singleness – Big Circumstance

This is a sermon I wrote in 2007. When I deliver this live on Sunday morning in worship I shall of course be amending some of the references. For example, at the time both my parents were alive, we and my sister’s family were living somewhere else, and our children were small. The iPod reference will be changed to the upcoming iPhone launch. And so on. So this is not the exact script, although it is close.

Luke 14:25-33

1. Family
It was an interesting week to read Jesus’ words in our Gospel reading today:

Shoe Family III by Sami Taipale CC Licence 2.0

‘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’ (verse 26).

You see, on Thursday, my parents moved house. Having moved after retirement from London to Hertfordshire, they have now reached an age where they need to be nearer family. Moving near us is not practical, because who knows where we shall be living in a few years’ time? So they decided to move near my sister and her family in Hampshire. I spent Thursday and Friday helping them move in.

How do you read my actions in the light of Jesus telling me I should hate my parents? How do you interpret their decision that it was more realistic to move nearer their daughter than their minister son? Did I fail to hate my parents as Jesus instructed, by giving them some time I should perhaps have devoted to ministry? Or did they recognise that I should put following my call first by moving near my sister? Is the church right to think she can send me anywhere, while expecting my sister to be the one who cares for our elderly parents? If so, then my calling also affects my sister, brother-in-law and nephews.

So how radical should I be? If I am also to hate my ‘wife and children’, then should I do what some Methodist ministers in earlier generations did, and send my children to boarding school? Some missionaries in the developing world still do that – either sending their kids back to the UK or locating them at a school provided by the missionary society. Or should I even be like some radical missionaries who left their wives at home? The cricketer turned missionary C T Studd did that. And these issues are not limited to ministers and missionaries. Many people have to move with their job. If they have felt the call of God into their career, then similar questions arise.

And other questions pop into my mind. Should we take what Jesus said literally? If we do, what does that make us? If we don’t, do we dilute what he said and compromise our discipleship? How do we relate Jesus’ words here to other parts of Scripture that seem to contradict them – ‘Honour your father and mother’, for starters? Isn’t that commandment all the more relevant today in an age of family breakdown?

I think it starts to resolve not simply around the words Jesus uses, but the way he speaks. Like the Jewish and Semitic people of his time, he would speak in extreme terms to make a point, as we do sometimes. It’s like drawing a cartoon to emphasise certain things. Fact fans will like to know it’s called ‘Semitic hyperbole’, but most of us just have to know it’s this blunt and exaggerated form of speech in order to get a message across.

That doesn’t mean we dilute it, but we do look for the meaning underneath it. Jesus honoured his own mother at the crucifixion, when he arranged for John to look after her. But he also said that those who followed his teaching were his mother, brothers and sisters. So I think he calls us to honour our parents and care about our families, but he won’t allow us to make an idol of them.

There are ways in which the Christian church has made an idol of family life. Single adults, divorcees and widow(er)s in the church will have ready examples. I did when I was single. When moving on from my first appointment, I came across a circuit that only wanted to engage a married minister with children. I’ve seen ‘family service’ leaflets with logos featuring two parents and two children. Widows and divorcees tell stories of being under suspicion after they lost their loved ones from members of the same sex in the church: people assumed they were sexual predators.

Now obviously, as someone who is now married with two children, I don’t mean to demean family life, the importance of marriage vows and the like. But I think he envisages the possibility of obedience to him conflicting with the demands of family. While we mustn’t neglect our families, we can neither use them as an excuse for disobedience to Christ’s call. Family might even call us to do things that are displeasing to Christ, and we have to resolve who will direct our lives, Christ or others. We did not sign up for a hobby when we joined the church, but for the daring and costly life of faith.

And that takes us to two other challenges Jesus makes in this passage.

2. Life
Listen again to Jesus’ words in verse 26 – and on into verse 27:

Life And Death by Scott Law CC Licence 2.0

‘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.’

Hate your life. Carry the cross. Those two things go together. To carry the cross was not to bear a burden of the general suffering life dishes out to all without discrimination. To carry the cross was to be a condemned person, on the way to execution. In his extreme language here, Jesus surely speaks of discipleship being something where your own life is of no matter to you. It is the willingness to risk. It is being prepared to follow him, knowing that the consequences may involve suffering. That is, suffering inflicted on us by the world, because we have faithfully, humbly and lovingly pointed to a different way, the way of Christ.

Well, this too touches a raw nerve with Christianity as we have conceived it. Just as Jesus makes obedience to him more important than our families (even though a certain strong kind of family life would be a good witness today), so he also calls us to hang loose to life itself. Yet we often talk in the church about the ‘sanctity of life.’ Probably the great majority of Christians generally oppose abortion, euthanasia and infanticide, just as we believe murder is wrong.

Now again, I hold traditional views about those subjects. Life is a gift of God. We should not take it away. However, if it is a gift of God, it may be that he asks for it back. He may ask us to give it up. Whose life is it anyway? It is God’s, and we are only looking after it for him.

But holding lightly to life is not something that comes naturally. Several of you know that at the beginning of this year, I had a health scare. During a routine medical, blood was discovered in my urine, and I was referred urgently to hospital for tests. During the two weeks between seeing my GP and going to the hospital where I got the all clear, I was terrified – not least, because of our young children. Giving up life, had I had to face it, would have been appalling to me.

Yet older generations of Christians have much to teach us about this. In a day of medical advances and increased life expectancy, some of us (not all) have become rather detached from death. But the stories about heroes of our faith challenge us to see this differently. Here is just one story:

When James Calvert went out to Fiji in 1838, he was told by the captain of the ship on which he sailed that he was going to a land of cannibals. The captain tried to dissuade Calvert from going by saying, ‘You are risking your life and all those with you if you go among such savages. You will all die.’

Calvert replied, ‘We died before we came here.’[1]

They had died to sin. They had resolved to risk their lives for the Gospel. Dare I say they were closer to the classical belief in the resurrection from the dead than we sometimes are? They hadn’t been shaped by the practical atheism of our day that thinks this life is all it is. Nor were they so consumed by the vision of heaven that they were no use on earth. Their vision of heaven and the resurrected life was so vivid they could take this attitude to physical death. What would happen to today’s Church if we adopted their robust Jesus-centred faith?

3. Possessions

To The Top And Over by Ed CC Licence 2.0

Well, if Jesus hasn’t already attacked two sacred cows in the Church – family and life – he goes for a third at the end of the reading:

‘So therefore, none of you can become my disciple if you do not give up all your possessions’ (verse 33).

Hold on, you say, possessions are the big thing in the world. We know we live in a consumer society. Aren’t we in the church different?

If only we were. Last night I watched an Internet video created by a Microsoft employee, which showed a woman demanding a divorce from her husband. The punch line was that it wasn’t a real marriage; he had a t-shirt on saying, ‘advertiser’, and she wore one saying, ‘consumer.’ Some Christian commentators are saying it’s uncomfortably like the church.

We have made church into a consumer exercise. Listen to the way some people hop from church to church and their reasons for doing so. We make decisions about finances and purchases in ways that are not radically different from the world. Was I the only one in the Christian church taking an unhealthy interest in the launch of new iPods this last week? We teach it to our kids. Recently I read about the Christian couple who read a Bible story at dinnertime with their children. One night they read the story of Jesus and the temple tax, where Jesus sends Peter fishing, and he catches a fish with a coin in its mouth. Their son was impressed. He asked to go fishing with his Dad and catch a fish. ‘Yours can have a computer in its mouth and mine can have a new toy’, he declared. Can it really be that surprising if Jesus wants to say some hard things about possessions?

Again, isn’t he being extreme? Give up all your possessions to follow him? Even Jesus at his death still owned some clothing for which the soldiers cast lots (Luke 23:34). He hadn’t turned down the support of some wealthy women who had provided for him and his disciples (Luke 8:3).

Maybe we get a clue to our response not from Luke’s Gospel, but from Luke’s sequel, the Acts of the Apostles. There we see how the Early Church put this into practice. They had all things in common and would sell possessions to help those in need (Acts 2:44f; 4:32). Ananias and Sapphira were not condemned for failing to sell all their possessions, but for being dishonest about their actions (Acts 5:3f).

I believe Jesus challenges us to put our money and goods at one another’s disposal. I believe he calls us to model a radically different lifestyle from the world around us, rather than just being religious consumers. The world rightly expects from what it knows about us that we will help the needy. What it doesn’t always know is that we base that on such a sense of belonging to one another as well as belonging to Christ. We may express it in a community gathered in a particular geographical location, from a monastery to a group of Christians moving into the same neighbourhood to an extended household. But we need not. What matters is holding of things in common. What matters is the willingness to help those who need it. What matters is the holding together, rather than the sitting apart as isolated individuals, which is one symptom of chronic consumerism.

Conclusion

What’s at the heart of all this? Probably what’s at the heart of this passage – the two parables about counting the cost. Following Jesus is not an easy option. I had a chat with one of the men from the removal company my parents used. On discovering my profession, he said it must be nice to be able to believe what I did in such a wicked world.

Actually, it isn’t the easy option to believe. Because Christ-followers don’t simply believe certain things to be true. Christ calls us to live what we believe. And what Jesus calls us to live out if we believe in him touches such basic values as family, the sanctity of life and material possessions. It would be wise to count the cost before believing, rather than thinking it’s a nice way to feel good in a bad world.

It’s about following someone who himself counted the cost – and paid it. In incarnation. In crucifixion. But who did it ‘for the joy that was set before him’ (Hebrews 12:2). May we see the joy set before us, count the cost, and follow his example.

[1] Stephen Brown, Don’t Let Them Sit On You, p 140.

It was our shared love of animals – as well as our faith, of course – that brought Debbie and me together. We were separately members of a Christian singles organisation. There are some dodgy ones out there, but we had each found a sane one, called The Network. Every few months, those members who were interested in ‘introductions’ would receive a list of several other members who might be appropriate for them, along with each person’s brief self-description.

One day, around September 1999, my name appeared on a list they sent to Debbie. She noticed I was a dog lover, and thought I might therefore be not only a Christian but also kind to animals. This was important to her, as she owned two cats she had rescued, Sam and Trixie.

I had a dog of the obscure breed I had grown up with, the Finnish Spitz. Being a pedigree, he had to have an original name for registration with the Kennel Club. My dog’s breeder was famous in Finnish Spitz circles, Mrs Griselda Price, and my parents had bought a succession of dogs from her over many years. Her tradition was to find original names with successive letters of the alphabet for each consecutive litter. She told me that one of her bitches was pregnant, and that this litter would have names beginning with ‘T’. Could I please think of a name no other dog could possibly ever have had, that began with ‘T’?

Well, where’s a minister to go at a time like that? To my Greek Lexicon, of course. I chose the noun ‘Tarachos’, which is used twice in the Acts of the Apostles. On one occasion it means ‘mental consternation’, and on the other it means ‘riot’. I thought it highly appropriate, as the Finnish Spitz is a very noisy breed. Mrs Price pronounced my choice ‘ghastly’, but proceeded to register the name for me.

When Debbie and I first met (after a protracted period of writing letters – remember that? – and phoning) the three pets didn’t get along. Yet they brought us together.

Today, that era ended when Trixie had to be put to sleep at the vet’s. That followed the deaths of Sam three years ago and Tarachos four years ago. After last night’s episode, the vet diagnosed a stroke. He gave us a range of three options: euthanasia at one end, anti-inflammatory tablets in the middle, and an array of blood tests at the other end. However, he could give no assurances that the anti-inflammatories would do much, and the blood tests might only confirm something even worse had happened to her system. We already suspected kidney trouble, since she was borderline dehydrated. The tablets or blood tests might only buy us another couple of weeks with her. With great heartache, we chose euthanasia. And when he came to administer the fatal injection, he had trouble finding a vein, because they, too, were deteriorating.

Rebekah had come with us to the surgery. She was off school with a rash, and was deeply distraught, whereas Mark, although sad before school this morning, was matter of fact about the situation. I took Rebekah back to the car before the injection, while Debbie spent a last couple of minutes with her cat. We three reunited at the car, all in floods of tears. You see, Debbie didn’t simply identify me correctly ten years ago as an animal lover: I’m a great big softie for them. So is she, and Rebekah has inherited that personality trait.

We comforted ourselves at home by sharing an Easter egg. Later, we went into town for lunch at a cheap, high qualiy sandwich bar, followed by ice cream.

When we picked up Mark from school, I broke the news to him at home. As with this morning, he was sad but matter of fact. He was happy to talk later about arrangements for finding a new pet soon, whereas Rebekah has remained distraught.

It has been an experience trying to explain death and Christian hope to the children. They aren’t completely unfamiliar with such talk, as they are used to hearing me talk about funerals. Good Friday this year also provoked a lot of discussion about death, including Mark wondering whether he would die on a cross like Jesus.

However, whatever routes or metaphors we try, they blow holes in them. I don’t have a problem with including animals in the Christian hope. I know they aren’t made in the image of God like human beings, but in Revelation heaven is filled with more than humans and angels. There are some (admittedly strange!) animals, too. So theologically, I include them in the new creation. I’m happy to talk about them being given a new body by Father God, just as people will be in the resurrection.

But it’s so hard to avoid conversations that sound like they are giving geographical directions to heaven. However much I read Tom Wright, it’s still surprisingly easy to slip into ‘up in heaven’ language. Debbie ended up talking about all the dead animals taking a train up into the sky to heaven. She hasn’t read ‘Surprised By Hope‘. Rebekah decided she could take a hot air balloon and poke her hand through the top of the sky to bring Trixie with her new body back down to earth. If any readers have better ideas about how to explain these things to children, I’d be only too glad to hear your suggestions in the ‘Comments’ section below. Perhaps Wright should write the kiddie version.

We’ve had a family conference over fish and chips tonight (we didn’t feel like cooking our own dinner). Thankfully, with some ease we unanimously agreed that we shall buy one or more cats soon, having dismissed Debbie’s joke suggestion that we buy a crocodile. We have already tracked down a couple of local rescue centres. The cat or cats will need to be young, because we cannot put the children, especially Rebekah, through another bereavement soon if we buy an older cat. We’ll leave it a week or two before visiting anywhere. For the next week or so, we are looking after a neighbour’s pets while he is away, so we shall take vicarious pleasure in them while dealing with our loss.

Finally, I want to say thank you for the kind wishes sent through the technology of social media. While tweeting on Twitter didn’t produce any response, status updates on Facebook certainly did. At time of writing, a dozen friends have left messages on my profile since I mentioned Trixie’s death this morning. Having trailed her ill health last night, one friend commented then and enquired again this morning. Debbie has had eight or ten comments, too. Whatever people say about the value or otherwise of community across a distance via a stream of ones and zeroes, these little messages have been small oases for us today.

Tag: singleness

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