{"id":2270,"date":"2019-09-08T11:00:22","date_gmt":"2019-09-08T15:00:22","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/sermons\/?p=2270"},"modified":"2019-09-08T13:08:20","modified_gmt":"2019-09-08T17:08:20","slug":"counting-the-cost","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/sermons\/2019\/09\/08\/counting-the-cost\/","title":{"rendered":"Counting the Cost"},"content":{"rendered":"

Click here to hear the full service<\/a><\/p>\n

Jeremiah 18: 1-11<\/a><\/p>\n

Luke 14: 25-33<\/a><\/p>\n

Click here to hear the sermon only<\/a><\/p>\n

\u2018One small step for (a)man, one giant leap for mankind.\u2019<\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Our steps fifty summers ago were up and down the red rock mountains of Cimarron NM, and Philmont Scout Ranch, including July 20, 1969.\u00a0\u00a0 We ascended that day the sheer rock cliff known as the \u2018Tooth of Time\u2019, fourteen fourteen year olds and a beleaguered kindly insurance man scoutmaster.\u00a0 \u2018They should be on the moon by now\u2019, he said.\u00a0\u00a0 But the detail we would only learn coming out of the wilderness some days later.<\/p>\n

\u00a0\u2018We choose to go to the moon not because it is easy, but because it is hard.\u2019\u00a0 Hard.<\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 That was said in a New England voice, with a New England accent, by a young, imperfect but brilliant New England President, who could celebrate Washington DC and its combination of northern charm and southern efficiency, and could compliment a room full of eminent dinner guests by saying they were the most intelligent dinner gathering ever convened in the White House, with the exception of those evenings when Thomas Jefferson dined alone.\u00a0 He was a war hero, but an accidental one, as he said that he became such in a simple way: \u2018they sank my boat\u2019.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 His wife could speak French, charm Royalty, set fashion directions, comment on musical selections, and light up a room, and the globe, with a smile.\u00a0 He said, in introduction, \u2018You will recognize me as the man who accompanied Jackie Kennedy to Paris\u2019.\u00a0\u00a0 Grace.\u00a0 Charm.\u00a0 Elegance.\u00a0 A fit for the office and for the house and for the role.\u00a0 Ask not what your country can do for you; ask what you can do for your country.<\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Decision, self-sacrifice, service above self.\u00a0 The greater good.<\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 And look at us now. Look at our national ethos, culture, rhetoric and leadership now.<\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 SMH.\u00a0 \u2018Shakin\u2019 my head\u2019.<\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 We know better.\u00a0 Or at least you do, New England.\u00a0\u00a0 You know better.<\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Out on the Tooth of Time we looked at the stars on that night, July 20, 1969.\u00a0 The world of possibilities in the world around us flickered and sparkled and blazed.\u00a0\u00a0 It asked of us a certain height.<\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 The Gospel, Luke 14, interpreted here bears up under the weight of shame, of bitter conflict, of family feud.\u00a0\u00a0 The Gospel gives you the grace to endure, to withstand, to withstand when you cannot understand.\u00a0 And its means to such a saving end?\u00a0 Arithmetic.\u00a0 Counting.\u00a0 Counting the cost.\u00a0 Hear the Gospel of Luke 14, the saving power of arithmetic.<\/p>\n

Exposition<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Count the cost.\u00a0 Ahead of time, count the cost. \u00a0By way of illustration: \u00a0in business, and in war.\u00a0 In war that is big business and in business that is warfare.\u00a0 And in everything in between.\u00a0 Count the cost.<\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Do the arithmetic, study the detail, count.<\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 You, careful listener, you recognize that Luke 14: 25-33 is not Jesus talking, but Luke writing.\u00a0 You realize that Jesus left no written record, like Socrates in that.\u00a0 You recognize that he spoke Aramaic, not Greek, and whether or not he was literate.\u00a0 You recall the arithmetic of his life, death and destiny, the years 4bce to 33ce, and the distance of those from our reading, Luke 14, in 85ce, to the earliest (some would date Luke much later).\u00a0 What we hear this morning is, in the first instance, not the voice of Jesus but the composition of Luke.\u00a0\u00a0 Of course, and granted, there will be traces of Jesus\u2019 voice, along the way, Luke 9-19, especially, and especially therein the parables, his own mode of teaching, without which nothing.\u00a0 In all, though, and on the bigger whole, this is not Jesus\u2019 voice but Luke\u2019s writing.\u00a0 This makes all the arithmetical difference in the world, these 50 years and 2 opposed forms of rhetoric.<\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Now, it may be, gazing again at the bulletin, or ruminating on the remembered reading of the Gospel, the high-water mark of our worship each Sunday, you begin to wonder, to ponder, to question.\u00a0\u00a0 Here are your questions, or some of them.<\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Why this discussion of hatred, when the Gospel in other clothing is about love?\u00a0 Why this denigration of family, when the family is one of the protected entities in the Decalogue:\u00a0 protection of truth, of communication, of speech, of worship, of family, of life, of property, of marriage, of law, and of commerce?\u00a0 Therein, whence the rejection of life itself, when otherwise the Gospel acclaims life, having life, and having life in abundance?\u00a0\u00a0 There seems to be some counting and accounting needed.<\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 More so:\u00a0 What is the mention here of the cross?\u00a0 Jesus in this narrative is preaching, teaching, healing, going about in Galilee and Judea a free itinerant prophet.\u00a0 All of a sudden, here comes a word from much later, \u2018cross\u2019.\u00a0 Was Jesus making a prediction that only he could see and understand?\u00a0 Or is this a clue to the fountain and origin of this passage?\u00a0 Cross?\u00a0 Cross?\u00a0 I thought we were sharing parables and blessing children and rounding up disciples.\u00a0 Moreso, the cross is \u2018one\u2019s own cross\u2019.\u00a0 The writer seems to assume that all will get the reference, including you, and me, to the cross. \u00a0How all this talk about the cross when Jesus just now in Luke is teaching in parables and healing the sick, a long way from Jerusalem and \u2018the cross\u2019?<\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Even more so:\u00a0 How is it that all of a sudden, everyone around Jesus is expected to be a monk?\u00a0 Ridding oneself of all, all, not most, not much, but all possessions?\u00a0 All.<\/em>\u00a0 That\u2019s at a lot, even in an era of tunics, ephods, camels, donkeys, sandals, fishing, shepherding and travel by foot.\u00a0 All?<\/em>\u00a0 What is transpiring here?<\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Nor does this seem metaphorical, in a way that our current preaching would likely choose.\u00a0\u00a0 Hatred\u2014well, you know, not exactly hatred but mature self-differentiation.\u00a0 Life\u2014well, you know, not exactly life in the sense of breath and nourishment, but in the sense of deep meaning.\u00a0 Cross\u2014well, you know, not exactly crucifixion in the bloody and excruciating physical sense, but self-discipline, more in the sense of yoga.\u00a0 Possessions\u2014well, you know, not in exactly the form of car, home, bank account and pension, but in the sense of a general materiality, of not letting your possessions possess you.\u00a0 No, actually Luke 14 does not seem or sound metaphorical at all, regarding hatred, life, cross, or possessions.\u00a0 It sounds literal enough.<\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Forgive what is only an interpretative guess, even less than that, yet after many decades of hearing these harsh words, even in Luke–the Gospel of peace, the Gospel of love, the Gospel of church, the Gospel of freedom\u2014these are phrases that sound like the esoteric, ascetic, anti-worldliness of the emerging gnostic movement.\u00a0 It is as if here, in Luke and Matthew, by way of Q, some measure of the enthusiastic pessimism, the bodily asceticism, the turning away from the world which we know in full in full Gnosticism, has grown up alongside the gospel, wheat and tares together sown.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 There are strong parallels, almost identical, in the Gospel of Thomas, a gnosticizing document of about the same time as Luke. And there are strong parallels in Poimandres, a fully gnostic document of about the same time as Luke (Fitzmeier, Anchor, 1064).<\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Uncompromising demands regarding self, regarding family, and regarding possessions may well be part of the life of faith, warns Luke out of the gnostic shadows of his sources.\u00a0 Like all serious engagements, this spiritual one is not be entered into lightly, but reverently, discreetly and in the fear of God.\u00a0 \u2018Jesus counsels his followers not to decide on discipleship without advance, mature self-probing\u2019.\u00a0\u00a0 It is as if Jesus is saying, \u2018come along, I want to make this for you the hardest decision of your life\u2019.<\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 So.\u00a0 This may mean that the struggles under this passage of Holy Scripture, our sufficient rule of faith and practice, are from 85ad, not 30ad.\u00a0 That there is in the emerging church a set of conflicts that require some arithmetic, some counting and accounting.\u00a0 How much home, how much away?\u00a0 How much kindness, how much honesty?\u00a0 How much self-affirmation and how much self-abnegation?\u00a0 How much materiality and how much spirituality?\u00a0 Before you set out, to go to college or to take a job or to move in together or to get married or to sell the farm or to go to war or to build a tower, well, you might want to\u2026do the math.<\/p>\n

Explanation<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 A few years ago, both at Marsh Chapel and in other pulpits, and not to worry if you remember it not, we will not be offended (much), we offered a sermon on the theme \u2018Exit or Voice?\u2019.\u00a0 The heart of that sermon engaged a dilemma familiar to many, perhaps to you: \u00a0do I stay and lift my voice in a situation I find intolerable, or do I leave an intolerable situation and lose my voice to effect its change?\u00a0\u00a0 An economic study from MIT in the 1970\u2019s, on a similar though commercially related thesis had partly inspired the sermon.\u00a0 The question in the Gospels generally, about freedom and determinism, human will and divine will, gave the theological background to the sermon.<\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 The difficulty\u2014exit or voice?\u2014is in some ways a daily one for people of faith, in matters tiny and gigantic.\u00a0\u00a0 It requires arithmetic, and a counting of cost, an accounting.\u00a0 Do I leave my church because of its current discrimination against gays, or do I stay to lift my voice in opposition to that discrimination?\u00a0 Do I leave my party, perhaps the party of my upbringing, now become party of ethnic hatred and rhetorical ugliness, or do I stay and live to fight another day?\u00a0 Do I leave regular relationship with my extended family out of real painful hurt occasioned in conversation, or do I stay and take my lumps and hope for sunshine at the next holiday gathering?\u00a0 The determining impact and influence of conditions and situations, well beyond my control, is undeniable.\u00a0 But so is the freedom, or sense of freedom, I feel to make a choice, make a decision, and make some difference, one way or another.\u00a0 You will not be surprised to know that the theme still enervates, reverberates, and agitates, near and far.\u00a0 Call it a daily cruciform arithmetic.<\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Here is an example and application of our gospel lesson. Three years ago, summer 2016, David Brooks took time to consider a meaningful, cultural and personal issue, perhaps a newly nuanced though unintended approach to \u2018exit, voice\u2019, \u2018at the edge of inside\u2019.\u00a0\u00a0 He starts, though with different language, at the juncture of exit and voice.\u00a0 Then, adds: \u00a0there\u2019s also a third position in any organization:\u00a0 those who are at the edge of the inside.\u00a0 These people are within the organization, but they\u2019re not subsumed by group think.\u00a0 They work at the boundaries, bridges, and entranceways\u2026I borrow this concept from Richard Rohr, a Franciscan priest who lives in Albuquerque.\u00a0 His point is that people who live at the edge of the inside have crucial roles to play\u2026You are free from (a group\u2019s) central seductions, but also free to hear its core message in very new and creative ways\u2026A doorkeeper must love both the inside and the outside of his or her group, and know how to move between these two loves.\u00a0 A person at the edge of inside can be the strongest reformer (think of Martin Luther King)\u2026A person on the edge of the inside knows how to take advantage of the standards and practices of the organization but not be imprisoned by them\u2026Now more than ever we need people who have the courage to live on the edge of inside, who love their parties and organizations so much that they can critique them as a brother, operate on them from the inside as a friend and dauntlessly insist that they live up to their truest selves.\u00a0 (NYT, June 2016)<\/em><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 One could hear, here, encouragement for University congregations and pulpits, at once on the edge of the academic inside, and on the edge of the ecclesiastical inside too.\u00a0 One could hear, here, a question for you to take home, about your social location in gospel ministry.\u00a0 Again, with Luke, a reminder of the need for some basic arithmetic.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

Coda
\n<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 It is a matter of arithmetic, of counting and accounting.\u00a0 Try to fit that for which you hope into the waist and shirt size of the clothing you have to put on.\u00a0 Calculate.\u00a0 (Such an interesting word, referring to counting pebbles!) Sometimes that counting and accounting is found inside and sometimes outside.\u00a0 Sometimes this is about what you can hold in your hand.\u00a0\u00a0 We begin 21 minutes ago in New England, where also we shall conclude. Not all great poets and poems come from New England.\u00a0 But\u2026But you are now in New England.\u00a0 So, to conclude, Robert Frost,\u00a0 \u2018And what I would not part with I have kept\u2019.\u00a0\u00a0 Be able to count what you can count on your own experience.\u00a0 And leave the rest.<\/p>\n

I could give all to Time except \u2013 except
\nWhat I myself have held. But why declare
\nThe things forbidden that while the Customs slept
\nI have crossed to Safety with? For I am There,
\nAnd what I would not part with I have kept.<\/em><\/p>\n

\u00a0-The Rev. Dr. Robert Allan Hill, Dean<\/span><\/i><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Click here to hear the full service Jeremiah 18: 1-11 Luke 14: 25-33 Click here to hear the sermon only \u2018One small step for (a)man, one giant leap for mankind.\u2019 \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Our steps fifty summers ago were up and down the red rock mountains of Cimarron NM, and Philmont Scout Ranch, including July 20, 1969.\u00a0\u00a0 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2679,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[22],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2270"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2679"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2270"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2270\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2281,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2270\/revisions\/2281"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2270"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2270"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2270"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}