Following a Radical
Well, as we have spent time with God as God’s people singing and worshipping, let’s turn now to God’s word. We continue in the gospels and we are going to be looking at Luke, Chapter 9, verses 57 through 62. So I invite you to follow along on the screen this morning.
God’s word for us today:
As they (they being Jesus and some of his followers) were going along the road, someone said to him, “I will follow you wherever you go.” And Jesus said to him, “Foxes have holes……; but the Son of Man has nowhere to lay his head.” To another he said, “Follow me.” But he said, “Lord, first let me go and bury my father.” But Jesus said to him, “Let the dead bury their own dead; but as for you, go and proclaim the kingdom of God.” Another said, “I will follow you, Lord; but let me first say farewell to those at my home.” Jesus said to him, “No one who puts a hand to the plow and looks back is fit for the kingdom of God.”
Would you join me once again in prayer?
O Lord, fairest Lord Jesus, how good it is to gather around your word. And Lord we do pray once again that you would be fully present as we gather. Lord we ask that you would speak to us, that you would move us, and you would, above all, draw us close to yourself. Lord that is what we desire this day. So we hold it before you and ask that your Spirit would fully engage us. We ask that because of our Lord, our fairest Lord Jesus. Amen.
Well, Slovenian Davo Kamicar is a radical. He is a radical because he proved it on October 7, 2000. He became the first human to ski uninterrupted from the top of Mount Everest down to the bottom. That, of course, means that he had to first climb to the top of Mount Everest. Well, he reached the top, which is over 8800 meters, over 19000 feet, and he started down, and you can see by the red line the route that he took. He started and he blew through base camp 4, which was the last stop before he summited. He stopped briefly at camp number 3 to be checked by the medical staff to make sure that everything was going alright and then he went on. He finished at the bottom five hours later, being that first person to ski down Mount Everest.
Well Davo is part of a small group of people who like to push the edge, to push the extreme, to take risks to new levels. Some people like Davo might be called extreme sport enthusiasts and we see that growing more and more. He was just kind of the front edge and we see it in the news and on the sports channels all the time – everyone pushing the envelope. So many of us look at Davo and some of his comrades and we say he is a radical. He is a radical. And by that we mean when we use the word radical that he is departing from the usual. He is departing from the traditional. Obviously that has kind of worked its way into some of our slang, if you remember the phrase “Radical, dude! Radical.” That is really what we are talking about.
But there is also another word that comes along with this word radical and it has a different meaning. It comes from the Latin root radicalis. It means root. Here the word radical means fundamental, as in relating to its origin. When we think of radical in this sense what we are talking about is the essential, the structural, those things that are at the core, the facts. I think it is important for us to think about these two kinds of perspectives on the word radical as we turn to Jesus in our text today, because I believe that Jesus was a radical in every sense of that term.
He was a radical in that he broke away from the usual. He broke away from the traditional in terms of how Jews approached God. He hung out with prostitutes; he hung out with the tax collectors; he touched those who had diseases, who were untouchable. He was the one who said if you look at a woman with lust in your heart, you have committed adultery with her. Jesus brought a whole new way of thinking to the Jewish mind and as such he was a radical. He was dangerous to the Jews. So they had to do something about it, and they eventually did. They killed him, even if they had to lie in order to do that.
But Jesus was also a radical because he called people back to the things that were most fundamental, the things that were at the root of a relationship with Jesus, those things that were most important. That brings us back to our text today. In our text today, before we get to the part that we read today, in verse 51 it says that “Jesus set his face towards Jerusalem.” In other words, he was getting serious now. It was getting towards the end of his ministry and his time was getting short. He had to go to Jerusalem to do what he had come to earth to do. There was no messing around now for Jesus. He was about the business of getting to those things that were most fundamental for him. He thought about it not only for himself but also for those who would be his followers later on, who would carry on after him.
So with that in mind, I think it helps us understand these three interactions that Jesus had with those would-be followers of him. He is saying “You, too, must be a radical, must be a radical just as I am.” In his responses Jesus begins to lay out the fundamentals, the radicals, if you will, of following him. If we look at his first encounter with the first man, it seems fairly innocuous at first reading; but Jesus’ response helps us understand what is going on. Jesus is saying “following me is going to be no picnic” and there is no rest for those who are his followers. He is saying “there are going to be hard times, there is going to be sacrifice, there is going to be pain”, because that is what Jesus’ life was. There was a lot of that. He is saying to this guy “you have to understand what is going on here. You have to know what you are getting into if you really want to follow me.” And Jesus is saying “you have to count the cost. You have to count the cost of following me.” This guy was probably one of those would be followers of Jesus. As Jesus traveled through the countryside, no doubt there were people who were kind of on the fringes who liked to listen and got caught up in the excitement of what was going on and were kind of drawn in. And this guy got drawn in. He got caught up in the excitement and the emotion of following Jesus and seeing all the things that Jesus was doing as he went through the countryside. He liked that excitement, but he didn’t see the other side. He didn’t see the hard side of what it was about the follow Jesus, that his followers would also suffer and they would require sacrifice and pain, as well. For us, all we need to do is look at the book of Acts and we see how that gets laid out, how they had to work so hard and how they suffered. So Jesus is saying, “count the cost, buddy; count the cost. Make sure you know what you are getting into before you claim your allegiance.”
And for us today, it is no different. Jesus also requires of you and me that we count the cost, as well, because it is easy to get caught up in the joy and excitement of being a part of Christ’s body. Being in a place like this with worship and good fellowship is a good thing and we get caught up in that.
But that is not the whole story, is it? It is hard being a part of the community at times, being a follower of Christ, because it requires us to be things like humble, to lower ourselves to be a servant to others. It requires us to live out our faith in our workplace whether it is verbally or through our lifestyle. Everyplace we go we are to live as Christ’s witnesses, and that can be painful. Maybe, loving our neighbor when they don’t like that our tree is hanging over into their yard. That is about counting the cost. How do I live that out? Maybe it is making that ethical decision that may cost you financially, perhaps even with your employment. Following Jesus means that you may be austersized or persecuted by your friends. Are you willing to endure that?
When I was in college, this time of year and on into October was my time to count the cost because I played basketball. So I had to count the cost by my conditioning and running all those miles, the sore muscles, the sacrifice of the time. I didn’t like it. It wasn’t much fun. But, I knew it would be worth it in the long run when I got to the game and the other coach was screaming at his players because everything I threw up was going in. At that point it was worth it. So Jesus tells us to count the cost and he challenges us to do that each and every day. What is the cost for you? What is the cost for you to follow Jesus?
Well, as we turn to our second encounter, Jesus turns it up a notch here. As Jesus goes to a disciple he says “Follow me.” The man responds by “Let me go and bury my father.” Seems like a legitimate claim, right? But to get the most out of this we have to understand the man’s response a little bit. You see, burial for the Jews was one of the most important priorities a son could have for his father. It was more important than the study of the law, than service in the temple, than even killing the Passover sacrifice. Burying your father was the main thing you had to do. So the fact that he is following Jesus says something about his father. His father is still alive otherwise he would be attending to his duties as a good son. So he is basically saying to Jesus, “I can’t leave until my dad dies.” As such he is making selfish excuses before Jesus and Jesus sees right through that and it cuts to the heart as he does so often and he calls him on it. He says “the demands of following Jesus must be number one.” Jesus has issued this man a high call to go and proclaim the kingdom of God. That is a high calling. So Jesus is saying to him, put first things first. Put first things first. Following Jesus is the trump card that beats everything. Following Jesus has to be the number one priority because it was a call not only given to this disciple but it is a call given to every person who calls Jesus Lord. All of us have been given that same high calling, to go and proclaim the kingdom. So it becomes a question of priorities for each of us. So what are your priorities? What are those things that are most important to you? As you honestly wrestle with those answers, it requires that you become a radical, a radical in the sense of extreme courage to address those priorities.
Well a woman wanted a little company in her home so she went to the pet store and she bought a parrot. She brought the parrot home and she came back the next day and said, “The parrot is not talking. What can I do?”
So the man in the pet store said, “Well, do you have a mirror in the cage? You know, parrots love mirrors. Once they see their reflection they are going to start talking.”
So she bought the mirror, went home, came back the next day, “The parrot is still not talking.”
He said, “Does the parrot have a ladder? You know a happy parrot is a talkative parrot.”
So she bought the ladder very dutifully and went home. She came back the next day, same thing. “The parrot is not talking.”
He said, “Well, does the parrot have a swing? You know, parrots love to swing. They will talk their head off.”
At this point she began to click on and go “O.K. I know what is going on here.” She thought real hard about it, but she wanted the parrot to talk. So she bought the swing and went home. Next day she came back and she was devastated, she was really sad.
The guy goes “What happened? What’s going on?”
“The parrot is dead!”
He goes “I’m sorry. I am really sorry to hear that.” He goes, “Did it ever talk for you?”
She said, “Yeah, right before it died it said, ‘Don’t they sell any food at the pet store?’”
Sometimes we forget the main thing. Are there things that you have forgotten about following Jesus that maybe you need to be reminded of? Check your priorities. Check your priorities. Put first things first.
Well, in our final conversation, this person wants to follow Jesus but there are a couple of things that must be done first. At first glance you can maybe say that this person is kind of in the same place as the second conversation, but in Jesus’ response it reveals that he is dealing with something else. Now I didn’t grow up on a farm, but I’ve been told that running a plow team with a group of oxen is something that requires all of your attention being focused forward if you want straight rows. So you have to be focused on driving those oxen in a straight line. If you are directing the team and you look back even just to check where you have been, it is enough to throw your rows off.
In that, I think what Jesus is saying is that there is some indecision at work in this follower of Christ. He wants to go but there is something that is holding him back, a little bit of uncertainty. And Jesus says to him “following me requires your full attention. There is no place for indecision.” I think in that Jesus is saying seize the day. Make the most of what is before you today. Don’t procrastinate with what you can do right now. Don’t waste the time. Get after it right now. Because the truth is, we don’t know what tomorrow will bring, do we? We don’t know what is around the corner.
So Jesus, in following him, has to become an automatic reaction for us, something that we don’t have to think about, where there is no hesitation in our response and how we live out our life as a follower.
There is a story of a ham radio operator who overheard a conversation between two other operators. This one guy, every Saturday morning he would get up early, he would go down and he would spend the morning quietly playing with his radios. Well he turned on his radio and he came across this conversation as he was tuning in between two other radio operators. He just kind of listened in. The conversation was in mid-stream and this one guy was talking about how he was so busy with so much stuff going on in his life, and how he was working sixty, seventy hours a week, and it was just taking a toll on him. He even talked about how he had missed his daughter’s dance recital. The other guy said, “You know, I will tell you how I keep my perspective on things.” He says, “I keep 1000 marbles in a jar next to my radio”. He says, “I figure it this way. I figure an average person lives about 75 years, and that is about 3900 Saturdays.” He said, ‘When I started this I was 55 and so with a little rough math that is about 2800 Saturdays, that leaves me roughly 1000 Saturdays left.” He says, “Each Saturday I take a marble and I throw it away, and I watch how the level of those marbles in that jar goes down, a little bit every week.” He said, ‘It is kind of like watching your life run out on earth and it helps keep your priorities straight, like taking your wife out to breakfast.” He said, “Today I took out my last marble. If I make it to next Saturday I feel like I have been given a little more time. We can all use a little bit more time, can’t we? Let’s talk again soon.” They both signed off.
Well this third man who was overhearing this was shaken to the core. He had gotten up to work on his equipment but he wasn’t in any mood to do that. So he went and woke up his wife and he said, “Let’s take the kids out to breakfast, huh?” The wife, kind of shaking the sleep out of her eyes, goes, “What’s up?” And he said, “Nothing.” He said, “Can we stop at the toy store on the way home and buy some marbles?”
The call is to seize the day for Christ. Make it count for him. As we look at these three encounters, understand that Jesus never rejects any of these three followers. He just wants to ensure that they know the demands of following him, for Jesus requires it of not only for these disciples but of all of us who call him Lord, to count the cost. Put first things first and seize the day. That is a radical call. That is radical call for all who call Jesus Lord. It is a call to wholehearted devotion and loyalty above all else, it is a call to the deep, the deep of a relationship with Jesus.
Would you pray with me please?
Lord God, thank you. Thank you that you are the one who knows us so well and you are the one who calls us to live beyond ourselves, to live in a way that points the world to you. So Lord, we ask for that. We ask that we would be a radical in every sense of the word, that we might be your disciples. Lord, fill us with your love, for that is what the world needs. In your name. Amen.