THE COST OF DISCIPLESHIP

Luke 14:25-33

In today’s gospel Jesus, spells out the cost of discipleship. He gives three conditions to be a disciple: 1) hate your parents and relatives, 2) bear your own cross 3) renounce all that you have. Is Jesus negating the 4^th commandment: “Honor your father and your mother”? Is he contradicting his own commandment to “love the neighbor as you love yourself”? It is good to note that Jesus, wanting to stress a more radical response to his invitation, expresses this point in a very strong way. Thus, the statement of Jesus is just another way of saying one must love Christ more than one’s father and mother. To be a Christian, to be a disciple means to put Christ in the center of our lives.

The first condition is that we should never love our relatives or ourselves more than Him. We should not allow other people prevent us from discipleship. On the second condition, to “bear one’s own cross” means to be willing to suffer for the sake of Jesus. On the third condition, Jesus is saying to not allow the accumulation and possession of things to come between us and God.

Jesus warns us today to be fully aware of what we are actually following or doing, and to do it freely in a way that nobody even members of our families could hinder it. So, I thing the word ‘hate’ does not mean a human feeling; it means a deliberate and mature decision. And I believe that it is only in this way that discipleship would really become a communion with Jesus.

This requires first commitment because there are many good things (family members, wealth). But in life the important thing is to choose which is number one and commit yourself to it. Second, it requires perseverance, knowing that glory is not in the beginning, it is in finishing whatever we have to do. We may not be the first prize runner, but what matters is to finish the race through perseverance.