When “The Great Recession” began in December of 2007, the stock market lost huge amounts of equity and value. The Bush administration made efforts to keep businesses and banks afloat. The word “bailout” became a catch word in our cultural vernacular. Later, the Obama administration put forward more plans and policies to try to improve the economy. Political pundits and financial consultants keep talking about the “cost” of all of these governmental plans and programs. Numerical amounts of millions, billions, and trillions were used to put a price tag on these programs. Terms like “deficit”, “gross national product”, “credit”, and “macro economics” flooded TV and radio.
Before and during this Great Recession, we saw gas prices shoot to unthinkable levels: $3.50, $4.00, and $4.50 per gallon. Prices for milk, food, and even toilet paper increased. Retailers raised prices to keep up with rising manufacturing costs. It seemed that everything was costing more and more money. People were lost (and still are losing) their homes. Now, there is talk of the cost of government offering access to affordable health care. Cost, cost, cost! Everything is about the price or value of something.
If there is a cost or price to everything, is there a price to pay to be a Christian?
In Mark 8, Jesus uncovers the cost to follow Him:
He called the crowd with his disciples, and said to them, “If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me. For those who want to save their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake, and for the sake of the gospel, will save it. For what will it profit them to gain the whole world and forfeit their life?
Some think it is easy to be a Christian. It is not easy. If anything, it is hard to be a Christian sometimes. There is a price or a cost involved. Dietrich Bonhoeffer in his book, The Cost of Discipleship talks about the perception of Christianity’s message of grace and forgiveness:
Of course you have sinned, but now everything is forgiven, so you can stay as you are and enjoy the consolations of forgiveness…..cheap grace is the preaching of forgiveness without requiring repentance, baptism without church discipline. Communion without confession. Cheap grace is grace without discipleship, grace without the cross, grace without Jesus Christ…
Bonhoeffer gives a more complete understanding of what it means to follow Christ’s direction and how much it costs:
Costly grace confronts us as a gracious call to follow Jesus, it comes as a word of forgiveness to the broken spirit and the contrite heart. It is costly because it compels a man to submit to the yoke of Christ and follow him; it is grace because Jesus says: “My yoke is easy and my burden is light
This confronts some of the misunderstandings of evangelical Christianity: “I’m saved. I’m blessed. I’ve got my buddy Jesus and things are easy.” Wrong. In Mark 8, Jesus gave his followers a violent and disturbing image: the cross. The symbol of the most painful and public death in the first century. That was the highest punishment that the Romans could give for a crime. Jesus, the Son of God, was telling his followers to pick up their heavy, bloody, and deadly cross and follow Jesus? That is horrible.
The initial reactions of Jesus’ disciples was one of shock. The image of the cross was difficult and confusing. However, Jesus told his followers what the cross meant for Him. Death was immediately coming for Jesus, but not for 
his friends. Christ wanted to let His disciples know that everything was not going to be all hunky-dory because they were hanging out with God’s Son (you can imagine the benefits they thought they had). Being the best friend of God meant that life was not going to be easy. The disciples were hanging out with the person who was going to challenge the religious status quo and the person who was going to change the world, with a cross. The cross was going to become a symbol of salvation.
The true cost or price of being a Christian is defined in scripture. It requires us to be self disciplined, loving, patient, compassionate, and graceful. Those are not valued traits and our culture. What is valued is wealth, self-centeredness, success, fame, power, and popularity. The price of being a Christian is high in the world’s eyes because Christians give up those worldly values. We are called to be in the world, but not of the world in the sense of how we treat people and how we love. You cannot put a dollar amount on how much it costs you to be a Christian.
Instead, the cost of being a Christian should be measured in terms of building equity in the kingdom of God. That means, that we are building equity not in finding favor in the eyes of God, but building equity for others. Loving others, caring for others, and providing for them. That is equity that is valued in love and not dollars.
How much equity are you building in God’s kingdom?
Pentecost 15b
No Comments