Gospel Note
In our age of religious head-counting and number-crunching, it is instructive to see Jesus turning to a crowd of would-be followers and discouraging them by indicating in sayings and parables the cost of discipleship that must be weighed in any decision to join this "reign of God" movement. It should also be rather sobering for modern purveyors of Christianity as a gospel of prosperity and success to see the total self-renunciation demanded in v. 33.

Litur…