St. Paul Lutheran Church, Minden, Nebraska
Sunday Sermon – Fifth Sunday after Pentecost – June 27, 2010
“Demanding Discipleship”
Text: Luke 9:61,62

A little over a week ago, in an opening devotion for our men’s
group in Minden, I called their attention to the letters S.B.N.R.
I had not seen the letters SBNR put together like this until I saw
them in a Lutheran Hour Ministries on-line devotion by the soon-to-
retire Lutheran Hour Speaker, Rev. Ken Klaus. Rev. Klaus noted a lot
of people, especially young people, consider themselves to be SBNR, which
he said is text-messaging, short-hand for Spiritual But Not Religious.
More and more these days, it’s not uncommon to hear people say, “I
may not be all that religious but I am very spiritual. I may not go
to church that often, but that’s because I have a lot of other things
to do too.
Rev. Klaus’s comment was, “If you are SBNR, it means you don’t
need organized religion to live your life of faith. In other words,
it’s just you and God and nobody else.”
Rev. Klaus also noted he could understand why a lot of folks
consider themselves to be Spiritual But Not Religious.
It’s convenient, meaning you can worship God on your own time,
in your own way. Also, when you are SBNR, you don’t have to worry
about the latest scandal at church, or the hypocrisy that goes on
with churches, or the always-asking-for-money routine, which to a lot of
people makes Spiritual But Not Religious sound like a pretty good deal.
But then Rev. Klaus observes, “as comfortable and convenient as it
might be to get into do-it-yourself religion, there are a whole lot
of Spiritual But Not Religious people who are NOT going out of their
way to help the lost; or they are NOT taking Holy Communion as the Lord
instructed; or they are NOT confessing their sins, or they are really
NOT doing any of the things the Lord says should come from the hearts
of His redeemed people, chief of which is a willingness & readiness &
faithfulness to take up one’s cross and follow Jesus.
In today’s Gospel reading, it’s sounds to me like there are three
Spiritual But Not Religious people who want to follow Jesus but they
want to do it on their terms.
As Jesus and his disciples were headed for Jerusalem, someone said
to him, “I will follow you wherever you go.”
And Jesus said to that person, “Foxes have holes, and birds of
the air have nests, but the Son of Man has nowhere to lay his head.”
In other words, “You want to follow me? Are you ready to rough
it? We’re not going to be saying in Motor Homes or Comfort Inns, you
know! There is not going to be a soft bed, clean sheets, towels and
a washcloth every night. Following me is going to be demanding.
When someone else said to Jesus, “Lord, let me first go and bury my
father,” Jesus said to him, “Leave the dead to bury their own dead.
But as for you, go and ‘proclaim the kingdom of God.’”
First things first, man! When you follow me first things first
means life, not death. And life is urgent: I need followers here &
now to announce God’s Kingdom is here and now! Forgiveness now! Peace
now! I have come that men may have life and have it abundantly”
A third someone said, “I will follow you, Lord, but let me first
say farewell to those at my home.” Jesus said to that person, “No
one who puts his hand to the plow and looks back is fit for the king-
dom of God.”
In the Kingdom of God, there is no looking back, no living in the
past, no putting your family first, and no procrastinating. You can-
not put God’s Kingdom off till tomorrow. Seize the day.”
For those who are drawn to follow Jesus, here’s a text that says
with Jesus, a total commitment, heart & soul, mind & strength, time &
money, service & sacrifice is not what is suggested; it is not what
is hoped for, but it is what is clearly demanded.
Please notice that Jesus is not confrontational. Jesus is not
prone to exaggerating or overstating His case. Jesus has set his
face to go to Jerusalem; not back to the peace and quiet of Galilee,
but ahead to the suffering & cross that wait for him in Jerusalem.
Who is fit for the kingdom of God? Jesus answer is, “He who puts
his hand to the plow and does not look back!”
A few years ago when our son-in-law who farms a lot of acres put
an inexperienced me on one of his tractors to disk a field, he told
me to pick a point of reference, a tree, a post, a building at the
edge of the field in front of me and stay focused on that. He warned
me to resist the urge to look back at what was going on behind me
or I would start to go crooked, get off center, and he was right!
Jesus is right! Who is fit for the kingdom of God? Jesus
answer is, “If anyone would come after me, let this be his point of
reference, let him deny himself, take up his cross daily and follow
me. For whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses
his life for my sake will save it.” (9:23,24)
It is a small observation to make, but in today’s Gospel Luke says
Jesus’ encounter with these three would-be disciples took place, “as
Jesus and His disciples were going along the road toward Jerusalem,”
leaving us to imagine that as Jesus and His disciples and others in
the crowd were going along the road with Jesus, Jesus was in dialogue
with them. The word “dialogue” means two parties talking back & forth
to each other, carrying on a conversation with each other, talking &
listening, listening & talking to each other.
Sometimes we in the church get into the rut of thinking that
faith is mostly monologue, mostly us talking. We pray; we speak
to God of our needs & desires. We say what we have to say from our
limited perspective. We think & choose & decide what we’re going to
do without a lot of looking into the Scriptures or listening to the
words of our Lord Jesus. In other words, our religion can become
very one-sided, or very us-oriented, very spiritual, but that’s not
what true religion is all about.
Martin Luther, for example, immersed himself in the Scriptures to
the point that God not only opened Luther’s eyes and Luther’s heart
to the Good News of the free & forgiving grace of God in Jesus, but
Luther also saw and Luther proclaimed that freedom from the burden
& bondage of sin means freedom to serve, to follow, to commit one’s
whole life to not receiving the grace of God in vain.
Said Luther: “A religion that gives nothing, costs nothing, and
suffers nothing, is worth nothing.” It’s not that religion saves
us, only Christ Jesus, crucified and risen from the dead can save us
from sin, death, and hell. But “true religion, religion that is pure & un-
defiled before God, the Father is this: to visit orphans and widows in their
affliction, and to keep oneself unstained from the world.” James 1:27
The story is told of a wealthy heir named William Borden who lived
in Chicago early in the last century. He was a well educated man
having received degrees from both Yale and Princeton. As a young man,
William Borden felt called to take the Gospel to Muslims in China.
He gave away much of his wealth, equivalent to about ten million in
today’s dollars. At age 26 he left China for Egypt where he contract-
ed cerebral meningitis. Before he died he scribbled on a note, “No
reserve! No retreat! No regrets.”
Now that’s a different kind of
SBNR! Spiritual, but no reserve, no retreat, no regrets!
You and I don’t have to be missionaries who give away all our
wealth to approach life for Christ “with no reserve, no retreat, no
regrets.” What we need, why we gather for worship & fellowship is to
hear & believe the Good News of our salvation & forgiveness of sins
in Christ and let that Good News persuade us again & again that the
measure of our calling, our discipleship, is the worth of Christ’s
suffering and sacrifice.
Sometimes Jesus speaks to us in ways that are hard to understand.
Sometimes Jesus makes demands of us that seem far out of range of
our abilities.
But if we dare to believe that said, “Follow me,” then let us dare
to live with “No reserve! No retreat! No regrets! No looking back!”
Oswald Chambers has said when we put our hand to the plow, neither
wallowing in our past sins nor boasting of our past successes, we
“deliberately identify ourselves with God’s interests in other people”
and “we find to our amazement that with God’s Holy Spirit working in
us by grace through faith, we have power to keep wonderfully poised
& focused to live cross-shaped lives, Christ-centered lives to be
Christ’s witnesses in Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria, and to
the end of the earth.
God grant it for Jesus sake!