A now, made
quite popular way of praying, is posted on Facebook. It is the new Pope Francis’ simple way to
pray that he taught before becoming the current pope. It is a simple method, not
dependent on any other tool than ones hand.
It goes like this: 1) The thumb is the closest finger to you. So start praying for those who are closest to
you. They are the persons easiest to
remember. To pray for our dear ones is a
“sweet obligation.” 2) The next finger is the index. Pray for those who teach you, instruct you
and heal you. They need the support and
wisdom to show direction to others.
Always keep them in your prayers. 3) The following finger is the
tallest. It reminds us of our leaders,
the governors and those who have authority.
They need God’s guidance. 4) The fourth finger is the ring finger. Even
that may surprise you. It is our weakest
finger. It should remind us to pray for
the weakest, the sick or those plagued by problems. They need your prayers. 5) And finally we have our smallest finger,
the smallest of all. Your pinkie should
remind you to pray for yourself. When
you are done praying for the other four groups, you will be able to see your
own needs but in the proper perspective, and also you will be able to pray for
your own needs in a better way.
Proper perspective
is what we all need to keep in mind when we aspire to be a disciple of Jesus. Purely
and simply, the gospel text for today is all about the cost of
discipleship. There just happens to be a
whole book about that subject written by a man who lived out that cost. His name was Dietrich Bonhoeffer. One of the
first things that Dietrich warns against is reflection. Remember the Pharisees? The Pharisees were so caught up in reflecting
on the law in order to illuminate it that in fact, they obscured it. We see it
today in the places where local citizens insist on displaying the Ten
Commandments. Along with many others, I wonder
why those should be displayed in a public place? Why not exhibit the Beatitudes instead? Wouldn’t that be more in line with the New
Testament interpretation we have from Jesus? The meaning of beatitudes is one
of an "exclamation of the inner joy and peace that comes with being right
with God".[1] It
is Jesus who makes us right with God. This whole section in chapter fourteen of
Luke’s gospel, today’s assigned gospel text, is about the individual. Each person stands before God by him or
herself. And because we stand by
ourselves, we need the mediator Jesus Christ.
We are not able to approach God without Jesus because we are not capable
of keeping the letter of the law as it is written in the Ten Commandments. That is why Jesus is so critical of the
Pharisees, because they don’t seem to understand that. We are not able to stand on our own. Jesus is
the way to stand before God because Jesus supplies the way to a right
relationship with God which means keeping the spirit of the law. The spirit of the law is to attach ourselves
to Jesus and to be committed to Jesus’ way of relating which is centering all
our preaching, teaching, and healing in a prayerful relationship with God. We
are to put others head of us, therefore the last person we pray for is
ourselves. Our prayers and our actions
are mutually interactive. It is
difficult if not impossible to be angry with a person when we are in constant
prayer for that person.
So what then
are we to make of this text? You must love Jesus above all else in order to be
his disciple. That’s what it means to
hate your relatives and to hate yourself.
That is what it means when he says to carry the cross. It means that our total loyalty to Jesus
means that we must be prepared to suffer martyrdom for Jesus and the sake of
the kingdom of God. Dietrich Bonhoeffer
did just that, and his struggle was also that of keeping one of the Ten Commandments
versus joining in a plot to kill Hitler.
It was when he finally decided that it was a lesser evil to be involved
in the annihilation of Hitler rather than allow the commandment of “Do not
kill” to cloud what he finally chose to be the best choice, a situation of two
evils. Yet despite his decision, in the
end, he still felt the guilt of longing for the death of another human being. Bonhoeffer
never saw himself as a martyr.
I think that
the reason that many people are attracted to the use of the Ten Commandments is
because it is concrete and gives very specific directives as to what we should
not do in regards to our neighbor. The
problem comes when we divorce the commandments from the overall positive
command to love God and our neighbor.
When we start being specific, we limit our sense of wrong to a cultural
setting. The Ten Commandments were
written during a time when men were allowed to have wives and concubines as
well as slaves. We no longer live in
that world view. We are better off to
follow the broader application of whatever it takes to have a positive
relationship to God and neighbor—to make peace and to be merciful, love your
enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for
those who abuse you---Do to others as you would have them do to you. These are not culturally determined. They apply today just as much as they applied
in Jesus’ time. They are commands and we
are to take them seriously and whole-heartedly.
Commands imply that we are called to obedience.
In his book,
“The Cost of Discipleship,” Dietrich Bonhoeffer talks about the difference
between cheap grace and costly grace.
Cheap grace is forgiveness which does not ask for repentance or a change
in one’s behavior. It is merely an
intellectual assent to belief in God’s grace.
It costs nothing and discipleship has no behavioral corollary. It is like going to church, hearing the words
that we are forgiven, and then leaving as if nothing happened and there are no
expectations beyond the walls of the church. When we do this, we are in fact, forgetting
what discipleship is all about. We are
listening to Jesus’ command to “Follow me,” but assenting to discipleship only
if we are allowed to continue to feel comfortable. Discipleship with Jesus is not about feeling
comfortable.
This text is
about sacrifice which in essence is about priorities. We each have a limited amount of time each
day. How do we decide to spend that
time? How much time do we allot to
prayer, to Bible study, to being the hands of Jesus to our neighbor? Have we counted the cost of
discipleship? Do we invite others to
church?
If we truly
desire to follow Jesus, do we not need to remind ourselves daily to follow
Jesus into that path of being his disciple?
Following Jesus means we must follow in perseverance, knowing that all
is possible including persecution for our beliefs and chosen behavior. But there is infinite reward knowing that God
will see us through in every step. It is
God who goes with us through every stormy trial, no matter how turbulent. Even in
a nursing facility, such as this one, simply showing compassion on someone who has
lost a husband or wife by giving them your condolences in either public or private
goes a long way. It lets people know that
you care about their time of grief. It is good discipleship. Jesus also grieved when he lost his friend Lazarus.
The depths of loss are better shared.
If you want to follow Jesus, you must deal with the cost of discipleship.
And what is that cost? That cost is that you decide to whole-heartedly
follow his lead every day of your life, never looking back but always forward, reaching
out with the hand of mercy. Amen.
[1] Ross, Allen. "The
Beatitudes (Matthew 5:1-12) An Exposition of the Gospel of Matthew". Retrieved September 4, 2013.
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