn't blunt the harsh reality that if we are to be true to the life we were meant to have, if we are to choose life (Deuteronomy 30:19), people who can't deal with it, even those we love, are likely to call us hateful. Coming out is costly. It's going against the grain, and we shouldn't be surprised at the degree of resistance we encounter.

Most of us before we came out spent a significant amount of time being scared to death of the reaction of our parents once they have been told.  Many LGBTQ people do experience total isolation and abandonment from their families.  Others are forced to choose to distance ourselves because every meeting with our families usually includes some shaming comment about our sexual orientation and/or gender identity/expression.  Our choice to seek our true lives as we are, is one way that we do a benefit/cost analysis of being a true disciple of Jesus.  We cannot truly follow Jesus if we are not honest with God and ourselves about who we are and/or who and how we love others.  We have to be willing to make the journey of choosing to follow Jesus as LGBTQ people, no matter how much that might cost us.  In many situations, it will cost us a lot.

A look at the life of Harvey Milk, the martyred San Francisco City Supervisor.  Milk was a man who knew that the only way to begin a movement towards equal rights for LGBTQ people across the country, was to sacrifice himself and move the City of San Francisco to enact a gay rights ordinance.  His work eventually led him to lead voter opposition against the Brigg's Initiative Proposition 6 that would give California school districts the power to fire teachers who were known homosexuals.   Milk may have been a believer in God, or he might not have been.  Nevertheless Milk put himself out there and did what he had to do for the benefit of others and himself. Milk paid the price of his life for his accomplishments.  Milk in his own way demonstrated the Gospel message of giving up oneself for the benefit of others.

Another shining example would be John Fortunato who is the author of Embracing the Exile.   Bishop Gene Robinson writes about John's witness to his faith in his book "In the Eye of the Storm".

"John went through a bruising, nasty, and very public ordeal when he and his partner tried to have their relationship blessed in their local Episcopal parish--many years before such things were publicly contemplated.  He endured all the hatred and vitriol you might expect that such an event would incur in thr world and church of the 1980's

In the opening and closing chapters of his book, he describes abuse heaped on him by Christians and non-Christians alike for loving another man and wanting the church's blessing on their relationship.  Sitting alone in the dark, he had a vision. Or was it his imagination? Or an epiphany?  Whatever it was, God was right there.  John describes it this way:

I was saying,  "You know, sometimes I think they're right, that being gay and loving another man is wrong."  God smiled and said quietly, "How can love be wrong?  It all comes from me."

   Sometimes, I just want to bury that part of me," I said, "Just pretend it isn't real."

   "But I made you whole," God replied.  "You are one as I am one.  I made you in my image."

    "Your church out there says that you don't love me. They say I'm lost, damned to hell."

    "You're my son," God said in a way both gentle and yet so firm that there could be no doubt of his genuineness.

   "Nothing can separate you from my love...."

   "What do I do with them?"

   And in the same calm voice God said, "I've given you gifts.  Share them.  I've given  you light.  Brighten the world.  I empower you with love.  Love them."

   "Love them? What are you trying to do to me?  Can't you see? They call my light darkness! They call my love perverted! They call my gifts corruption! What the hell are you asking me to do?"

  "Love them anyway," he said.  "Love them anyway."

  "Love them anyway?" I moaned.  "But how?"

  "You must also speak your pain and affirm the wholeness I've made you to be when they assail it.  You must protest when you are treated less than a child of mine.  You must go out and teach them.  Help them to know of their dependence on me for all that they really are, and of their helplessness without me... And assure them by word and work and example that my love is boundless, and that I am with them always."

  "You know they won't listen to me,"  I said with resignation.  "They'll despise me.  They'll call me a heretic and laugh me to scorn.  They'll persecute and torment me.  They'll try to destroy me.  You know they will, don't you."

  [God's] radiant face saddened.  And then God said softly, "Oh yes.  I know.  How well I know."  

  Then two strong, motherly arms reached out and drew me close to the bosom of all that is. And I was just there. Just being.  Enveloped in being.

  And we wept.

  For Joy. (Pages 12-14 of In the Eye of the Storm, taken from pages15-16 and 126-127 of Embracing the Exile).

Today's Psalm is 139.  God knows all of us and how we are put together.   There is nothing about any of us that God does not love and want for us to share for the benefit of the Reign of God here to help others find their way to God.  Psalm 139: 14 reads: "I will praise you, Lord, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made."

Through out our readings today, we are called upon to examine the benefits and the cost of what being a disciple of Jesus Christ means.  If we are in a relationship it means being willing to sacrifice anything and everything to share our life and love with that person.  We do that, because Jesus is present in the life of our spouse, partner, boy/girl friend, wife, husband etc.  As we understand from Deuteronomy 30: 15-20 the choice to love God and our neighbors is a life-giving choice.  Yet, many Christians still choose to love just about any body except LGBTQ people or Islamic people.  In many congregations people of color are not welcome, people from Indigenous Communities are only welcome if they will abandon what being a Native American to their people means.  This is very contrary to the love of God who commands us to love our neighbors as ourselves.  If we are not honest about ourselves and who or how we love others, we will not be free to love, because there will always be something that prevents us from counting the cost to ourselves and being willing to hand it over.

The benefit/cost analysis of discipleship means looking at and being willing to carry our crosses.   It means struggling to accept that our crosses as learning and understanding  ourselves and our relationships to others, by accepting ourselves and others as we are.  For LGBTQ Christians it means being willing to be who we are, and to love others with the same unconditional and all inclusive love with which God loves us, as painful as that love can be at times.  We need to pray for that grace to forgive those who hurt us even as we face the pain of how difficult forgiving those people are.  God is not an angry, vengeful God.  God is merciful, loving and wants to heal us and others so that all of us are considering the benefits and costs of our discipleship.

May God continue to bless us all as we move forward in our lives of faith and service of God and one another. 

Grant us, O Lord, to trust in you with all our hearts; for, as you always resist the proud who confide in their own strength, so you never forsake those who make their boast of your mercy; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen. (Proper 18, Book of Common Prayer, Page 233).

Speak to us, O God,
        through our loves and through our lives;
        give us courage to choose what brings life
        to us and others around us,
        even when many deride us.
    Form us into communities founded on love, not duty.
    Amen.  (Prayerfully Out in Scripture).


When Christ was lifted, from the earth,
his arms stretched out above 
though every culture, every birth,
to draw an answering love.

Still east and west his love extends 
and always, near or far,
he calls and claims us as his friends
and loves us as we are.

Where generations, class, or race,
divide us to our shame,
he sees not labels but a face,
A person, and a name.

Thus freely loved, though fully known,
may I in Christ be free
to welcome and accept his own
as Christ accepted me. (Hymn 603, Hymnal 1982).