10-07-21

ECCLESIOLOGICAL ETCHING
October 7, 2021
Have you ever felt as if Jesus simply went too far? Or maybe he went beyond where you felt comfortable? Continuing in Luke 14, Jesus says to his followers, “In the same way, none of you who are unwilling to give up all of your possessions can be my disciple.” Like many people, I am struck by the words “all of your possessions.” Later in the Gospel, Jesus will challenge a single individual to give away all his possessions, and in that situation, it is easy to read it as contextual, limited to that one person. But here, Jesus speaks broadly, to include anyone who is seeking to be one of his disciples. This is a passage that always comes to mind when someone says, “Well I just do whatever the Bible tells me to do,” yet the person has many possessions. As I’ve said before, I’m not judging as my closet and garage are full of possessions, some that aren’t really used very often. Maybe we need to hear it in the context of the first century, when many of Jesus’ followers had few possessions, maybe only the clothes they wore. The fishermen walked away from their boats, from their family resources to follow Jesus. It doesn’t even sound as if they went home and packed a bag. It would be easy to say it was a different time, and though it was, I’m not too sure if Jesus is willing to let us off the hook. So what do we do with these words? Do we ignore them or dance around them? Or do we come back to them on a regular basis and allow them to wash over us with a gracious prodding about our possessions and the unhealthy relationship we might have with some of them.

I want you to be first in my life, Gracious God, and not simply in the traditional religious places. I want to put you first which may require me to relinquish some items interfering with that hope. Amen.

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