“No Sales Awards for Jesus”
June 29, 2025
Luke 9: 51–62
When the days drew near for him to be taken up, he set his face to go to Jerusalem. And he sent messengers ahead of him. On their way they entered a village of the Samaritans to make ready for him; but they did not receive him, because his face was set toward Jerusalem. When his disciples James and John saw it, they said, “Lord, do you want us to command fire to come down from heaven and consume them?” But he turned and rebuked them. Then they went on to another village.
As they were going along the road, someone said to him, “I will follow you wherever you go.” And Jesus said to him, “Foxes have holes, and birds of the air have nests; but the Son of Man has nowhere to lay his head.” To another he said, “Follow me.” But he said, “Lord, first let me go and bury my father.” But Jesus said to him, “Let the dead bury their own dead; but as for you, go and proclaim the kingdom of God.” Another said, “I will follow you, Lord; but let me first say farewell to those at my home.” Jesus said to him, “No one who puts a hand to the plow and looks back is fit for the kingdom of God.”***
If Jesus went to business school and majored in marketing, he would flunk out first semester. Why? Because he is a lousy salesman.
This reading from Luke makes clear, Jesus is perfectly indifferent to the rules of good salesmanship. He does not soft sell his product. He does not minimize costs to attract more customers. Jesus also would not have made a good pastor.
Early in my years as a pastor, I encountered incidents which were important ingredients in learning the subtle nuances of the profession. These were items never covered on a class syllabus. On occasion these incidents involved facing people’s dismay. Without question I was naïve or overly eager on some fronts which led to being set straight by those who were gatekeepers of tradition or were challenged by how I taught or preached. Thankfully, I recall very few of these experiences and they were rare, which says far more about the quality and kindness of the people of the congregation than it does about my shortcomings, the blatant errors and missteps as a young pastor.
I clearly recall one Sunday when I got an earful and this passage from Luke 9 brings back the memory. The first arrivals that morning were an older couple I knew and it was easy to realize they were already unhappy with me. Both were ready to tell me why and they took turns doing so. The source was my recent sermon about the cost of discipleship, similar to Luke 9 above.
This couple thought I was completely off base saying that allegiance to Jesus had to come before father and mother. They lectured me on how awful it was that a preacher would diminish the priority of relationship to father and mother. Was I not pro-family? Did I not care about promoting the duty of caring for one’s parents?
Before I could utter a word, they walked away from me and planted themselves in a pew near the rear of the church. At least they did not walk out the door.
Preachers are in a tight bind when it comes to a passage like this one. Every Sunday they wrestle with giving people what they come looking for while trying to be faithful to the Scriptures no matter how challenging they can be. The overarching goal of the preacher is to develop disciples, people who commit their lives to living out the ways of Jesus in daily life.
It is lovely when congregational life works well. But pastors really want people to become disciples. As I experienced that Sunday morning years ago, helping people grasp the costs of discipleship is often challenging. According to Jesus in Luke, chapter 9, we cannot be his disciples unless we give up our securities, relinquish the priority of our familial obligations, and never look back.
This makes me wonder why all preachers and believers alike do not just turn in their resignations. None of us has what it takes. If Jesus were in charge of an average congregation, I figure there would be about three people who would show up on Sunday morning, and chances are they would be fooling themselves.
Given the weightiness of discipleship, if Jesus were your church’s pastor, he would greet newcomers by saying, “Are you absolutely sure you want to follow this way of life? It will take everything you have. It has to come before everything else
that matters to you. Plenty of people have launched into this without counting the cost, and as you can see, they are not here anymore. Why don’t you go home and think it over? I would hate for you to get in over your head.”
So, what does it cost to be a disciple of Jesus? We do not have to wonder because Jesus tells us. Illustrating what discipleship entails, he reports on three people who want to follow him and they offer to become disciples.
The first person is turned away because the cost is too high. It costs your security. Jesus says even animals have more security. “Foxes have holes, and birds of the air have nests; but the Son of Man has nowhere to lay his head.” There is a radical rootlessness to becoming a disciple. The disciple has no home. There is a rootlessness that will be yours because your home is the kingdom of God, and not the kingdom of this world.
The second person is also turned away because the cost is too high. This second would-be disciple wants to maintain his ties to his family and carry out the obligations he has to bury his parents. “Lord, first let me go and bury my father.” But Jesus said to him, “Let the dead bury their own dead; but as for you, go and proclaim the kingdom of God.” Jesus is direct and to the point. To become a disciple means social and family obligations are set aside in favor of the demands of God‘s reign and rule in the world of the living.
The third person is likewise turned away because the cost of following Jesus was much too high. “I will follow you, Lord; but let me first say farewell to those at my home.” Jesus said to him, “No one who puts a hand to the plow and looks back is fit for the kingdom of God.” This would-be disciple asks Jesus to let him go kiss his parents’ good-bye. Now who could be against that? This aspiring disciples makes a reasonable request in my view. But Jesus is not easier on this person than the other two. “No! Jesus says, there is no looking back. Either you are with me, or not. Once you agree to come along, the course is set and we move on.” Jesus says, “Follow me.” And he wants his friends to commit themselves to the tasks of living for the kingdom of God and proclaiming the good news of God‘s reign.
“Don‘t look back,” Satchel Paige the celebrated black professional baseball player used to say, “Something may be gaining on you.” Jesus put it in an analogous way. No one who puts their hand to the plow and gazes longingly backward is fit to plant this field. Life moves us forward; to look back is to engage again in death. To become a disciple means no backward glances. Harsh words from Pastor Jesus.
Christian discipleship is not something to be engaged in casually. It is not an alternate lifestyle; it is not a career choice. It is not even about being a good person. Discipleship is about becoming a new person altogether — it is about a new identity. Discipleship, Jesus tells us, is a matter of life and death that costs you everything you are so that you can become everything God intends for you to be.
The disciple is the one who gives it all up and ends up gaining it all. Is there any wonder that so few followers of Jesus became full-fledged disciples? Is it any wonder that we struggle with our own excuses, and our reasons, and our cautious commitments? Barbara Brown Taylor, Episcopalian priest and author writes, “While Jesus may not have ever made a very good parish minister, he was indeed a very good savior and thank goodness, he is not through saving us yet.”1
We who have answered “Yes” to the question of becoming a disciple certainly know that it is not easy to be rootless and a wanderer in a country that values securities. We know it is not easy to hold our faith higher than we hold our family. Even as we know how hard it is to be a disciple of Christ’s in our world today, we can be assured that Jesus has walked before us and will be with us, always leading us, guiding us, and encouraging us to life of greater discipleship.
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1 Barbara Brown Taylor, in a sermon entitled, “High Priced Discipleship”
Image:
Seekingtheosis blog/cost-of-discipleship
