Sermon

Sermon # 1040
May 8, 2011
Luke 24:13-35
Dr. Ed Pettus

"The Cost of Discipleship"

What are we asked to “give up” to follow Jesus? Often people will complain that they do not get to do anything if they commit to believing in Jesus Christ as their Lord and Savior. “I can’t party anymore.” “I can’t drink or smoke or hang out with my old friends.” The misconception is that Christianity is all about “thou shalt not”. What many fail to see is that faith in Jesus Christ leads us to more of what is possible than what is not. Faith in Christ gives us more freedom than not. But the words do not sound like it upon first hearing…deny yourself, take up your cross and follow me, Jesus said.

Our story for the day is the road to Emmaus story. This is one of the great stories of our faith as a part of the resurrection testimonies. In this story we see many themes:
• It reveals the anxiety and confusion over crucifixion and resurrection.
• It opens the beauty of scripture as Jesus teaches how the Old Testament gives witness to himself.
• The disciples are themselves another witness to the story of the death and resurrection of Christ.
• The narrator and the reader both know that the one who joins the two disciples is Jesus, but the two walking along on this journey do not recognize him (at first).
• Jesus is the preacher and the one preached!
• One of my favorite phrases includes their “hearts burning” as Jesus taught them.
• There is the wonder of their eyes being opened at the table.
• I interpret the story as a metaphor for the Christian life. We are on a journey with the Christ who walks with us, but more often than not we do not recognize him until we look back on the journey and see that he was with us the whole time!

One of the questions we like to ask about the story is why these two could not recognize Jesus. Some suggest he may have just had a hooded cloak. Perhaps he looked different after three days in the tomb. Others claim it was a supernatural restriction.

Stanley Hauerwas relates a story that may also offer us a unique interpretation: "The story of the Emmaus road neatly challenges our presumption that a resurrected Lord would be readily recognizable. We are simply told that 'two of them' were leaving Jerusalem, walking toward Emmaus, discussing what had happened over the past few days. It seems that they must have seen, for example the cleansing of the Temple or perhaps observed the examination of Jesus before the Sanhedrin. Perhaps these people may well have been following Jesus for some time, having heard the Sermon on the Mount or having observed his miracles. They seem to be close associates of Jesus, not perhaps among the apostles, but nonetheless people deeply attracted to what Jesus was about.
I tend to think of these two as admirers. I do so because they remind me of a story that Jim McClendon reports about Clarence Jordan. Clarence Jordan was the founder of the Koinonia Farm near Americus, Georgia. It was set up to be an interracial community before anyone knew what civil rights were all about. Jordan himself was a pacifist as well as an integrationist and thus was not a popular figure in Georgia, even though he came from a prominent family.
The Koinonia Farm, by its very nature, was controversial, of course, it was in trouble. McClendon reports that in the early fifties Clarence approached his brother Robert Jordan (later a state senator and justice of the Georgia Supreme Court) to ask him to legally represent the Koinonia Farm. Robert responded to Clarence's request:
"Clarence, I can't do that. You know my political aspirations. Why, if I represented you, I might lose my job, my house, everything I've got."
"We might lose everything too, Bob."
"It's different for you."
"Why is it different? I remember, it seems to me, that you and I joined the church the same Sunday, as boys. I expect when we came forward the preacher asked me about the same question he did you. He asked me, 'Do you accept Jesus as your Lord and Savior.' And I said, 'Yes,' what did you say?"
"I follow Jesus, Clarence, up to a point."
"Could that point by any chance be the – the cross?"
"That's right. I follow him to the cross, but not on the cross. I'm not getting myself crucified."
"Then I don't believe you're a disciple. You're an admirer of Jesus, but not a disciple of his. I think you ought to go back to the church you belong to, and tell them you're an admirer not a disciple."
"Well now, if everyone who felt like I do did that, we wouldn't have a church, would we?"
Clarence said, "The question is, do you have a church?"


Good story, challenging story. What might we be willing to risk to follow Jesus? What could we “give up” for the sake of discipleship? What parts of our life are we holding back to just admire Jesus?
I don't mean to ask these questions in order to come down on anyone because I ask myself the same question. Would I, have I, will I, follow Jesus all the way to the cross and perhaps onto the cross? Will I have the courage when needed to stand up for what I believe as a Christian no matter the cost?

"Then [Jesus] said to them all, “If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross daily and follow me. For those who want to save their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake will save it. What does it profit them if they gain the whole world, but lose or forfeit themselves?" (Luke 9.23-25)


One of the most quoted statements from Dietrich Bonhoeffer in his book, The Cost of Discipleship, states, "When Christ calls a man, he bids him come and die" (99).

That is what Paul means when he says that he has been crucified with Christ. That is not an image we are drawn to with excitement. Is Paul talking about a literal death – hanging on a cross? Well, of course, we know that that is not what is called for here, it is far more than that! We are called to die to ourselves, to give up our desire to be autonomous, pretending that we can live without Jesus at the center of our being. It is dying to the sin that can dominate the natural self.

I have been crucified with Christ; and it is no longer I who live, but it is Christ who lives in me. And the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.

We are not asked to hang on a cross, but we are asked to hang up our pride, and lust, and selfishness, and anxiety about being the first and the best and number one. Admirers of Jesus will not go that far, they will not be crucified with Christ. They will stand at a distance and observe with great interest what Jesus Christ has done, they will sit at safe range and watch disciples do crazy things for Christ like simplify their lifestyles, or witness of God's love to people they meet, or watch them pray about everything, or trust that God will do what God has promised in the scriptures, deny themselves some things for the sake of God’s kingdom, you know, crazy stuff!!!

Perhaps disciples stay in Jerusalem on the same day that they hear about the body being gone. Maybe admirers set off for Emmaus. That may be reading too much into the story. Yet, what amazes me about this story…Jesus comes to these two who are walking away from the scene. That sheds a ray of hope for all of us who are content to sit back at a distance and admire what Jesus has done for the world. Jesus comes to the travelers who are not willing to stay one more hour to see if the women were right and the body was gone from the tomb. Jesus appears and eventually, at the breaking of the bread, makes himself known to these two who are struggling with a hope they had had that Jesus was the one to redeem Israel.

We are not sure what happened to these two Emmaus travelers. The story continues to say that while they were telling the disciples about their encounter with Jesus, that Jesus appeared to them again. Jesus led them to Bethany where he blessed them and then was taken up into heaven. And then Luke says, "they worshiped him, and returned to Jerusalem with great joy; and they were continually in the temple blessing God."

I imagine Cleopas and his friend stayed there this time, in awe with the others, worshiping and blessing God. I imagine they responded a bit differently to Jesus from this time forward, no longer as admirers, but as disciples.

I think we sometimes feel we can be content with admiration for Jesus rather than risking discipleship, but admiration is not what Jesus calls us to. Take up your cross and follow. Lose your life for his sake. These are not easy words to hear, but they are the words of life that bring us to a personal relationship with the person of Jesus Christ.

I remember the story of a church that offered a discipleship course to the community and someone called the office to ask how much the course would cost. The secretary told the caller that the study was free. The caller responded, “Well there must be some cost to the course. How much is it?” The secretary said, “There is no charge. It is offered for free to anyone.” The caller insisted that she pay and kept asking, “How much is the cost?” Finally, the secretary relented and said, “Listen, if you come and take this course and follow it through…it will cost you everything!”

What are we asked to “give up” to follow Jesus? The real answer is - everything. Amen.