Sermons for the Month

Beyond Parking Place Blessings
DATE: September 9th, 2007
SERVICE: 15th Sunday After Pentecost
TEXT: Luke 14:25-33

“To all of you Saints here this morning, grace and peace to you from God our Father, from His Son, Jesus Christ and His Holy Spirit. AMEN

This week I read this thought on preaching offered by a Presbyterian pastor. It seems that when he was new to the ministry he bored people to tears with his long, intellectual sermons. In fact, he once preached a lengthy sermon on the resurrection, and afterward passed out a 28-page paper to make up for the fact that he could not get it all in the sermon.

So, a leader in the congregation invited the new pastor to breakfast on Monday morning and told him that he was putting people into a catatonic state with his preaching. He offered this advice. When you stand up to preach ask yourself, "Will what I'm about to say for God help Willard Canes pump gas on Sunday morning?"

That's good advice, I'd say, but not easy to apply to all Gospel readings, especially to those that shock us, like the one we read today. How does hating one's father and mother, spouse and children, brothers and sisters, and even life itself help someone pump gas? And then there is the closing line, "none of you can become my disciple if you do not give up all your possessions." Wow!

Every single commentary that I read was quick to point out that it was common in Jesus' day for people to use hyperbole to make a point; they used exaggerated, dramatic language intended to get the listener's attention and cause them to ask, "What did he say?" And these verses certainly do just that. We are glad to know that this is just a speech-giving technique.

Additionally, we are more than happy to put these verses into their context, remembering that Jesus was speaking to people who had adopted a "party attitude" when in came to following him. Their heads were filled with dreams of freedom and of better times as they imagined that Jesus, the Messiah, would help them regain religious and political control of their homeland. Jesus wanted that to stop. So, he makes some bold statements to indicate that all other loyalties and ties must be absolutely subordinate to him. They had to renounce especially their dreams of better days, realizing that they would face persecution, and even death, just as Jesus would do.

Given all that, Jesus warns them not to follow recklessly, but to count the cost, that is to carefully consider what is being required of them before making a commitment. Now…perhaps you are bored with hearing that context, or maybe you are relieved to know it since it seems to soften the expectations of us. Jesus does not really require us to hate the people who are important to us, or our own lives, and he certainly does not require us to give up all our possessions.

So … is it the case that this Gospel lessons sits there in Bible never-never land and has nothing to say to us as we pump our gas? I'm not sure about that … if nothing else it should cause us to ask, "Do I love this car that I'm paying $40 to fill less than I love Jesus? Is it less important to me than being his disciple?" You see, this text speaks to us too, and it reminds us that we are called to love all things and people LESS than we love our Lord, and that should be obvious in how we live.

The clear message is that there is a cost to discipleship. Jesus demands commitment, and as one commentator made clear, that's not so popular these days. "We are tempted, in the interest of fill pews, to promise a Lexus in ever garage and a Rolex on every wrist. We are tempted NOT to challenge people to faithful stewardship, faithful worship attendance, faithful sexuality, honest business practices, accurate tax returns, compassion for the less fortunate, and other costly commitments." (1)

It is just plain easier to promise the good life which our culture honors and disguise it as the blessed life. The other day I turned on the TV and caught about five minutes of a rerun of a sermon that I call "the parking space promise." It was given by a popular preacher who is not so popular in my book because he has this habit of chastising people for not being "Bible believing" and then seldom actually brings scripture into his sermons.

The first time I heard this particular sermon I was fuming; the second time there probably was smoke coming out of my ears. He tells a charming little story of sacrificing his valuable time to go on an outing with his family. Evidently everyone in Texas had the same idea, and the parking lot of the place they were visiting was jammed. But, because he believes that God blesses us when we are faithful and God knew he was making a sacrifice to be there, he prayed for a parking place close to the door. Low and behold one opened up just for him.

He then advised his congregation of thousands to pray that God would bless them too in such simple ways, as well as in their relationships, their finances … you get the idea. Now, it would not bother me so much if he was encouraging people to pray for blessings that they then could pass on for the sake of the ministry of Jesus Christ. But, that's not what I heard. The up-front parking place was just for him and his healthy young family; it wasn't as if he prayed for it so he could save it for someone with mobility challenges.

Obviously, I'm treading on thin ice as I give this example since we all struggle to live the sacrificial life. I too want the parking lot close to the door, and if I get it I'd attribute it to luck and might even hope that no one more deserving comes along before I can get inside.

It's not that I do not believe in God blessing the faithful, but my experience has been that those who feel truly blessed are those who truly sacrifice. If they received an unexpected $100 in the mail, the money would not be identified as the blessing, but rather the joy that came when they let in pass from their hands into another's, or were able to use it to meet their own needs in a way that freed them to praise and honor God, would be the blessing.

All this talk about blessings may lead us to believe that we can expect them; I guess we can, but sometimes they are not obvious, or they happen to someone else because of us, or they are a long time in coming. That's why Jesus reminds us that being a disciple is costly. It requires us to constantly struggle so that following him remains our first priority and everything else is less important. To be a disciple means that we are learning to live our lives as Jesus would live life if he was us.

I'm thankful that I'm not on my own in this, and neither are you. We are forgiven when we fall short. We are empowered by the Holy Spirit to let go of that which gets in the way of our doing that which Jesus would do. And, we support one another in this costly mission.

Jesus did not have parking lots in mind when he spoke of sacrifice, but I have a feeling he would have been the first one to give up the space in the front, or maybe he would have taken the bus and left all the spaces for other people. He would have done that which imitated the astounding love and mercy of God. For us to do the same costs us, it's true. But, to not do so costs others who are in need of God's love and mercy.

AMEN

(1) SermonWriter, Proper 18C (Sept. 9), Luke 14:25-33, pg. 2, www.sermonwriter.com

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