Giving it all up

Proper 18/13th after Pentecost, Year C; September 7, 2025

Sep 02, 2025

Jesus takes the road again, and the “large crowds” who now follow add to the tension as Jerusalem draws nearer. The conversations just held at table remain in the air; Jesus draws on what had just been said at dinner when he addresses the crowds, including in the familiar parable (not included in the lectionary) about a great banquet where the original invitees had refused to come because of their various entanglements: wealth in land, or in other property, and family relationships.1

When he warns of the challenges inherent in discipleship, there are direct echoes of that parable (on which more below). This connection owes something to Luke’s literary art, though; in Matthew (10:37-39) the same striking statement about family priorities, followed directly by the call to carry the cross, is not related to a dinner party or a parable and taught not to crowds but only to the twelve (10:5ff), who may seem an audience better fitted for these uncompromising demands. Their willingness to join Jesus as itinerants, and the fact some of them were remembered as martyrs by the time the Gospels were written, makes the teaching fit quite well.

Yet Luke sees Jesus addressing more than apostolic heroes; something about discipleship in general is intended. And yet this version of the saying about families is even more uncompromising; while Matthew has “Whoever loves father or mother more than me is not worthy of me” (10:37), here in Luke the confronting “hate” (14:26) is the differentiator. This seems to be a turn of phrase found in earlier biblical literature (see Gen 29:31-33; Deut 21:15-17), where the Hebrew idiom lacked words for subtler comparison. “Hate” then is not so much the active negative that we might think of, but neglect or disdain, or even just relativity of interest (as Matthew makes clearer). Note also (as few seem to) that “even life itself” gets onto this list of “hates,” so one’s own self (as self-interest or self-preservation) is also a potential distraction or competitor with the call of God’s reign.

The reader of Luke’s version is meant to be shocked into considering priorities, rather than into choosing hate as such—which would of course be in conflict with the fundamentals of what Jesus says elsewhere. This first case, of families, is in keeping with the sayings read recently from Luke about division in households, and also relates to the parable of the great banquet where someone refuses the invitation to come specifically because of an imminent marriage.

Carrying the cross, linked so closely with the saying about family priorities, has become a cliché. The image Jesus evokes here is not the reconstruction from old master paintings or mid-20th century Bible epics (or The Life of Brian), where a whole cross is implausibly hauled along by the victim. The condemned one carried a great plank or log, a patibulum, that would subsequently be attached (with them) to a permanent upright, and thus form the cross as we think of it. It was not really an obvious symbol, just an ugly and functional burden—although with unmistakeable purpose.

That plank did not represent chronic problems or worries, as some piety seemed to imply, but the means of humiliation and execution. The condemned criminal imagined (and foreseen) here is being held up for mockery or sympathy, according to circumstance, and certainly as doomed. So here Jesus likens the journey he is now on, the longer one from Galilee, to the shorter one inside Jerusalem that we the readers already know is coming. The point here is that he suggests it may be our journey too.

Albrecht Dürer, *Christ Carrying the Cross*, from The Large Passion (Yale University Art Gallery)

Then come two brief parables, unique to Luke, to illustrate Jesus’ point. These involve people of wealth and power: a rich person building a tower (cf Mark 12:1) presumably at a farm or vineyard, and then a king strategizing when under attack. These are only vaguely “real” examples for the listeners, fables almost. Yet they introduce a pragmatic element, given that neither of these two imagined examples is about complete renouncing or abandoning, but about calculating the real cost of choices that will be permanent in impact.

The tower will transform the hypothetical vineyard or farm; the king, on the other hand, faces change regardless of victory or defeat. In both cases, the decision is based on considering how everything they have available could be brought to the task, not how they might abandon it. This hints at how to make sense, in context, of the radical nature of Jesus’ teaching. There is no doubt that a radical and confronting demand has been made, but it involves something more than the romantic renunciation of the “holy fool”; not everyone who follows is Francis of Assisi.

Jesus returns to the hearers’ world with the uncompromising punchline “none of you can become my disciple if you do not give up all your possessions.” Just as the demand to prefer discipleship to family was related directly to the earlier character in the omitted banquet parable who was getting married, this case reminds us of the other failed guests who did not come because of concern for property.

It is worth bearing in mind that Luke’s Gospel, and then its sequel the Acts, provides quite a few examples where people respond to Jesus in extraordinary ways, not quite by walking away from their households or their wherewithal but by radically reorienting their lives and their use of possessions. Zacchaeus, whose story comes up later (Luke 19) gives away massive amounts but is not impoverished; the early Christian community (Acts 2, 4) sells assets to share, but does not run out of them. Mary and Martha “followed” Jesus not by leaving their family home, but by welcoming him into it and creating a living image of the great banquet there and then.

These are all effective responses to the teaching Jesus has given about priorities, and the parables with which he illustrates it. The disciple is the person who has come to understand—who has calculated, like the tower-builder and the king— that following Jesus changes everything. It does not necessarily mean leaving the places and people among whom we are set, although sometimes that is true too. What it does mean is understanding that the shape of life is to be oriented towards following him, and that this even includes the possibility of sharing in his fate. This will have been very stark to the early readers who knew about crosses, and whose faith could really bring shame and suffering.

An implication of Jesus’ address to the crowds is that not all of them (or us) will decide they really can build this tower, or fight this battle. He thus refuses the possibility that he or his message can be something just incremental, a form of “spirituality” that can be added to enhance a life that remains bent on other priorities, whether personal, familial, or national. He will not be harnessed to any agenda to make us more efficient consumers, or leaders, or even family members, independently of him. Following him means giving all that up.

Andrew’s Version

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