"The right stuff" describes the qualities of character, competence, and temperament possessed by the early astronauts. They had "the right stuff" for the job and all of us admired them for this. In terms of American history, they are kin to those sturdy folk who first settled this nation, as well as those who later broke out of the confines of the eastern seaboard and courageously headed into the western wilderness. Some years ago there was a book about these latter heroes titled Men to Match My Mountains, telling the story of those who had the tough, "right stuff" to stretch this country from coast to coast.

Jesus is certainly talking about having "the right stuff" in this passage. He is telling us what it would take then, and what it takes now, to be his follower. There is no soft sentimentalism in these words of his. He says that the disciple must be prepared to part with family, to endure suffering, to face enormity of the task, and to give up everything for the sake of the Kingdom. Here, compressed in these brief verses, is the delineation of the "right stuff" required of anyone who accepts Jesus’ offer to follow him.

Instinctively, we want to back away from such harsh words. We do not want to be told that there will be suffering and hardship if we follow Jesus. We are not ready for that any more than were the first disciples. They first resisted verbally, "God forbid, Lord!" (Matthew 16a), and later actively as they fell away from Jesus that last week. The idea of aligning ourselves with Jesus and his cause appeals to us, but we’d like to have it without so much cost.

There is a story about a mountaineer who was noted for his marksmanship. When asked about his prowess, he said that it was rather simple: "I just fire a round into a large tree and then draw a bulls-eye around it." Most of us want our discipleship to come so easily and so cheaply. We really don’t appreciate Bonhoeffer telling us, "When Christ calls a man, he calls him to come and die." But Jesus is telling us that "the right stuff" can mean the sacrifice of everything for his sake.

I

Actually, Jesus is telling us that the price of any good thing is the price of sacrifice and suffering. My father was a school administrator for many years. His motto was, "Good schools don’t just happen." That’s another way of putting the point about the necessity of suffering and sacrifice. Unless there are serious and disciplined commitments of administrators, teachers, parents and community, good schools are impossible. They wouldn’t "just happen."

Nor does any other good thing happen without suffering and sacrifice. A good marriage and a good family are filled with commitments and loyalties that often become painful and sacrificial. Alan Alda is known for his role of "Hawkeye" on the TV program M*A*S*H*, portraying a carefree, anti-establishment young surgeon in the bitter Korean War years. But the real-life Alan Alda is quite serious about the old-fashioned virtues of commitment and fidelity as they apply to marriage. "Alan Alda is practically the only popular celebrity who is routinely asked about fidelity because it is something he believes in," says one writer. Alda believes that the good things we want of marriage and family come only through the disciplines of commitment and faithfulness.

Many of the old cathedrals are cruciform, structured in the shape of a cross. The long nave is intersected by the crossing transept and so the whole building speaks its silent message about the inevitability of the way of the cross. It is a way of saying that Christ conquers by the way of suffering and sacrifice. It is a way of saying that nothing worthwhile can begin or endure without this same acceptance of suffering and sacrifice.

If I were Satan, I think I would invest heavily in the "quick and easy" markets. These are the cultural trends that continually tell us that the valuable things of life can be ours without effort, discipline, pain and sacrifice. You can write a book titled Ten Easy Ways to Improve Your Personality. It would probably be a best-seller. But you cannot write a book called, Christian Discipleship: An Easy and Profitable Leisure Activity. Following Jesus is the way of the cross; it always was, it always will be this way.

II

Yet one of the strange things about this self-denying, cross-shadowed experience of Christian discipleship is what is reported by those who make such a commitment. They tell us that they have never felt more alive than when they took their discipleship seriously, without any comforting buffers. It’s something like those Londoners after the nightly bombings stopped during World War II. They said they missed the sense of aliveness that came to them amid the danger, and the suffering and the destruction. Helmut Thielicke reports the same experience:

(As) ... terrible as those (latter days of Third Reich under Allied bombings) were, times when we were surrounded by bizarre ruins and daily expected our own death, we often think of these days of terror with a certain nostalgia. (Man In God’s World, p. 11f)

The self-chosen pains of Christian discipleship are like the fated pains of ordinary human existence. Both can shake us into a deep sense of being alive. This seems to be one of the most carefully kept secrets of the Christian faith.

To the sense of boredom and meaninglessness that afflict so many, we can tell them that the sacrificial sufferings of Christian discipleship can bring them a deep vitality that banishes spiritual demons. Is this what happened to the early disciples? Is it right to think that, when they left Jesus on his cross and went back to their former ways, they quickly sensed they lacked the aliveness that risky discipleship had given them?

The sailors who had gone with Sir Francis Drake on his many voyages used to gather to tell of those days. What they recalled most were those perilous moments when their little ships would be caught in the ocean’s fury, the bow plunging deep into the water, the shuddering of the ship’s timbers as it struggled to rise, only to repeat this frightful pattern, until they wondered if their craft might be pounded to pieces. These risky dangers proved to be most memorable, and in all of this we might find a clue to evangelism. Instead of proclaiming that Christ’s followers will have a placid and in troubled life, we should be telling people that the uneasy turbuence of those who belong to Jesus is the way to the rich excitement and zest that life ought to have.

A church leader was talking with a group of young Christians, trying to suggest ways that they could serve the church. Toward the end of the discussion a girl stood up and said, "You talk to us about following Christ and then speak to us about singing in the choir." Then she said, "What we really want is a challenge!" We are told that this generation of young people is quite conservative and committed to the status quo. Perhaps they are this way because they are not certain that there will be meaningful jobs for them when they try to enter the work force. So they are investing heavily in study and preparation and have not taken on very many crusades to change the world. Even their voting record seems to indicate that they are less venturesome and hopeful than previous generations of young people.

But the day will come when even these young folk will find that landing a job and not rocking the boat are insufficient. Taking no real chances in faith or shirking the task of making the human community a bit better leads to what the French call "ennui." Life lived by the rule of safety soon curves back in upon itself, and it will not be long before today’s cautious youth will discover this. When Jesus said, "If any one comes to 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," maybe he was thinking about this. The shocking form of his words serves to make the point, and the hidden message is that an intense aliveness awaits those who can hear and respond.

III

This Christian-life-style way of the cross is not only our invitation to vital living, it is also a jaunty faith in the absolute trustworthiness of life. This is because the Christian cannot talk about the cross and sacrifice without also speaking of resurrection and fulfillment. In True Resurrection, H. A. Williams says that the resurrection must not be confined to an historical event in the first century. That would be to miss the richness of its meaning. The resurrection

is not just about Jesus’ triumph over his cross. It is a statement about the way life really is, all of the time: good overcomes evil, freedom prevails over tyranny, truth conquers falsehood, and life proves stronger than death.

We live in a universe where resurrection is the final word. If that’s true, and if we really trust in this possibility, then we find the courage to exhibit the sacrificial and daring "right stuff" that Christ wants from us.

The year 1653 was not a good time for religion in England. Destruction and apathy about the faith and the church were widespread. But Sir Robert Shirley saw beyond the evil and chaos - he founded a church. And on a plaque in that church is this tribute to this man: "He stood for the best of things in the worst of times." Trusting in the resurrection can bring us to heroism large and small.

Need we draw the implication for personal life? Of course, our belief in the resurrection enables us to trust that the enemy, death, is overcome. This is why Bonhoeffer could say as he was being led to the gallows, "The best is yet to come." Yet believing in the resurrection isn’t limited to the assurance that our death is swallowed up in victory; it has vibrant meanings this side of death, too.

In Lucien Price’s The Dialogues of Alfred North Whitehead, Whitehead tells how his personal and intellectual world came apart when the system of Newtonian physics proved inadequate to new research and experimentation. It was a time of great anguish and crisis for Whitehead. Anytime our world-view crumbles, it is a shattering experience. But we know that out of Whitehead’s shambles came a new philosophic vision of the universe that has proved more satisfying and useful than the one that crumbled. Life’s personal sufferings, hurts, defeats, and mistakes all have the possibility of being shaped into new perspectives and new visions. This is part of what the resurrection means.

Toynbee has said that some Oriental religions’ founders made a fundamental mistake. Hoping to have a wide appeal, they "pitched their demands altogether too low"; few responses came, because people want a real challenge. Jesus did not make this mistake. He pitched his demands high, spoke openly of the sacrifice and suffering they involved. In doing so he gave us a great blessing, for out of this stern stuff we find an invigorating vitality of life, and the steady conviction that the last word - now and later - is life. Small wonder we call the Christian message, "gospel" - good news.