Take Up your Cross - Luke 14

Take Up Your Cross

Tony E Dillon Hansen

Reflection based upon Luke 14: 25-33

Opening prayer

To give up everything is to bear the cost of the cross. To lose everything is to understand a measure of what Jesus means here. That is a tough pill to swallow especially when we think of all of our current worries and hurts. Why add more?

It is easy for us to think of all the good things , festivals and celebrations. They are nice and they serve a purpose. They are there as nuggets for when times are tough and times of faith are questionable. 

For being a disciple is to be more than just the happy times. Discipleship has cost. The cost is real and felt throughout our lives in that what we do. This is not easy because being a follower of Jesus is not always easy.

There is a cost but what is cost to us? Is it putting money in the tray on Sunday, is it having to front the bill for someone who can’t, is it something else?  I submit to you the “cost” is something more than money and doesn’t even involve money or materials of any kind.  

The cost might be as described in Hebrew 12:11 as “discipline.” For no discipline seems easy or pleasant at the time. Yet over time, discipline reveals fruit and peace. Maybe cost should not be looked at as burdens but paths to transformation. A way to hope, to have faith and to grow in the love that is there, especially when times are tough. 

In this lesson, Jesus tells us this path means to give up everything. How can I give up more than I already have? I agree that yes, it feels like someone asking us for the impossible. I like my stuff just like all of us. But stuff distracts and stuff ignores truths. The necessary, the good, or the reward is far beyond any possession and not something we can package in a box or envelope. It is not money, power or fame, but grace and peace. 

This requires of us, demands of us, and challenges us to be more than we were yesterday and to help build people today, even in our sorrows and worries. 

This is what faith is. This is discipleship. A belief in something/ someone much bigger than we can possibly imagine. Someone who brings peace when all are fighting. Someone who encourages us to be with the poor rather than avoid them because they too are children of God. Someone who comes to us in the hour of despair and hurt to heal and to grow. 

Maybe we don’t give up everything but maybe we whittle that to ten. I once  shared a picture of Gandhi’s final ten things. What would your ten things be and why? 

This lesson from Jesus aligns with Asian traditions that say to let go of all we think and hold to witness the truth that is revealed. When we let go of our perceptions and our things, we are left with faith and what God has gifted us. Then, we gain so much more.

Jesus knows people and reminds us that people don’t go into things half-heartedly if they mean to do well or to finish the project.  This is called integrity.  In order to determine where we go and where we want to go, we take stock of what we have and what need to get there. We consider our foundation. 

A disciplined person will find their foundation in faith and discipline in that faith. One might see how that faith (that discipline) carries. In this faith and discipline, we quiet our minds and still our hearts to let God. Thus, the path is revealed because we still our minds and our hearts to hear God speaking to us in the many ways God does. 

That path is waiting for us, the journey is ours, the destination is to be revealed with so much potential. Jesus tells us what we need to get there, and that path does not need possessions, power or otherwise. Master Skywalker in the Star Wars sequels, says to Rey, “you have all that you need.” In other words, Jesus tells us so brilliantly, we have what we need, and when we understand this concept, we are able to grow into the promise that is set before us. 

Buddhist refer to this idea as release of attachments to find enlightenment.  Taoist understand that allowing nature to be "as is" is to see the full beauty of what is possible. What do we attach ourselves in our lives that we should let go. Not just objects, wealth or power but negativity as well because we all know the comfort and cost we erroneously find in negativity. 

How beautiful that we share a common bond with traditions around the world that understand how disruptive possessions and negative attitudes can be and how money and negativity distorts truth. Fundamentally, this is reaching into an idea of letting the spirit work.

Why?   Simply because we let let go and Let God. That is the cost of discipleship turned into something joyful and dripping with love. 

Listen and let God fill you. Listen to the spirit, and let that spirit work inside of you. Let go of everything and find everything you need.

So let go of all you think you need, need to hear, or need to have; and Let the spirit speak to you this day and bring you the love into your heart.

Thanks be to God.