The Cost of Discipleship
In Saturday evening’s service, Father John and the congregation discussed the difficult Gospel passage from Luke 14:25-33. There was general agreement that at least superficially, if not more fundamentally, it is hard to reconcile Jesus’ message of love with his words directing us to hate our family and ourselves.
Father John acknowledged the challenges this passage represents for us, but framed Jesus’ surprising words in the context of Matthew 10:37, reading this as more of a warning from Jesus regarding the cost of discipleship that our devotion to God must surpass the love of even those we love most. His planning metaphors reflect his desire for our appreciation of this cost before we just “mindlessly” follow as we might assume many in the large crowd to whom he was speaking at the time might have been doing. His allusion to the cross not only foreshadowed his own fate, but that of those who follow him as his disciples. It is a challenging passage, but clearly Jesus wants all of his followers to understand the cost of discipleship before we undertake our journey with him.
submitted by Mike White
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