Loving Christ Above All
“Jesus has many who love His kingdom in heaven, but few who bear His cross. He has many who desire comfort, but few who desire suffering. He finds many to share His feast, but few to share His fasting. All desire to rejoice with Him, but few are willing to suffer anything for Him.” —Thomas à Kempis
In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
I have been a priest for something like 34 years, and I have been studying the Bible for more than 40 and I still find it the most beautiful yet infuriating, most inspiring yet confusing, most hopeful yet demanding text I have ever encountered. Our Gospel lesson for this morning is a good example of what I mean. It is a lesson warning us to be sure to count the cost before we sign on as one of Jesus’ disciples. It is a lesson that reminds us that Christianity is not simply a Sunday morning religion, it is a hungering after God to the point that we will surrender our lives to follow Jesus. It is a faith that shakes our foundations, topples our priorities, and can even pits us against friend and family. But as Martin Luther once said, “A religion that gives nothing, costs nothing, and suffers nothing, is worth nothing.”
Large crowds were traveling with Jesus. That’s what Luke tells us. Jesus was popular. People were intrigued. They wanted to see the healer, the teacher, the miracle-worker. But Jesus didn’t give them platitudes or comfortable life lessons, rather he said to the crowds: “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 disciple. Whoever does not carry the cross and follow me cannot be my disciple.”
We stumble over that word “hate.” Did Jesus really mean despise our families? No, it’s hyperbole intended to get our attention like when he talks about a camel going through the eye of a needle or when he tells us to pluck out our eye and cut off our hand if they cause us to sin. What he is saying is that our love for him must be so ultimate, so complete, that all other loves look small by comparison. This is about allegiance. It is about who comes first. In the ancient world, family was everything. Your future, your honor, your very identity was bound up with kin. Into that world Jesus says: “I must come before even them.”
In our reading, Jesus continues with two images: a builder who must calculate the cost of building a tower and a king who must consider the ramifications of going to war. The point is clear: discipleship requires reckoning with reality and facing the facts. It demands everything. And why does it demand everything? Because to put Christ first is to step into the reality of the world as it truly is — a world created by God with moral order woven into its fabric. To say “yes” to Jesus is to align your life with the truth that right and wrong are not illusions, that justice and goodness are not optional, that love and integrity are not negotiable. Following Jesus means trusting that these things are real because they flow from God’s character. As the Rev. Tim Keller once said: “Our sense of moral obligation only makes sense if there is a God. Otherwise, morality is just a feeling, not a fact.” If Christ is Lord, then morality is not a preference but a reality — and discipleship means staking our lives on that reality, even when it puts us at odds with family, culture, or power.
In our world today there are powerful voices that would argue there is no moral order to our world at all, no higher truth and no accountability. These voices want us to believe that right and wrong are purely subjective and truth is whatever we want it to be. When this kind of thinking thrives, we can see the devastating consequences all around us. For example.
When violence is excused and law is twisted, fear replaces justice. If political violence is minimized or pardoned, the message is clear: might makes right. The law ceases to protect and instead intimidates. People learn to keep silent, to suppress dissent, to live in fear – and a society ruled by fear is antithetical to the gospel of good news where perfect love casts out fear.
When voting maps are redrawn by both parties to preserve power rather than to serve the people, integrity is lost. Gerrymandering may sound technical, but it is deeply moral. It means leaders are choosing their voters rather than voters choosing their leaders. Public office becomes a fortress of self-protection rather than an act of service, and trust in government erodes. Jesus didn’t protect his power, he washed feet.
When public office becomes a means of personal enrichment, public service is corrupted into exploitation. Leadership at its best is stewardship for the common good. Jesus taught the way of servant leadership, “whoever wishes to be great among you must be your servant,” he said. But when leaders use power to enrich themselves and their families, the sacred trust of service is betrayed. Greed is normalized, cynicism spreads, and integrity dies in the public square.
When compassion, science, and care for the vulnerable are dismantled, human flourishing is sacrificed for gain or convenience. Cutting programs that feed the hungry, gutting efforts that fight disease, or dismissing the research that protects creation are not only failures of policy — they promote a national indifference, a selfishness that refuses to see the suffering of others as our concern. When compassion is silenced and the vulnerable are ignored, we choose comfort over care. And a society that abandons compassion has abandoned its very humanity.
This is what can happen when we deny the moral universe of a loving creator: everything becomes negotiable, truth becomes disposable, justice malleable, power ultimate, and fear the governing principle. But to follow Christ is to say: there is truth, there is justice, there is right and wrong — and they are not for sale. That will cost us. It may put us at odds with family, with friends, with party, with tribe. But discipleship demands nothing less.
Friends, on the flip side, we should never forget that the God who calls us to justice and truth is also the God whose very nature is mercy, forgiveness, and steadfast love. The God who demands absolute allegiance is also the one who welcomes prodigals, who gives strength to the weary, who meets our sin with pardon and our failure with compassion. If God were only justice, we would be crushed under the weight of our failures. If God were only love without truth, the world would dissolve into sentimentality. But the God revealed in Jesus Christ is both — righteous and gracious, holy and merciful. That is why, when we make a stand as Christians, we must hold our convictions without arrogance and extend compassion without losing sight of truth. Because grace and truth belong together, they both belong to the heart of God.
In closing, to paraphrase Dietrich Bonhoeffer, “When Christ calls us, he calls us to come and die — and in dying, to live.” Friends, if you are going to walk the road of Christian discipleship — really walk it — then you should know: following Jesus will change you. You may find it harder to ignore your neighbor, even the one you struggle most to love. You may feel a stronger pull to serve the poor, to give more of yourself than you ever expected. You may notice your heart breaking more easily at the suffering of others, or that your conscience won’t allow you to stay silent when faced with inequality. And yes, some of the people who love you the most may even think you’ve lost your bearings. Make no mistake — to pick up your cross and follow Jesus will have consequences. Yet, in the end, it is worth it — because though the way of the cross is hard, it is also the only way that makes any real sense. Amen.