Sermon By Rev Joel Crouse
This summer, in Nova Scotia, Erin and I found the simple life on the ocean. Or perhaps,
I should say, it found us. It took a while – human nature tends to look for complexity
even in simplicity. But eventually, we got there – those moments when all the noise and
buzz of life goes quiet, and you find yourself in the world that God must have imagined
for us in Genesis.
We have an old jalopy sailboat, one passed down from my parents. It is nothing fancy.
We might be able to sell it for a few hundred dollars. The sails are old, the rigging is
loose, the cabin is musty, the lights don’t work, and the 5-horsepower engine on the
back starts when it wants to (and when we remember to bring gas). Usually, our sails
start with lots of chatter – and a little bickering – about the best way to get off the
mooring, what destination we will take, where the best wind lies. But at a certain point,
calm settles on the boat. We listen to the hum of the swing keel. We watch for a chance
encounter with a porpoise. We feel the sun and the wind, and all the stress drifts away.
What matters in life – this peaceful moment, this gift from God – becomes our focus, a
time to think deeply about our place in the world. To find clarity.
And ultimately, this is the point of our gospel this morning. This is the message that
Jesus is trying to impart to the large crowds travelling with him, filled with people who
seek to be his disciples. His words sound harsh; whoever doesn’t hate father and
mother – and the rest of your family – can’t be a good disciple. Whoever doesn’t carry
the cross can’t be a disciple. Whoever doesn’t give up their possessions cannot be a
disciple. The cost of discipleship is certainly high.
But what is Jesus really saying? Certainly the gospel is not asking us to abandon our
families. It is not asking us to give up what we own. It is not asking us to be perpetually
suffering.
Sometimes, Jesus swings the pendulum far to one side to make a particular point. In
this case, I think it is this: to be a true disciple, you must silence the noise and buzz of
life, and see what truly matters.
And who is often noisier in our lives than our families – who may write a narrative for our
lives even before we have had a chance to write it for ourselves. Even when done out of
love, this can be toxic. Who are the people most able to get under our skin? Even the
most generous families can confuse our own beliefs and stifle our own independence.
The least generous families conscript us into their way of thinking and become a source
of conflict.
Yet to be disciples of the gospel, we must know ourselves. We must be independent
thinkers. We must go against the common narratives. We must be clear about what we
believe.
And what of our possessions, or our desire for them? Surely, they are equally
distracting. We are taught early to want for more, never to be happy with good enough.
But the desire for bigger and better is also a dangerous distraction. It has done great
harm to our natural world. It has corrupted our souls. It is toxic to the gospel. And so
Jesus says you cannot crave bigger and better – at all costs – and be a true disciple.
So the cost of discipleship is simple. Indeed, it is a simple life requiring strong willpower
and endurance. We must resist the voices of those we love most when they distract us.
We must shed our desire for possessions. We must silence the human world around us
to hear the voice of God.
It may seem like a paradox: the gospel is a complex creation, requiring wisdom and
nuance, hard to hold and easy to lose. But to find it at all, Jesus says to us, we must
first distill life down to its most simple ingredients: love, kindness, generosity. From that
starting point, we can begin a path of true discipleship.
No sail is ever the same. It is different every time because the ocean is always
changing. Sometimes it is as flat as a shiny plate. Sometimes it is rolling with white
caps. Sometimes the wind blows from the east, and sometimes from the west. And it is
the same with the world, the one that the disciples of the gospel must navigate. It is
always changing, unsteady under our feet. Yet in that complexity, we may find
simplicity. From there, our steps may be more certain, more sure, and more true.
Did we hear the voice of God on the water this summer? I certainly returned to land
after every sail feeling more clear-headed, more at peace.
In one of our most quiet sails, watching the horizon, we saw a whale crest the water,
splashing back down into the deep. That is not something you see every day. It is
something wonderful we would have missed had we been fussing about human wants
and needs.
There is indeed a cost to true discipleship, a challenge pressed upon us. But there are
also many gifts. Silence the world of unnecessary noise, and we hear the voice of God.
Clear our view of what blocks us from the gospel, and we may glimpse the beauty of
creation in its truest form. Amen.