23^rd Sunday in Ordinary Time C.  September 5, 2010.  Our Lady of Grace 5:15, 6PM.  Wisdom 9:13-18b.  Philemon 9-10, 12-17.  Luke 14:25-33.

Lutheran Pastor Dietrich Bonhoeffer stood defenseless and powerless before the power of Nazi Germany.  He refused to change his opposition to the horrors of Hitler, the assertion of the master German race, the extermination of the Jews, the invasion of much of Europe and the twisting and annihilation of Christian culture and morality.  Although he had been continually threatened with torture and the arrest of his parents, his sisters and his fiancée, he refused to run for safety to the United States.   Modern secular culture and a watered down version of Christianity would have labeled Pastor Bonhoeffer a fool. The often popular belief of Catholics and Lutherans in Germany was that Christians had to adapt to the times in which they lived.   They had to be both Germans and Christians.  They had to find a way to serve both Hitler and God. There were very few moral heroes in Nazi Germany.  Most bishops, priests and laypeople remained silent or served the Nazi cause with little scrutiny or resistance. 

Jesus said, “If anyone comes to me without hating his father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters, and even his own life, he cannot be my disciple.”  What is Jesus saying?   Jesus is telling us that we must love God above everyone and everything else.  We must love God’s truth above everything else.  Pastor Bonhoeffer loved his parents and his family very much.  He also loved life and wanted to live.  At the same time his first loyalty was to God.  He was hanged by the Nazis for his loyalty to Divine truth and Christian morality.  His death cries out to us: “If you have to choose, chose God and God’s truth first and always.” 

Pastor Bonhoeffer wrote a book entitled “The Cost of Discipleship”.  In that book he talked about cheap grace. He said that cheap grace is the grace we give ourselves.  Cheap grace is preaching of forgiveness without requiring repentance and a change in our lives.  Cheap grace is baptism without church discipline and moral conversion.  Cheap grace is Communion without confessing our sins.  Cheap grace is religion without following Jesus. Cheap grace is Christianity without the Cross.  Cheap grace has nothing to do with the teachings of Jesus.

Jesus said, “Whoever does not carry his own cross and come after me cannot be my disciple.”   Following Jesus is never cheap.  The cost of discipleship demands that we give ourselves totally to the Christ we believe in even to the point of laying down our lives.  The cost of discipleship means that we love our father and mother, brothers and sisters, wife and  children so much that we would even choose Christ above them and for them, because faith in Christ and commitment to truth is the foundation on which a healthy world rests.  In choosing Christ first and always we are in fact doing what is best for the family we appear to be turning our backs on. St. Paul told the Romans, “Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind.”   (Romans 12:2)

A health club trainer in a body building program wore a t-shirt with bright red letters across it saying, “There will be pain.” We’d all like to have healthy bodies.  We’d also like to have beautiful or handsome bodies.  The reason that many of us do not is because we are afraid of the message written across the trainers t-shirt: “There will be pain.”  Jesus teaches us that the road to spiritual and moral health is no different.  There is going to be pain.  We must take up our cross and follow Jesus.

The Apostle Paul wrote to the Corinthians about the cost of discipleship for him.  He said: “Five times I received forty whip lashes minus one. Three times I was beaten with rods, once I was stoned, three times I was shipwrecked, I passed a night and a day on the sea; on frequent journeys, in dangers from rivers, dangers from robbers, dangers from my own race, dangers from Gentiles, dangers in the city, dangers in the wilderness, dangers at sea, dangers among false brothers; in toil and hardship, through many sleepless nights, through hunger and thirst, through frequent fasting, through cold and exposure. And apart from these things, there is the daily pressure upon me of my anxiety for all the churches.”    (2 Corinthians 11:25-29) Yes, there will be pain.

I watch Bret Favre play football at age 41.  He was badly hurt last year – the best year of his career.  He must be afraid of being hurt again – and yet he continues to play.  He knows that there will be pain. Without pain there are no heroes and no real gain.

Are you surprised that Jesus told us that there would be pain in following him?  For the grace to take up our cross and live our faith always we give God thanks and praise.