I remember as I was growing up, before gas became more pre­cious than gold, that our family would go on buggy rides, as we called them, on Sunday afternoons after church and dinner. It was a great time for the entire family to be together, to wander back roads aimlessly, and to talk about just about anything you could imagine.

Most of the time my dad would surprise us but sometimes he would ask us where we wanted to go. One place I always asked my dad to drive to was the park in town. One reason was that I loved it when we would drive through the creek where there wasn't a bridge (I'm sure that it's gone by now) and listen to the water slosh under the car and get little chills imagining that a huge wall of water would come along and wash us downstream. The other reason I wanted to go to the park was that we would drive past one of the strangest houses any of us had ever seen. When we would see it my brother and I would get the giggles. It was, I suppose you could say, a house in progress, built by someone who had not sat down to estimate the cost, to see whether he had enough money to com­plete it (Luke 14:28).

Here's what I mean. Just when the house was nearly complete, the owner who was also the builder, decided to leave that portion unfinished and start on an addition. And, you guessed it, before that wing was done he would knock out a wall, pour footers, and stretch out in yet another direction. Now I don't know how the building and zoning inspectors treated him but I know how his neighbors and passersby did. He was treated with ridicule. It was a corner lot and so this house began to sprawl out first one way and then the other. On the outside it looked strange but somewhat fin­ished except for the siding on whatever happened to be the latest addition. But on the inside it was something else altogether. Inside it was a disaster!

Even though I saw the inside of the house only once I still remember my jaw nearly hitting the floor (where, of course, there was a floor!). We walked on boards to get from one room to an­other. Dry wall was stacked in piles; the uncovered floors were bare plywood. And where there weren't floors, you could see the unfinished basement below.

I'll never forget our drive home that day. My father was his typical quiet self but finally he spoke. "Always finish what you start," he simply said. "Don't let that ever happen to you." Now I couldn't imagine at my tender age of ever building my own house but still I got the message and could think of other projects I might not finish. Even now, every time it doesn't look like I'm going to finish something I think of my dad and I think of that house, and I get back on the ball and complete my latest undertaking.

Jesus said the same thing but in even more blunt terms. Dis­cipleship, he said, is more important than your family; your cross must be willingly picked up; and if you are going to start following Jesus you had better understand this because if you get surprised by the price you will have to pay and miscalculate what disciple­ship is going to cost you, you just might not be able to finish what you began.

When I was ordained years ago, I helped pick the music and was asked to choose the first reading for the ceremony. I chose a reading from the apocryphal book of Sirach that began, "My child, when you come to serve the Lord, prepare yourself for testing" (2:1). I liked that reading. It made me feel rather noble and just a little bit smug, though I would never have admitted it. Here I was, sitting there with eleven others, and we were ready for anything that came our way. We knew that we had signed up for a life of service that would likely, from time to time, result in some amount of suffering, of hardship, and of testing.

Little did I know how true those words would be. In my naïveté, I would soon be able to relate quite well to the person in Jesus' parable who failed to estimate the cost of building a tower. I was no different than the king who decided to wage war but never sat down to ascertain if he had enough soldiers to finish the job. In short, I was shocked, though I shouldn't have been, when the hard­ships began. I would sit in amazement when difficulties came my way. It didn't help, I suppose, that they began with an early morn­ing phone call on my first day in the parish. But I was warned and shouldn't have been at all surprised.

In case you think I'm only talking (or am I whining?) about what happens to ordained clergy I am not. Each one of us, parent, teacher, social worker, bus driver, attorney ... you name it, each one of us, when we decide to follow the Lord, if we are to be true to our call, must willingly pick up our cross and put discipleship above even our own family. It's not much fun to think of, but we must prepare ourselves for hardships.

For instance, I have rarely been in an earnest discussion with parents about their children and not heard one of them say, "Do you ever stop worrying about your children?" I've thought of that question myself when I haven't heard from my children for a day or two or when I know they're going through a tough time at work or at school. Not long ago I asked my mother when she finally stopped worrying about her children. I expected her to say that finally, now that we were all grown up and have families of our own, that she has, at last, stopped worrying about her children. But no, even my mother answered, "Never. You never stop worrying about your children." And then she looked at me and shook her head sadly. I'm not sure what she meant by that and I didn't ask. The point is that no matter what our particular path in life, if we are walking with the Lord, there will be hardships. You should count on it.

I don't remember who said this but I've never forgotten it, "If you read the Bible and are comforted, then you've missed the point." I can't imagine how often I've looked for comforting words in the Bible during difficult times. And if you find yourself comforted with this gospel passage then I don't know what to tell you. Still, with the risk of taking away the sting of it, we should make sure we understand what Jesus is asking of his disciples and us, and it's not about joining some kind of cult.

The word "hate" in the Old Testament didn't have the emo­tional baggage that it does when we use the word today. It means something a bit closer to a lesser love. Certainly Jesus who com­manded us to love our neighbors and strangers and even our en­emies, would not ask us to turn around and hate our fathers and mothers, wives and children, and brothers and even life itself. He would never say that. What he is saying is that discipleship and love of God must come first and foremost. Nothing, not even our closest relatives should keep us from living out our discipleship.

What about this, carrying your cross, stuff? I know what it doesn't mean. It doesn't mean how we usually use it; something like, "Oh, my husband left his dirty underwear on the floor again. I guess this is just my cross to bear." Instead, when Jesus talks about us carrying our cross he means that, being fully aware of what the cost of discipleship might be, we willingly pick up this cross when it comes our way. It is our choice, not something that is flung upon us that we have no other option but to bear it. It is the cross, the sacrifice, and the hardship that we freely embrace know­ing full well the price we will pay.

What if we paraphrased this passage a little and Jesus said, "Whoever comes to me and does not hate Sunday morning soccer games or ballet recitals cannot be my disciple"? Or what if he said, "Whoever comes to me and does not hate their country club mem­bership cannot be my disciple"? Or, "Whoever comes to me and does not hate gas-guzzling SUVs cannot be my disciple"? Or "Who­ever comes to me and does not hate late night parties and sleeping in on Sunday morning, cannot be my disciple"?

If Jesus said these things we might be tempted to say back to him, "You'd better stop it, Jesus. Now you've gone from preach­ing the gospel to meddling in our personal lives." And since I've said them, maybe some of you are thinking that I've gone from preaching to meddling.

Early on in our church plans many of you remember that we got anxious for a building. Oh, the synagogue was nice and later the school cafeteria where we worshiped was fancier than any caf­eteria I'd ever eaten in. But we wanted our own place. Barely a day passed that someone didn't whisper at me, "If you build it they will come."

"Perhaps," I often replied, "but will they stay?"

So we put together a building committee, hired an architect, and launched our building program. We dreamed about how we would use our first building. We set priorities for the space and estimated the attendance in five and ten years. Then we put our architect to work by first asking him to show us what we could do on our property if the sky was the limit. The result was a beautiful design with a cost of over twelve million dollars! If you had looked up the word "crestfallen" in the dictionary you would have found our picture.

"Oh," we said once we caught our breath. "Well then, tell us what it would cost to build part of it. Maybe the sanctuary or maybe a multi-purpose building." Even so the cost was so high over our heads that we couldn't even conceive, at that time, of making it work. Still there were some who pushed us and chanted, "If we build it...."

Lucky for us we had a little bit of sense and set the building of the building aside while we went about building the church of people. Had we not slowed ourselves down, looking back it is clear to see that we would have found ourselves unable to finish what we started. We would have gone, as too often happens, from being a new start to being a false start.

Let's try to sum all this up. It's simple really: The cost of dis­cipleship, or at least, a cost of discipleship is that we are asked to put nothing in the way of following Jesus. If we decide we are going to follow Jesus then we must prepare ourselves for hard­ships. And, if we think of ourselves as disciples of him and we haven't experienced hardship, haven't had to ask tough questions about our priorities, then maybe we're lucky or perhaps we need to take a good hard look at what we think it really means to follow Jesus. Don't forget, if you decide to follow the Lord, prepare your­self for testing. Truer words have never been spoken. Amen.