The cost of discipleship

Sermon for the twelfth Sunday after Trinity, Sunday 7 December 2025, preached by Jenny Pittaway, Licensed Lay Minister

Wisdom 9: 13-18.  Philemon: 9-10 & 12-17.  Luke 14: 25-33

Today’s readings challenge us to make a total commitment to the will of God, putting God first in our lives.

Our first reading from Wisdom instructs us to ask for the gifts of discernment and wisdom from the Holy Spirit, so that we may obey the will of God as disciples.

Our second reading teaches us that detachment and renunciation are necessary for a true disciple of Christ.  As a responsible apostle and model disciple of Christ, Paul had to renounce the service of his new helper, Onesimus, and return him to Philemon, his master.  As a new disciple of Christ, Onesimus had to leave Paul, face his owner as a runaway slave, and accept the consequences.

Our Gospel reading can be difficult to understand.  Jesus once again was on the road with his disciples and great crowds were following him.  At one point, Jesus turned to the crowds and addressed them.  He said “If anyone comes to me and does not hate his own father and mother and wife and children and brothers and sisters, yes, and even his own life, he cannot be my disciple” (Luke 14: 26)

Then Jesus adds: “Whoever does not bear his own cross and come after me cannot be my disciple” (Luke 14: 27)

These are extremely strong words!  Did Jesus truly mean that we are to hate our parents, brothers, sisters, children, and friends? 

Or is He telling us that if we choose to follow him, we need to realise that He needs to be first in our lives?  Jesus is making a very clear and strong point.  Our primary allegiance always needs to be Jesus.  He is not saying that we cannot or should not love and care for our families and friends.  He realises that we have commitments to our families and we need to live out that commitment.

Jesus is telling is telling his listeners what is essential. First and foremost, He must be first in our lives.  However, He also wants us to love and care deeply for our family, our friends and for the world community. We may strive to love each person we meet in our daily lives, the person who is struggling, or an individual we simply do not like.  The quality of love that Jesus hopes we have for one another surpasses the simple notion of liking another person.  Rather, Jesus hopes that we truly will love everyone. 

This may sound impossible.  However, with Jesus’ grace and love we do have the ability achieve this.

We must bear our crosses, though bearing a cross is often equated with welcoming chronic illness, painful physical conditions, or trying family relationships, it also includes what we do voluntarily as a consequence of our commitment to Jesus Christ.  Further it is the spirit in which we freely and deliberately accept and endure the pain, difficulties and even the ridicule involved with these choices, that transforms them into real cross-bearing. 

For the early Christians however, cross bearing had a far more literal meaning.  Just as Jesus went to the cross, some of his followers would also taste death for their devotion to the Master.  Only if the disciple is firmly committed to Christ will they be able to spend their life in sacrificial service for others.

We must calculate the cost of discipleship.  Using the two parables of the tower builder and the king defending his country, Jesus is saying we should think long and hard about Christian discipleship before a decision is made.  In the first parable, the builder was not financially able to finish the building.  The second parable spoke of a king planning strategy against a belligerent opponent.  Could the king win the battle against an army twice size of his own? 

or should he seek for terms peace?  (Luke 14: 28-32)

Perhaps these parables also illustrate that discipleship is not a

one-time decision and that the commitment involved needs to be ongoing and able to persevere in the ministries that are integral to following Jesus.  When we first decide to follow Christ, we know simply that there will be a price to pay.  Only as life unfolds can we begin to assess the full cost.  Jesus warns us to expect significant cost, because the cost for him was the cross at Calvary.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer in his book The Cost of Discipleship, explained that cheap grace is the preaching of forgiveness without requiring repentance, baptism without church discipline.  Communion without confession, absolution without personal confession.  Cheap grace is grace without discipleship, grace without the cross, grace without Jesus Christ, living and incarnate.

Costly grace is the treasure hidden in the field; for the sake of it a man will go and sell all that he has.  It is the pearl of great price to buy which the merchant will sell all his goods.  It is the kingly rule of Christ, for whose sake a man will pluck out the eye which causes him to stumble, it is the call of Jesus Christ at which the disciple leaves his nets and follows him.

Being a disciple of Jesus means not only surrendering material possessions but sometimes one’s very life.  In today’s reading we hear the phrase, “so therefore, anyone of you who does not renounce all that he has cannot be my disciple” (Luke 14. 33). 

Even when Jesus says that we must give up all our possessions in order to follow him, he does not mean that we must all hold a car boot sale and live a vow of poverty.  He means that we should lead a detached life, willingly sharing our blessings on others. 

The conditions of discipleship as outlined by Jesus indicate a total commitment that every follower of Christ should be prepared to live.  The radical demands of Jesus call us to centre our lives on the suffering and risen Christ.

Jesus never softened the call.  He did not lure crowds with comfort- he challenged them with the cross.

As we have heard, discipleship is not a casual stroll behind a charismatic leader.  It is a deliberate, sacrificial journey behind the crucified Christ.  Jesus does not ask for part of our hearts – He asks for all of it.  He does not invite us to admire Him – He calls us to follow him, even when it costs everything.

So let us not walk away from this Gospel message unchanged. 

Let us count the cost- and commit.  Because the One who calls us to give up everything is the One who gave up everything for us.

We will follow Jesus when it is inconvenient?  When it is unpopular?  When it hurts?  Because that is where true discipleship begins – not in comfort, but in surrender.