Message: Counting the Cost
Luke 14:25-33
In today’s story, Jesus asks, “For which of you, intending to build a tower, does not first sit down and estimate the cost, to see whether he has enough to complete it?... Or what king, going out to wage war against another king, will not sit down first and consider whether he is able with ten thousand to oppose the one who comes against him with twenty thousand?”
So here, Jesus sets before us two vignettes, one of a person building a tower who runs out of resources, the other of a king who sets out to battle another king and discovers his forces are outnumbered. In both cases the problem arose because someone did not count the cost before they began the enterprise. These two stories lead us to wonder, what is Jesus telling us with these two imagined examples of counting the cost? Jesus points to builders and kings who count the cost before they build or go to war. If a builder begins to build and lays a foundation, their intention is to finish it. The lesson is, if you start something, first, “Count the cost”. Jesus compares becoming disciples to building and battles. Who wastes time, effort, resources on a building project before knowing whether funds will be available to complete the project? Which king would not make peace with his opponent if he thinks his military forces are outnumbered? Both examples of building and battles would have been quite familiar to the early audiences of these stories.
In addition, today’s story tells us that on that day Jesus was followed by a “large crowd” who were “travelling” with him, and he was talking to these people who were certainly enthusiastic, but also uninformed, about the cost of being/becoming a disciple of Jesus, a follower of Jesus. The energy of the crowd was great, but the people weren’t engaging with the reality of following a radical, counter-cultural prophet and saviour. Then, Jesus, kindly, (because these two vignettes are not stories that you can hear and understand right away) provides his own commentary: “Whoever does not carry the cross and follow me cannot be my disciple” and “None of you can become my disciple if you do not give up all your possessions.” Jesus is telling the large number of happy travellers, the multitude, to first count the cost and then follow him. The cost is carrying the cross: finding the courage, the commitment to turn away from, detach ourselves from what possesses us and our spirit. Jesus says, “Carry the cross. Give up all your possessions." The Gospel is not willing to negotiate or compromise its call with the other priorities we might have in our lives or with the culture’s values. Christ’s message sounds more challenging than attractive to his potential disciples, these cheerful and optimistic followers, this large group of excited volunteers who were literally following him, ready to stand up for the great cause of a kin-dom of God. Jesus tells them, you need to carry this through to completion. Count the cost.
Jesus said these words to the people of the first century, the rich and the poor, the Gentiles and the Israelites alike, but counting the cost can be a relevant message not only to Christ’s contemporaries, but also to us in the 21st century. We estimate costs all the time, don’t we? We may not build a tower in a vineyard to stand watch against thieves and animals. But we have spreadsheets and budget lines. We read numbers, and before starting any big task, we consider many things. What is the goal we would like to achieve? What would we gain? Do we have resources/funds that we can invest until we see the fruition of the goal? Would I enjoy the work? Might there be a drop-off in the middle? (Emotional and spiritual costs) How many hours will I have to put in? Will there be positive or negative changes in my status? (cultural costs) Will there be extra pressure on my family or friends because of my choices? (concern for close relationships) What are the other, unforeseen, risks and costs?
Some people may not count the cost all the time. On some things, we start without fully planning it all out. Like me, for example, with kid’s hockey. I signed up to be a hockey parent for my son, without thinking through what the next three seasons of the year would be like: Giving rides multiple times a week, dragging the heavy hockey bag around, watching the first few IP sessions in which my son spent more time falling than standing on the ice while other kids, his friends, who are third year, or fourth year players, skated like little “gods” on the ice. I certainly didn’t count that cost when I signed him up. But we do that – we sign up for a new thing, without counting the cost, especially when we just know that it is what we need to do.
Jesus is really clear, however. He doesn’t want us to just enthusiastically sign up for God; he instructs us to count the cost. Estimate it. Weigh it. Know it. Build the funds, the resources - especially spiritual resources - to complete the discipleship. To complete the Kin-dom of God. Jesus wants us to be passionate and informed travellers on the road to justice, love, faith and reconciliation; not just start the journey, but complete it. And this teaching really helps me to admire, follow, support, and join in with the young people who are working for climate action. In recent months, thousands of high school students and young people sprang up across the world, organizing to demand strong climate action from the big decision-makers (the lawmakers, policy-makers, the profiteers) on this planet. They are the vanguard of the new active hope and uproar movements that are taking action right now.
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| Swedish climate activist Greta Thunberg takes part in the school strike demonstration "Fridays For Future" in Vienna, Austria, May 31, 2019. (Photo: AP/Ronald Zak via CP) |
The best-known is the Swedish student Greta Thunberg. In August 2018, when she was 15, she began staging her own school strikes, (show the picture) saying Sweden would need to step up its efforts to cut carbon dioxide emissions if it is to do its part to stop the global temperature rise from reaching 2 degrees Celsius. Since then, Thunberg, now 16, has travelled - by train and boat - to the World Economic Forum in Switzerland, to the European Parliaments, to multiple international climate talks in many places, publicly admonishing the planet’s wealthy, its policy-makers and politicians. She accused politicians of being like the emperor Nero: fiddling while the planet burns. The TEDx talk she gave has been viewed more than two million times. Following her, (show the pictures) thousands of students and youth (Generation Z - those born in the mid-1990s and after) around the world have organized school strikes and sit-ins in front of city halls and planning offices. She received an enthusiastic welcome upon her arrival in New York, after fifteen days at sea, to attend the UN Climate Summit, beginning September 23. (Show the Facebook post).
If we think that the cost this generation is undertaking is just skipping a few Fridays, we would be wrong. They are counting the cost of their actions, and they want us to count the cost of climate change, and it humbles me to look at and examine how I schedule and style my life. Certainly, Greta Thunberg and I live our lives in different time frames and understandings. She feels a panic that I have not felt. These young people are my sons’ generation. My sons (13 years old and 8 years old) honestly wept when they heard the Amazon was on fire. A few weeks ago, my younger son wrote a book, Earth Book, (quotes) and wanted us, his parents, to read it. And this week, when I was reading the article on Greta Thunberg in Broadview, (Show the pictures) he kept asking questions which showed his deep interest. “Why does she say, ‘We Want You to Panic’?”, “What is ‘strike’? (on the Strike for Climate picket line), “What does, ‘If You Don’t Act Like Adults, We will.’ Mean?” In Fridays for the Future, a grade 7 raises a picket sign that echoes Thunberg, “Let politicians act as if their house is on fire.”
Like other students, my older son was both nervous and excited for his first week of the new school year, but his biggest concerns are the same as Thunberg’s. He talks about his concerns quite regularly. There’s the report: a special report was published last October by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), which puts a hard deadline on taking the actions needed to avoid a full-on sabotage of our environment: 12 years. This means, if carbon emissions continue to mount, by 2030, it will be too late. And I begin to see that this generation Z and I (Generation X) have different timeframes to live on this earth, and that influences how we feel about it. To me, that 12 years, which is now down to 11 in 2019, means, ‘Ok. In 12 years, unless planet-wide actions to slow down climate change are implemented, our earth’s ecosystem will irreversibly deteriorate, enduring fires, floods, mudslides, heat waves, rising oceans and species extinctions.’ I realize all these things but it does not go deeper than just a numb realization. In contrast, this report, to generation Z like my sons, is emotional, filled with grief and anger and fear: My son would exclaim to me, “I heard that in 12 years the earth is dying. We have only 12 years left, and it is the end!”. 11 years from today, my son will be 24. Quote: “Imagine a 10-year-old hearing every day that in 12 years your planet is dying. Before we make posters, I say: “Are you okay?””
Count the cost. If we just follow and share the Instagram and Facebook posts of Greta Thunberg and praise her, thinking she will be our prophet and saviour, we are not doing the work that is asked of us. We must count the cost ourselves: Find out the right climate-crisis informed actions we can do today and then find more. We need to take action and build active hope, rather than build guilt. Counting the cost means that we intend to complete our work. The church should seriously count the cost in order to effectively motivate the family of God to counter this climate crisis. Two summer volunteer students recently changed the sign at Fort Garry United Church: “The Greatest Threat to Our Planet is Thinking Someone Else Will Save It.” We can admire, cheer, praise the radical, counter-cultural prophets of our times and enthusiastically profess that we are disciples of Jesus, but we must count the cost, the sacrifice we will need to make, in order to complete our professed discipleship.
Ha Na Park
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