Is the Cost Too High?

[A reflection on the Gospel for the Thirteenth Sunday after Pentecost, September 7, 2025. It and its accompanying readings can be found at https://www.episcopalchurch.org/lectionary/proper-18c/]

The fun thing about the Revised Common Lectionary is that after a three year stretch we get to start everything all over again, which affords one the luxury of going over one's notes from a particular passage three years later when pondering its meaning. The danger of course is rehashing old mistakes or getting stuck in a rut and not allowing the text to take you in another direction, but it also can ground one in looking for new insight.

Take for instance today's Gospel selection, which often brings people up short. Does Jesus really tell us to hate our friends and families and have nothing more to do with them if we wish to become His disciples?

Welcome to the philosophy of the shock statement, that introduction meant to stun listeners out of their preoccupation and in appalled fascination listen for the follow-up. I've done it, you've done it, we've all done it. Usually in this day and age we follow it up with the words, "Now that I have your attention..." There is truth in the statement, but the statement cannot stand on its own...it requires context, refinement, explanation.

Jesus does not leave us hanging long. He immediately goes into two parables about evaluating the cost of taking something on. He takes two themes very familiar to His listeners, construction projects and war (who in First Century Judaea was unfamiliar with war? Only those under a rock...). The idea He presents is that His disciples must pay a very, very high price along the lines of a massive construction project or war. Today we call that the budgeting process, where we evaluate the anticipated costs and try to estimate any unanticipated costs and even unlikely surprises to determine whether there are enough resources. So it is with following Jesus, do we have enough resources to support following Him? Are we willing to suffer estrangement from near kindred, from friends, from business associates, from neighbours should we decide to take up Jesus' cross and follow in the Way of the Kingdom of God?

Are we willing to endure the disapproval of family, either for embracing a strange way of life, or deciding against going into the family business, or refusing to live by the family's dysfunctional playbook? Are we willing to risk our careers when they ask of us things counter to the Kingdom of God? Are we willing to endure the scorn of our neighbours, or even their hatred when we love those whom God commands us to love but our neighbours have decided that we only can hate? Are we willing to endure our children's ire when we "spend their inheritance" on feeding the hungry, clothing the poor, rescuing the captive, and burying the dead? These prices are high, very, very high. But then the cost He bore was high too. Do we have what it takes? Are we willing to exchange the temporal here and now for the eternal relationship with God in the age to come? Are we forward thinking enough?