October 13, 2024

If You Have to Ask the Price, You Can’t Afford It

Jesus would never have made it as a church pastor.  By any estimation his ministry was a public relations disaster.  Church growth experts and media consultants agree on one simple rule for success: “Don’t give people what they don’t want.”  But Jesus was apparently not as savvy as the sound-bite wizards and church growth gurus of our day.

Along the road in his ministry, Jesus made a number of stops and committed a number of terrible gaffs.  For instance, the one that was recounted in the 14th Chapter of Luke, in which he was being pursued by great numbers of people, all excited about his power and potential.  And what did he do?  He “turned on” the crowd and came forth with this little gem to lead the six o’clock news: “If anyone comes after me and does not hate his own father and mother and wife and children and brothers and sisters, yes, and even his own life, he cannot be my disciple.”

George Buttrick, writing in the Interpreter’s Bible, says that Jesus’ words here were so stern that “the crowd was winnowed.”  If I had been on Jesus’ board of deacons, I would have begun to pull my hair out.

And this little beauty from today’s scripture reading:  A very wealthy man (obviously a fine prospect to get involved in the movement) came up to Jesus and expressed an earnest desire to get more involved.  He had been a virtuous and exemplary individual, keeping all the commandments,  and he was asking what more he could do to gain this “eternal life” that Jesus was talking about.  And what does Jesus do?  He scares him away by telling him (of all things) that it would cost him everything he owned!  He told him to give it all away!

At that point, Jesus’ board of trustees would have joined with the Stewards and started a movement to throw him out.

Of all the things to say!  To tell a prospective member with fine credentials and a sincere, intelligent question, that the cost of discipleship is so high that he can’t possibly afford it!  What in the world could he have been thinking?

George Frederick Watts has painted the sad shuffle of that young man as he walked away from Christ.  In the painting, all we see is his back.  He is stooped, as though carrying a heavy burden.

He came to Jesus unburdened by the plight of the poor, and left with the weight of the world on his shoulders.  He came to Jesus with a simple, careless question, and got more than he bargained for.  He came to Jesus confident of his righteousness, wanting to know the price of divine approval.  Jesus told him, in essence, “If you have to ask the price, you can’t afford it.”

I have a confession to make; I don’t like Jesus’ answer any more than did the man who walked away.  When I was little, I learned that putting my hand into the cookie jar meant getting a spanking, and doing the dishes meant being praised.  All my life I have believed that hard work and faithfulness counted for something.  If the divine realm is at all fair, there should be some kind of larger reward for those who commit themselves to larger devotion.  There is a difference between Adolf Hitler and Mother Theresa!  If there’s a heaven, she deserved to go there if anyone does; if there’s a hell, he deserved to go there if anyone does.  When I want to know what it takes to be counted among the good, I want to know!  Don’t tell me it’s impossible!

I see people who are good, and loving and faithful.  I can point them out, the ones who really have a way of knowing and caring about others, the ones who genuinely feel the hurts and respond to the needs of others, the ones who come through when the chips are down.  There are truly good people in this world.

And I know my own strengths and my own weaknesses.  I know how often I tend to be insensitive, to not hear, not think, not follow through.  I know that there are some things I can do well.  And what I want is to do them well enough!  I want to do the things I’m good at in such a way that they make up for the things I suck at.  And I only pray that those things are enough!

I want to make a mark with my life, because otherwise I might just come to the end of my days having lived without consequence!  And I can’t bear that – I can’t bear the possibility that I will end up just being a waste!

So don’t tell me there’s nothing I can do that’s enough!  Don’t tell me the price is far too high for me to pay it!  Don’t tell me that the search for personal worth and value is a waste of time!  Because then I’d have to walk away with a dagger in my heart, and the weight of the world on my shoulders.

Jesus shows no mercy to those of us who want desperately to be good enough.

In one way or another – in our church work, in our relationships, in our professions, in our community service – we keep trying to measure up.  We keep asking through our efforts the question: how much is enough?  And Jesus says simply: Trust me; you can’t afford it.

You can work your whole life to be the best person you can be.  You can wear yourself to death caring for others, making your mark, growing in strength of character, and you will never be enough!  You will never be good enough, you will never be kind enough, you will never be important enough, you will never be sincere enough.  There is no way out of this bad news about life – no way –

. . . except surrender – to surrender to the truth of your insufficiency, your inadequacy, your common lot with all others, your utter dependence on grace.  And, in the sort of irony that is always the Lord’s way with us, that’s enough.

That’s the simple truth of the well-known story of the prodigal son.  After trying his hardest to go it alone, after taking all the gifts he had been given, and letting them carry him as far as he could go, after crashing into the limitations of being human and weeping over his failure, he miraculously discovered that all he had to do was turn and say, “Here I am.”

Paul Hoon writes, “The God of the twelve basketsful also is the gratuitous God of Israel who leads the people into a land where they shall eat bread without scarceness and where all they have is multiplied.  He is the God of the Psalmist who speaks of a stream of living water, of a table prepared in the midst of one’s enemies, and of a cup that runneth over.  He is the God who . . . when [people] lack the wine of life’s joy, bids them – as Jesus in Galilee – ‘Fill the water pots,’ and ‘they filled them up to the brim.’  He is the God who does not merely run to welcome home the prodigal son but who does so much more than he needs to, who brings forth a robe and a fatted calf, and causes music to play.  He is the God who, even after [humanity has] forsaken and crucified him, yet prepares a breakfast of bread and fish on a lakeshore, and calls: ‘Come and dine’.”¹

Hoon has it right.  This is not “cheap grace.”  With apologies to Dietrich Bonhoeffer, the gracious acceptance of abundant life is not merely “cheap,” it is absolutely free!

So, are loving and caring and contributing and trying pointless?  Hardly.  Grace simply means that we do these things not for any gain or benefit or merit, not because it will earn us something, not because our efforts will somehow finally allow us to measure up, but because by the grace of the ageless divine embrace, we are freed to love because he first loved us, we are freed to do unto others as we would have them do unto us, we are freed to rejoice in hope, to be patient in tribulation, to be constant in prayer, to contribute to the needs of the saints, to practice hospitality.

One of the great frustrations of life is that we only seem to get answers to the questions we ask.  And we waste a lot of time asking the wrong questions.  So long as we keep asking what must we do to be worthy, to be of value, we will continue to get the same answer Jesus gave the rich young man: If you have to ask the price, you can’t afford it.

Oliver Wendell Holmes, reflecting on his term on the Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts, addressed those at a dinner held in his honor, “. . . what is to show for this half lifetime that has passed?” he said.  “I look into my book in which I keep a docket of the decisions of the full court which fall to me to write, and find about a thousand cases . . . many of them upon trifling or transitory matters, to represent nearly half a lifetime . . . Alas, gentlemen,” he said to those assembled, “that is life . . . We cannot live our dreams.  We are lucky enough if we can give a sample of our best, and if in our hearts we can feel it has been nobly done.”²  This, from one of the most distinguished jurists of all time.  The price of worthiness is indeed out of reach.

So, as the time approaches for our annual stewardship campaign, some of you, aware of our church’s great financial needs, may be wondering: how much should I give?  How much is enough?  Truth is, if you have to ask, you can’t afford it.  I hope the board of trustees does not resign en masse if I give you a surprising answer.  The good news is this: the water of life, the wine of salvation, the milk of Divine loving kindness, these things are priceless!

The word of the Lord, from the prophet Isaiah:

“Ho, every one who thirsts,

come to the waters;

and he who has no money,

come, buy and eat!

Come, buy wine and milk

without money

and without price.”

¹ Paul Waitman Hoon, The Integrity of Worship: Ecumenical and Pastoral Studies in Liturgical Theology, Abingdon Press, 1971.

² Extract cited in J H Wootten, Creativity in the Law (1972).