Based on 1 Kings 19:15-21 and Luke 9:51-62
General Council of the United Church is going on. One of the many things we’re talking about is membership.
What does it mean to be a member of a church?
Does it mean being on the church’s historic role of names? If it does – how many people come to church who are not on it and don’t want to be on it? What do you call them? Adherents?
Does being a member of a church mean you show up at the church? What about people in nursing homes or during COVID?
Does being a member of the church mean you contribute to it through PAR or volunteering – but never necessarily attend a service?
Who, and what, is a member of a church?
A study was commissioned by the last General Council to study just this question. And their resolution is now before the United Church at this Council. They found… the question is pointless. However, and whatever, we define a member as will not be big enough, nuanced enough, inclusive enough to capture what it means to be a member of the church… and what is doesn’t mean.
Instead of asking “how many members does your church have?” the question is… “how are people learning to be disciples at your church?”
Discipleship, not membership, is what matters.
Are people learning how to follow Jesus’ way? How many people are trying to follow Jesus?
And the focus ought not be making church members out of people… but making disciples of Jesus.
Discipleship is different to different people, cannot always be laid out in letters, and is about a way of life instead of a set of rules. It is costly. Discipleship takes buy in. It’s not instant, or easy, or a one and done deal. Discipleship isn’t a paper you get and a Sunday of applause. Discipleship is how you live your life in public, and in private, in crowds, and when alone. Discipleship is leaving what was – fields, farms, families, jobs, careers, comfortable beds, the known… and saying yes to that wandering Spirit, that wandering Rabbi, that God of wanderers who may lead you right back to the same fields and farms and jobs and beds… or may lead you into the unknown. Into the uncomfortable. Into the strange wilderness.
Discipleship, wanting to follow in Jesus’ foot steps, is costly. Rev. Dietrich Bonhoeffer wrote extensively on what it means to be a disciple of Jesus. Indeed, a whole book of his is called “The Cost of Discipleship.” He struggled with this as a German in Nazi Germany. He saw his own church denomination adopt Nazi stances. He heard sermons on what it meant to be a good Christian, and a good German, and that these went hand in hand as Christian Nationalism. Christian Naziism.
But he felt discipleship, not membership, is more important. Even when discipleship means being kicked out of your church – as he was – called an enemy of the government – as he was – and killed – as he was. Discipleship is more than where you go to church. It is how you live your life. And it is a costly, expensive grace.
He wrote, “Cheap grace is the deadly enemy of our Church. We are fighting today for costly grace.
Cheap grace means grace sold on the market like cheapjack’s wares. The sacraments, the forgiveness of sin, and the consolations of religion are thrown away at cut prices. Grace is represented as the Church’s inexhaustible treasury, from which she showers blessings with generous hands, without asking questions or fixing limits. Grace without price; grace without cost! …
Cheap grace is the grace we bestow on ourselves. Cheap grace is the preaching of forgiveness without requiring repentance, baptism without church discipline, Communion without confession, absolution without personal confession. Cheap grace is grace without discipleship, grace without the Cross, grace without Jesus Christ, living and incarnate.”
Cheap grace, to Bonhoeffer, is when we tell ourselves we’re good people because we’re Christians… but don’t actually follow Christ. It is cheap grace when scripture and faith don’t challenge us, and God looks and thinks and acts just as we do.
Our church gives cheap grace when it says the apology cairn was more than enough to reconcile us with First Nations. This is cheap. Not worth much. Given too easily. Costly grace is actually living that apology.
Cheap grace is when we tell ourselves belief alone is all that is required of our faith. If we confess the right thing, believe the right thing, then we are good people. Costly grace says what we do matters as much if not more than what we believe. If we believe all people are made in the image of God, but that does not lead us to then treat all people as worthy of housing, food, clean water, independence, love and respect… then our belief is cheap, rubbish, not worth anything.
Cheap grace is grace not from God — but from ourselves. It is patting ourselves on our backs
and saying “What good Christians we are!”
Cheap grace is the love we give ourselves at the expense of following Jesus.
Opposite of this, says Bonhoeffer, is costly grace. He writes, “Costly grace is the treasure hidden in the field; for the sake of it a man will gladly go and sell all that he has. It is the pearl of great price to buy which the merchant will sell all his goods…
Costly grace is the Gospel which must be sought again and again, the gift which must be asked for, the door at which a man must knock.
Such grace is costly because it calls us to follow, and it is grace because it calls us to follow Jesus Christ. It is costly because it costs a man his life, and it is grace because it gives a man the only true life. It is costly because it condemns sin, and grace because it justifies the sinner.
Above all, it is costly because it costs God the life of His Son: “ye were bought at a price,” and what has cost God much cannot be cheap for us. Above all, it is grace because God did not reckon His Son too dear a price to pay for our life, but delivered Him up for us. Costly grace is the Incarnation of God.”
Bonhoeffer’s words mean Christianity is costly. It doesn’t let us follow society. It makes us follow a different law – the law of love. Christianity demands repentance – repentance means to radically change your life. It isn’t just “I’m sorry,” when you do something… it is “I’m sorry and I will never do that again and try to make it right.” Repentance is the idea that we are walking the wrong direction and must completely turn around, back towards God.
But grace is defined as a free gift. Confusing? Let me explain…
Cheap free gifts, cheap grace, are like… the really cheap chocolate you can get for Christmas. It’s mostly wax. The sugar tastes good. For a moment. Then it is awful.
The cheap free gift of a faith that doesn’t challenge us a faith that won’t stand up to pressure.
When we face truly awful things – the death of a child, the betrayal of a friend, the injustice of law, the sexual abuse of clergy on children – and our faith hasn’t grown beyond the basic step… that faith crumbles. How could God permit such evil? How could I ever forgive such a friend? How can I have faith in any laws or any clergy? When our faith is given to us cheaply without challenge… it just wilts and has nothing to say to these situations.
Costly grace is a gift that cost a lot to give. It’s like the expensive chocolate. Just a little bit goes a long way because it is mostly cocoa. It tastes good, and leaves a good taste. But it cost way more.
The costly gift of faith that does challenge us is faith that stands up under the pressure of the evils of life. It reminds us that God is a parent grieving the loss of their child. God-in-Christ knew the betrayal of Judas… then each disciple… all the way to Peter, his best friend, who denied ever even knowing Jesus. Costly grace sometimes means saying goodbye to family who won’t embrace the You who is Christian. Sometimes means you won’t be there to see your parents into their old age and into the grave. It sometimes means feeling unsafe, without a place to lay your head. Costly grace makes us lose sleep praying over and acting on situations. Costly grace is messy. It reminds us that wherever there are humans, there is sin… this includes our most sacred institutions and worship spaces. It can’t be summed up on a coffee cup. It says there are real sins, real evils, but also real forgiveness, real repentance, really changed lives.
Let me tell you a story of how I witnessed some costly grace. Once, someone stole a few thousand dollars from an inheritance. No one knew who did this. There was no evidence. For years, it was a mystery. Each relative denied the theft. Each suspected another, but there was no evidence. So all relatives continued to be family, come to get togethers, even if they knew one of them was a thief.
One day, one relative found cheque stub in the back of a closet. It was from the missing money. It clearly had printed on it which of the relatives had stolen some of the inheritance. Here, at last, was proof. Here was the guilty party.
What would you do?
Would you tell everyone – there would be a reckoning!
Would you take the guilty person to court?
The innocent relative chose to pull out a lighter, and burned the evidence of the guilty.
I proclaimed: “Why did you do that?! It’s been a mystery for ten years!”
The person answered, “And it’ll stay that way. A sister, brother, or cousin is worth more than a few thousand dollars. A family together is worth more.”
I thought about that for a long, long time. There’s so many ways this could have been resolved. The relative could have been confronted and asked to return the money. They could have secretly returned it. They could have been privately approached and chastised. They could have been publicly shamed and kicked out of the family.
Grace is unearned forgiveness. An unearned gift. The relative never did a thing to earn this forgiveness and gift. Never apologized.
We have been given such grace. We can never do a thing to earn God’s love. It is. We have it.
The cost of discipleship is choosing to give that grace, that unearned free gift, to another who may, or may not, deserve it.
It is costly. Giving up the right to revenge. Giving up the right to privilege. Giving up holes or nests or beds for the sake of love.
Just about everyone involved with that family drama have died and are together again in heaven. And I wonder about their conversations. I know about the good times they had here on earth today, and the love for one another, and how that love was costly.
I don’t know if it was the right choice to burn the evidence. It was costly. But the cost of not loving one another was too much for this person. In their moment, this is what it meant to follow Jesus.
There’s no manual for love. No manual for how to be a disciple of Jesus. We have our stories from scripture. We have the examples we set for one another. We have all of these are road signs pointing the Way – but when the moment comes, whenever and wherever it is – it will be unique to us. Some of Jesus’ followers were faced with giving up family, others had family join them. Some were faced with losing wealth, others had food for the first time. Each situation is unique.
When you are in it, that moment of choosing to follow Jesus or turning back, may God give you the strength to not look back. May God give you the determination to hold onto the plow and continue the Jesus way you have begun. May God give you costly grace – the best grace – the expensive grace that places you solidly on the Way of Christ.
Amen.
Book quoted: The Cost of Discipleship by Dietrich Bonhoeffer
Pastor Whitney Bruno Sermons 