{"id":1039,"date":"2010-09-05T19:39:26","date_gmt":"2010-09-05T19:39:26","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/balboaunionchurch.org\/wpaccess\/?post_type=ctc_sermon&p=1039"},"modified":"2015-02-04T22:31:36","modified_gmt":"2015-02-04T22:31:36","slug":"jesus-couldnt-sell-soap","status":"publish","type":"ctc_sermon","link":"http:\/\/balboaunionchurch.org\/es\/sermons\/jesus-couldnt-sell-soap\/","title":{"rendered":"Jesus Couldn’t Sell Soap"},"content":{"rendered":"

JESUS COULDN\u2019T SELL SOAP<\/strong><\/p>\n

Sue Robbins<\/p>\n

The story of Jesus is intriguing to me on so many levels. But one of the things I find MOST interesting is how he did and said absolutely everything NOT to be famous, NOT to start a religion, NOT to be one of the central figures of humankind.<\/p>\n

Ask the movers and shakers of political parties in countries around the world. Ask any major film studio executive in the business of selling movies and up-and-coming actors and actresses. Ask the most important marketing experts in global industry. ALL of them would look at what Jesus said and did and go, \u201cWait! Stop! You can\u2019t sell anything THAT way\u2026!\u201d<\/p>\n

Classic Marketing 101 strategy says, concentrate on your positives:<\/p>\n

\u201cThis soap will get the spots out!\u201d
\n\u201cThis soap smells good!\u201d
\n\u201cThis soap has attractive little blue speckles for that \u2018Blue Boost\u2019 of cleaning power!\u201d<\/p>\n

Whatever you do, don\u2019t mention that the soap rusts the pipes and kills the fish and the \u201cBlue Boost\u201d is actually non-biodegradable decorative pellets that do nothing at all. Talk only about what\u2019s good; don\u2019t mention the other\u2026<\/p>\n

But Jesus wasn\u2019t selling soap. He never took Marketing 101 \u2013 or Politics 101 — or Hollywood 101. He was laying out a totally new way of life, a radical and shocking change in direction. Like a knife cutting through chain, it sets the teeth on edge. It makes you cringe.<\/p>\n

It wouldn\u2019t sell soap.<\/p>\n

The passage we read this morning is traditionally called, \u201cThe Cost of Discipleship.\u201d It starts out innocuously enough by telling us that there are \u201clarge crowds traveling with him.\u201d By this point, Jesus\u2019 ministry is catching fire, and the word has gone out. Like any new movement, flush in its infancy and energized by its rock-star, charismatic leader and the freshness of his ideas, the people come from everywhere to hear what he has to say. Many of them travel right along with him!<\/p>\n

Let\u2019s imagine the scene from the point of view of one of the original disciples. Let\u2019s be James, one of the fishermen Jesus called away from the nets and the boats by the Sea of Galilee. As part of the \u201cinner circle,\u201d you, James, help to keep the masses of people moving along and organized. As you move through the crowd, you find yourself being offered favors for a spot closer to the front. They want what you have: access to The Man of the Hour. As you\u2019re being feted and cajoled with attention and special treatment, you can\u2019t help but remember the beginning days when you had to explain to your angry family what you were doing, when you had to scrounge for food for yourself and the others, when you camped out on the open ground huddled by a fire, when the people in towns ignored you — or threw rocks at you.<\/p>\n

Looking behind you over the mass of people walking along, it must feel like a vindication; like the beginning of something groundbreaking, epochal, revolutionary. You take your place near the front, close to Jesus, with the rest of \u201cthe chosen few.\u201d A warm feeling infuses your being as you comprehend that you\u2019re on the inside track of an extraordinary dream that no mere fisherman could ever imagine.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf the folks back home could see me now\u2026\u201d<\/p>\n

Suddenly Jesus stops, and everybody else does, too. You\u2019re surprised, but you lean in to eagerly hear what he has to say, your master and teacher, the center of all this attention, literally your meal ticket and the star to which you have hitched your future. But instead of a beatitude or one of his crowd-pleasing parables, he shouts, \u00abWhoever comes to me and does not hate father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters, yes, and even life itself, cannot be my disciple.\u201d Followed immediately by \u201cWhoever does not carry the cross and follow me cannot be my disciple.\u201d<\/p>\n

Ack! Cringe\u2026 Like a cable news producer watching a popular anchorman crash and burn in an unscripted diatribe, our poor James must have wished at that moment that everybody had stopped for a snack half a mile back.<\/p>\n

To be fair, the actual words Jesus said were an Aramaic idiom, an expression in the culture that included the word \u201chate.\u201d Matthew\u2019s translation of this passage is probably closer to Jesus\u2019 actual meaning, \u201cWhoever loves father or mother more than me is not worthy of me.\u201d In other words, \u201cFollow me and whatever used to be The Most Important Thing \u2013 including your family — must be left behind.\u201d Devastating words for people steeped in tribal and familial tradition.<\/p>\n

And then the mention of the cross, that most hated of all symbols of Roman occupation \u2013 cringe, again!<\/p>\n

And finally, after a break of a couple of comments on counting the cost and preparing for discipleship, Jesus hits his audience with A Really Tough One. And there is no idiom here. He says it plain, a repeat of what he says in several other places in the scriptures. The Jesus Seminar puts this statement in red in its Bible for words that are believed to be completely authentic to Jesus: \u201cSo therefore, none of you can become my disciple if you do not give up all your possessions.\u201d<\/p>\n

Unlike those who stand before great crowds and give them exactly what they want to hear \u2013 the aging rock band singing all the old favorites, the politician looking for votes, the cable TV star on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial guilding his reputation \u2013 Jesus wasn\u2019t interested in numbers. (\u201cCBS 4 is reporting 200,000 people on the mall!\u201d) He wasn\u2019t interested in fair-weather followers looking for warm fuzzies.<\/p>\n

This message — this Luke 14:25-33 — was for the real disciples, those who were hungry for meaning, those who were dying in mediocrity, those who had made themselves sick living only for themselves, in survival mode, slogging through their days, knowing in their heart of hearts that there could be so much more. With these words, Jesus throws the groupies under the bus and heads straight into the heart of the few who were looking for The Big Change in their lives.<\/p>\n

And what a change it is. In one fell swoop he rips away from poor James in the front \u2013 and the rest of us scattered behind him in history \u2013 every last shred of worldly security that we have. If you\u2019re with me, says Jesus, then away with your family, your past, your beloved, cloying traditions. He denies us our homes, our possessions, our very lives. And in its place, he hands us a cross and tells us to carry it.<\/p>\n

Whoa\u2026<\/p>\n

Whoa.<\/p>\n

Imagine the whispers and murmurs in the crowd. \u201cIs he serious? What is he saying here??? Surely he doesn\u2019t mean it?\u201d And the disciples kind of hunch down a little and avoid eye contact.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s Jesus.<\/p>\n

Yeah, he probably means it.<\/p>\n

(pause)<\/p>\n

Last Sunday, six adults and two youths got up in front of this congregation and pledged to stand with us as members. Right now, as I\u2019m looking out at our mostly-empty church and those bright, enthusiastic new members filling a few pews, I empathize with James\u2019 sense of, \u201cReally? Did we have to get into this right now?\u201d Couldn\u2019t we kind of draw the new people in a little bit \u2013 give \u2018em a little soap, a little smile \u2013 and maybe we could hit \u2018em with the heavy stuff later? Bit by bit\u2026?<\/p>\n

But no. Jesus speaks to us as urgently this morning as he did to James and the crowd all those centuries ago: NOW is the time. It is, indeed, later than we think.<\/p>\n

Robin Meyers in his extraordinary book, \u201cSaving Jesus from the Church,\u201d writes about how the typical Christian church woos visitors, the perfect soft-soap-sell from Marketing 101:<\/p>\n

\u201cPerhaps this is the church you\u2019ve been looking for. Here are the services we provide (in an attractive physical package); and if you will tell us something about your needs, then maybe we can arrive at a mutual decision as to compatibility.\u201d<\/p>\n

Meyers says it reminds him of that familiar airline script: \u201cWe know that when it comes to church attendance, you have a choice, and we appreciate your choosing (insert church name) flight. It\u2019s been a pleasure serving you today; and when your future plans call for collective worship, we hope to see you again on another (insert church name) flight.\u201d<\/p>\n

And he goes on \u2013 I love this:<\/p>\n

Just once I wish the script could be real. What if we warned people against joining a church because turbulence in the pews is not \u201coccasional and unexpected,\u201d but routine? What if more sermons could move beyond what pilots call \u201clight chop\u201d and more preachers would fly people right into the storm, instead of around it in search of \u201csmooth air\u201d? What if those oxygen masks dropped down almost every Sunday and people had to grab them gasping, instead of hearing the standard rhetorical charade that advises otherwise terrified people to \u201ccontinue breathing normally.<\/p>\n

(to Linda Jacobs) Linda, he says we should leave our hats at home, that we should be wearing crash helmets to church. Ushers should issue life preservers and signal flares at the doors; they should lash us to our pews.<\/p>\n

\u201cDoes anyone,\u201d he asks, \u201chave the foggiest idea what sort of power we so blithely invoke?\u201d<\/p>\n

Jesus knew. And Jesus knew that to touch that power, we absolutely must strip away everything that gets in the way. Everything we own, everything we are must be tested by fire and love, sanctified, and made a whole part of our journey with God. If it\u2019s not helping, it goes. All of it. No exceptions.<\/p>\n

Clarence Payne got up at John Claude\u2019s baptism two weeks ago and talked about the difference between holy water and tap water. Holy water has purpose; it is poured out, it is treated with reverence and care. It is water that has been radically changed by holy words with holy intent.<\/p>\n

Like us. We are holy. Our very bodies invoke God\u2019s holy power.<\/p>\n

And all that we may take with us on this wild flight is our radical faith in God \u2013 and each other. Note that while Jesus decimates what for most of us constitutes a full life of family relationships and homes and possessions, he doesn\u2019t mention his friends. Look at the list: \u201cYou must hate your father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters\u2026possessions, life itself\u2026\u201d Nowhere \u2013 in any scripture ever, actually \u2013 does he say, \u201cYou must hate your friends\u201d or \u201cGo alone and take no one with you.\u201d In fact, to the contrary; he considered friendships and colleagues to be an essential part of the journey. In John 15:13, he elevates friendship to an even higher plane: \u201cGreater love has no one than this, that he lay down his life for his friends.\u201d<\/p>\n

So if even Jesus wouldn\u2019t go it alone, we won\u2019t either. He has set before us an all-but-impossible task, a truly hard and glorious thing. To do it, we must stick together. We need each other — for comfort, for correction, for care, for love, and because Jesus never imagined that the Kingdom of God would be all sacrifice and deprivation. There must be joy in it, too \u2013 the best kind of joy that we find in and with each other.<\/p>\n

This IS the transformative Good News, the \u201cHe can\u2019t really mean it\u201d message that flies in the face of every physical and emotional craving we ever tried to satisfy with the perfect soap, the perfect car, the perfect spouse, the perfect children, the perfect church. The perfect is only possible when we sweep away the rest. \u201cI came that they may have life and have it abundantly.\u201d<\/p>\n

So welcome to the Balboa Union Church. Fasten your seatbelts.
\nLuke 14:25-33
\n14:25 Now large crowds were traveling with him; and he turned and said to them,<\/p>\n

14:26 \u00abWhoever comes to me and does not hate father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters, yes, and even life itself, cannot be my disciple.<\/p>\n

14:27 Whoever does not carry the cross and follow me cannot be my disciple.<\/p>\n

14:28 For which of you, intending to build a tower, does not first sit down and estimate the cost, to see whether he has enough to complete it?<\/p>\n

14:29 Otherwise, when he has laid a foundation and is not able to finish, all who see it will begin to ridicule him,<\/p>\n

14:30 saying, ‘This fellow began to build and was not able to finish.’<\/p>\n

14:31 Or what king, going out to wage war against another king, will not sit down first and consider whether he is able with ten thousand to oppose the one who comes against him with twenty thousand?<\/p>\n

14:32 If he cannot, then, while the other is still far away, he sends a delegation and asks for the terms of peace.<\/p>\n

14:33 So therefore, none of you can become my disciple if you do not give up all your possessions<\/p>\n

September 5\/2010<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

JESUS COULDN\u2019T SELL SOAP Sue Robbins The story of Jesus is intriguing to me on so many levels. But one of the things I find MOST interesting is how he did and said absolutely everything NOT to be famous, NOT to start a religion, NOT to be one of the central figures of humankind. Ask…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":1550,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","ctc_sermon_topic":[],"ctc_sermon_book":[114,63],"ctc_sermon_series":[],"ctc_sermon_speaker":[64],"ctc_sermon_tag":[9,115,40],"class_list":["post-1039","ctc_sermon","type-ctc_sermon","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","ctc_sermon_book-john","ctc_sermon_book-luke","ctc_sermon_speaker-sue-robbins","ctc_sermon_tag-faith","ctc_sermon_tag-joy","ctc_sermon_tag-love","ctfw-has-image"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/balboaunionchurch.org\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/ctc_sermon\/1039","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/balboaunionchurch.org\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/ctc_sermon"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/balboaunionchurch.org\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/ctc_sermon"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/balboaunionchurch.org\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/balboaunionchurch.org\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1039"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"http:\/\/balboaunionchurch.org\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/ctc_sermon\/1039\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1737,"href":"http:\/\/balboaunionchurch.org\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/ctc_sermon\/1039\/revisions\/1737"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/balboaunionchurch.org\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1550"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/balboaunionchurch.org\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1039"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"ctc_sermon_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/balboaunionchurch.org\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/ctc_sermon_topic?post=1039"},{"taxonomy":"ctc_sermon_book","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/balboaunionchurch.org\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/ctc_sermon_book?post=1039"},{"taxonomy":"ctc_sermon_series","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/balboaunionchurch.org\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/ctc_sermon_series?post=1039"},{"taxonomy":"ctc_sermon_speaker","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/balboaunionchurch.org\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/ctc_sermon_speaker?post=1039"},{"taxonomy":"ctc_sermon_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/balboaunionchurch.org\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/ctc_sermon_tag?post=1039"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}