Give it all up already

Deuteronomy 30:15-20

See, I set before you this day life and prosperity, death and adversity. For I command you this day, to love the LORD you God, to walk in His ways, and to keep His commandments, His laws, and His rules, that you may thrive and increase, and that the LORD your God may bless you in the land that you are about to enter and possess. But if your heart turns away and you give no heed, and are lured into the worship and service of other gods, I declare to you this day that you shall certainly perish, I call heaven and earth to witness against you this day: I have put before you life and death, blessing and curse. Choose life - if you and your offspring would live - by loving the LORD your God, heeding His commands, and holding fast to Him. For thereby you shall have life and shall long endure upon the soil that the LORD swore to your ancestors, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, to give to them.

Psalm 1

Happy are they who have not walked in the counsel of the wicked, nor lingered in the way of sinners, nor sat in the seats of the scornful! Their delight is in the law of the LORD, and they meditate on God’s teaching day and night. They are like trees planted by streams of water, bearing fruit in due season, with leaves that do not wither; everything they do shall prosper. It is not so with the wicked; they are like chaff which the wind blows away. Therefore the wicked shall not stand upright when judgment comes, nor the sinner in the council of the righteous. For the LORD knows the way of the righteous, but the way of the wicked shall be destroyed.

Philemon 

Paul, a prisoner of Christ Jesus, and Timothy our brother, To Philemon our dear friend and co-worker, to Apphia our sister, to Archippus our fellow soldier, and to the church in your house: Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. When I remember you in my prayers, I always thank my God because I hear of your love for all the saints and your faith toward the Lord Jesus. I pray that the sharing of your faith may become effective when you perceive all the good that we may do for Christ. I have indeed received much joy and encouragement from your love, because the hearts of the saints have been refreshed through you, my brother. For this reason, though I am bold enough in Christ to command you to do your duty, yet I would rather appeal to you on the basis of love - and I, Paul, do this as an old man, and now also as a prisoner of Christ Jesus. I am appealing to you for my child, Onesimus, whose father I have become during my imprisonment. Formerly he was useless to you, but now he is indeed useful both to you and to me. I am sending him, that is, my own heart, back to you. I wanted to keep him with me, so that he might be of service to me in your place during my imprisonment for the gospel; but I preferred to do nothing without your consent, in order that your good deed might be voluntary and not something forced. Perhaps this is the reason he was separated from you for a while, so that you might have him back forever, no longer as a slave but more than a slave, a beloved brother - especially to me but how much more to you, both in the flesh and in the Lord. So if you consider me your partner, welcome him as you would welcome me. If he has wronged you in any way, or owes you anything, charge that to my account. I, Paul, am writing this with my own hand: I will repay it. I say nothing about you owing me even your own self. Yes, brother, let me have this benefit from you in the Lord! Refresh my heart in Christ. Confident of your obedience, I am writing to you, knowing that you will do even more than I say.

Luke 14:25-33

Now large crowds were traveling with Jesus; and he turned and said to them, “Whoever comes to me and does not hate father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters, yes, and even life itself, cannot be my disciples. Whoever does not carry the cross and follow me cannot be my disciple. 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? Otherwise, when he has laid a foundation and is not able to finish, all who see it will begin to ridicule him, saying, ‘This fellow began and was not able to finish.’ 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? If he cannot, then, while the other is still far away, he sends a delegation and asks for the terms of peace. So therefore, none of you can become my disciple if you do not give up all your possessions.”

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For some reason this weekend, when I hear this Gospel reading I am reminded of, among many other things, the famous Kennedy quote: "Ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country.” On Labor Day weekend, it's good to remember that doing for our country means protecting the workers on whose backs our economy is built. And maybe Kennedy was so young and idealistic as a President that we don’t really hear his words as he meant them. Maybe we have gotten so used to expecting 'our' country to give us the power and privilege we 'deserve' that we have forgotten what it means to be a country of diverse people living together. Part of calling our country to be its best self sometimes means disagreeing with its behavior and calling it out, part of calling our country to its better self means protesting, means working to change laws and policies, means holding those with power accountable for their actions. And it is not always comfortable, and it is certainly not always welcome.

But to stand up for the lives of those who are oppressed and suffering is to walk in the ways of Jesus. To allow injustice to continue while we ignore it as though, just because it doesn't affect us directly it does not exist, that is choosing the ways of death. We should all be familiar with the lines about ‘when they came for the Jews I said nothing, for I was not a Jew, when they came for the communists I said nothing, for I was not a communist, when they came for me, there was no one left.’ There has been a lot of protest in the news lately, a lot of conflict and controversy in the news - which isn’t terribly new, though what we argue about does say something about what we value, doesn’t it? From the rapist who only served three months because the judge saw he had a bright future in swimming (and don't pretend he would have gotten just as light a sentence if he had been black), to the football player who is being threatened and reviled for sitting down during the national anthem, to the Native tribes protesting the construction of an oil pipeline across their protected lands and under a major water source, we have been seeing more and more clearly what people are holding onto and what they are willing to let go of for what they believe.

Jesus calls his disciples to give up everything if they are going to follow him, because in the process of following his example they may well lose everything anyway, and they need to be prepared for that eventuality. Dietrich Bonhoeffer and Martin Luther King, Jr. served some jail time because of their values, as have many peaceful protestors. What would you risk your reputation for, your livelihood? We know the apostle Paul lost a lot when he converted, so many of his letters are written from prison once he became a follower of the Way. His power and authority, his position, his access to certain spaces and people, his colleagues… Becoming a disciple of Jesus basically ruined Paul’s life. He even gave up his name, changing it to Paul from Saul.

The letter Paul wrote to Philemon, which we read today, illustrates another way that being a disciple can turn somebody’s world inside out. Philemon had a slave, named Onesimus, who went to Paul, either as a runaway slave or as a servant sent by his master, and Paul treated him not as a slave but as a brother in Christ. This was a big deal. Even if slavery was run a bit differently two thousand years ago than it has been here in this country in the last hundred and fifty, it’s still labor and ownership and status and power on the line here. Paul was asking Philemon to let his slave Onesimus live as a free man, appealing to his love for Paul, invoking the history of his mentorship in the faith, maybe being just a bit passive aggressive about it: "not to mention you owe me your very life." But, as we know from our history, giving up a slave, really, giving up slavery, is more than just giving up free labor, it’s giving up a mindset. Giving up possessing other people, giving up controlling others, giving up symbols of wealth and power. Putting down dominance for the sake of living into everybody’s freedom is not an easy thing. Those with power never give it up without a fight, which is why those with seeming less power protest and petition and struggle day in and day out to be heard and seen and acknowledged.

Being a disciple of Jesus means we do not set our identity on things we own or jobs we have or money we have earned or who we are related to. It does not even mean setting our value on how well we keep the religious laws, because we all know we all miss the mark there, and that power has been abused for as long as it has been in existence. It almost sounds Buddhist, this letting go of everything in order to follow. We let go of expectations, of demands, of pressures, so that we can freely focus on living, on tending to life all around us, on knowing God and knowing ourselves as created in that Divine Image. When Philemon was able to let go of owning Onesimus, he was granted a brother, belonging with a family, a family which had always been there but had been stifled by slavery and misuse of power.

The lure of the gods of power and prestige and superiority is a strong one, make no mistake. It is tempting to think ourselves better than others because of accidents of birth or systems set up in our favor before we were born. False gods of hate and fear worm their way into every crack and crevice they can find. But to choose life means to choose to disregard those false threats to our value and to see the world around us as it is, to break the bonds of oppression even if we do not see them in our own back yard, to proclaim release to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to announce the year of the Lord’s favor rather than the fear of damnation. Following Jesus is not easy, putting down these fears and guilts after being surrounded by them at every turn can take some effort, but the Lord of Life has made it known that life is the ultimate goal, that death no longer holds sway over us, that love wins through the struggle, that we are not ever truly alone in our wrestling and searching.

Our God is merciful and compassionate. We need not be afraid. The God who chases after us will forever seek to give us wholeness and hope and new life.