Lectionary for Sept. 7, 2025
13th Sunday after Pentecost
Deuteronomy 30:15-20; Psalm 1;
Philemon 1-21; Luke 14:25-33
I love to write! The university where I work has a respected master’s program in creative writing that sounded just up my alley. Additionally, there is a tuition waiver for employees, so any classes I want to take are mostly free. I applied for the creative writing program and received a profoundly kind response. But I was heartbroken when I realized my participation might not be feasible because of my work duties and family situation. My wife, who is wiser than me, counseled that it was time to “count the cost” and determine if pursuing a fun, extra program was worth sacrificing focus and any sense of margin, given my current commitments. It was not. The mature decision was letting that dream lie fallow for a time and focusing on work and parenting.
The lectionary readings this week are all about counting the cost before beginning a new adventure.
We read in Deuteronomy that Moses demanded that the people do the internal work of examining their commitment to God’s mission. They are, in the narrative, about to enter the promised land. But, contrary to many of our theologies, God seldom gives a gift without expectations. God brought the children of Israel to the cusp of the promised land, but this land had no tolerance for faithlessness.
Across biblical books and genres, spanning multiple testaments, the land vomits out those who cling to evil. God didn’t allow the Israelites to come to the promised land until the Amorites’ evil was fulfilled (they didn’t get displaced for nothing!). But once the Israelites entered the land, they were under the same conditions as the Amorites: act right or get out. So, after decades of injustice and idolatry, the Assyrians and Babylonians exiled the Israelites and Judahites. Then hundreds of years later, the Romans again exiled God’s people because of baseless hatred (BT Gittin 55a-56b). The land can’t stand for long the evil treatment of others.
Would they choose good and life by agreeing to undertake God’s good laws, covenants and statutes? Or would they choose death and evil by trying to enter the land and ignoring righteousness?
Accordingly, at the beginning of the Israelites’ national presence in the land, Moses called on the people to reflect on the choice before them and count the cost. Would they choose good and life by agreeing to undertake God’s good laws, covenants and statutes? Or would they choose death and evil by trying to enter the land and ignoring righteousness? They needed to count the cost.
Years later, Paul asked his friend Philemon to count the cost of belonging to the body of Christ. Being part of the Jesus movement meant that Philemon could no longer hold humans as property. After running away from his slave-master Philemon, Onesimus encountered Paul and began following Jesus. Philemon seems to have also encountered the risen Lord. And Jesus had no tolerance for those who would be freed from the bondage to sin and death but kept their siblings and neighbors in bondage.
Paul used compelling language that stopped just short of ordering Philemon to see what should have been obvious: You can’t follow Jesus and oppress your neighbors. Philemon had to decide whether he would retain his ownership of enslaved humans or if he would gain a sibling by understanding that Onesimus was his equal, not his slave. He needed to count the cost.
In this week’s Gospel, Jesus spoke to a great crowd that followed him. The test case that prompted his teaching about counting the cost of being his disciple was about family priorities. Then, as now, when embarking on new religious patterns, parents or siblings are inclined to ask questions and maybe ridicule. “You’re not going to be one of those religious weirdos, are you?” “Are you going to a ‘woke’ church now?” “You worship with those folks?” Jesus said those who embark on a project but then have to quit because they were insufficiently prepared and not dedicated to seeing it through will receive mockery (Luke 14:29).
Following Jesus requires sacrifice and commitment, including a willingness to have friends and relatives look askance at us. So be it. When following Jesus requires us to make choices that the world doesn’t understand—like giving up power and treating all neighbors as neighbors—we will be mocked or accused of being disloyal to programs designed to worship power and degrade people. Good! But let us follow Jesus and count the cost of living as disciples.
Following God has always had costs. Rejecting other gods, choosing to pursue righteousness rather than wealth and ease, and laying down our lives are all part of the cost of discipleship. We don’t do anyone any favors by pretending it isn’t so. Instead, we count the cost of following Jesus. After all, no one can be a disciple who doesn’t give up all possessions (Luke 14:33).
