This morning my son, Daniel, was baptized. I am thankful that I participated as a parent and not as a pastor for this special event. I would have been overwhelmed by my emotions if I had placed my hand in the font and poured the water on Daniel’s head. To have Patricia and Jill and my father-in-law Tom perform this sacrament allowed me to experience it from a different perspective. Yet, no matter what role I play in a baptism, I always feel the presence of God in this ancient rite of the Church. It is an awesome moment as the one being baptized, whether as a child or a youth at confirmation or an adult, enters a new life in Christ. Baptism is a gift from God, a means of grace that occurs only once and changes our lives forever.

Along with the joy of baptism come the expectations placed upon us, both as parents and as a congregation. Patricia asked Tania and myself if we “confessed Jesus Christ as our savior, putting our whole trust in his grace and promising to serve him as our Lord?” And she then asked if each of you, “as Christ’s body, the church reaffirm…your commitment to Christ?” We probably answer “I do” to those questions each time without truly reflecting upon what we have just agreed to do. Do we really put our whole trust in Jesus Christ?

The story of the rich man asking Jesus what he must do to enter the Kingdom of God is about those big expectations (Mark 10:17-22). When Jesus instructs him to follow the commandments in the Torah, the rich man must be feeling pretty good, for he apparently has followed them all of his life. But I empathize with him when Jesus makes one last request: “Go, sell what you own, and give the money to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; then come, follow me” (Mark 10:21). Now the bar has been raised. I would be shocked and speechless too if were that man. Here he is thinking he had done everything he needed to do to make the cut. But what happens? Jesus adds a new, radical requirement to leave everything behind and follow him.

The gospel may mean good news, but it can also be very hard news. If it were up to us, we probably would soften the message a little bit; make it a little more marketable to the masses. I found a different version of this story on one of my favorite websites: Ship-of-Fools.com. This is from a posting on one of the website’s bulletin boards entitled “Parables That Didn’t Make The Grade”. Now to understand this new version of the parable, you need to be familiar with the Magic 8-Ball. Many of you have probably owned a Magic 8-Ball in your life. You ask a question, shake the ball, and wait for an answer to appear in the window. Here is the revised version of the rich man parable:

If we could only jiggle the Magic–8 Ball for the answer we want rather than the one Jesus demands, then being followers of Christ would not be so difficult. I bet you that Peter and the other disciples wish they had a Magic 8-Ball in their day. They also experienced the frustration of trying to meet such difficult demands. After Peter heard Jesus tell the story of the rich man, he responded in a way that most of us would understand: “Look, we have left everything and followed you” (Mark 10:28). I can just picture Peter holding up his hands and pleading with Jesus to give them a break, the other disciples nodding in silence behind him. Haven’t we done enough already, Lord? Haven’t we left our jobs, our homes, and our families and followed you around the countryside? What else do you want us to do?

But Jesus cuts Peter off and tells his followers that the reward for such sacrifice is to come, both in this age and the age to come:

Yet even here, Jesus makes it clear that those who follow him will suffer the harsh realities of discipleship (persecutions). This is not the easy road, but it is the road that leads to true meaning in our lives. The hard news of the gospel is that there are a lot of sacrifices to be made if one is to be a Christian. Turn the other cheek (Matt 5:38). Love your enemies (Matt 5:44). Pray for those who persecute you (Matt 5:44). This ethic that Jesus teaches us is counter to all of our natural inclinations, yet they are the demands of Christian discipleship. Haven’t we done enough already, Lord?

Dietrich Bonhoeffer, the German pastor and theologian who actively resisted Hitler in World War II, knew first-hand how difficult it was to be a true disciple of Christ. He witnessed the Nazi government’s systematic takeover of all aspects of German life, including the church. He spoke out publicly against the Reich Church and became one of the leaders of the new Confessing Church that opposed Nazism. Ultimately, his choice to actively participate in the plots to assassinate Hitler in an effort to stop the war led to his execution at the age of 39 in a concentration camp.

It was in this context that Bonhoeffer wrote his most famous work entitled Discipleship. In his attempt to distinguish between the true and the false church, Bonhoeffer makes a distinction between cheap grace and costly grace. “Cheap grace is the mortal enemy of our church,” he wrote. “Our struggle today is for costly grace.” Bonhoeffer makes it clear that a choice has to be made. The true body of Christ is the one that requires costly grace, not cheap grace. But how can you tell the difference between the two? Listen to how Bonhoeffer describes the difference:

To call ourselves disciples of Christ requires a costly grace. Costly grace means taking action in the name of social justice for the poor and oppressed. Costly grace means taking unpopular positions on issues that affect our common lives. Costly grace means taking risks for the sake of others.

The symbol that Bonhoeffer uses over and over for costly grace is the cross. In the cross we witness God’s own son suffering the penalty of death for proclaiming the arrival of a new kingdom ruled by God. In such a cross we find our own personal suffering and sins. In the cross we find death and despair. Yet in that same cross we find life. Because of God’s costly grace, we are given the opportunity to experience new life in Christ. In the cross we are given the chance to repent of our sins and receive God’s mercy and forgiveness. In the cross we find hope that good will overcome evil not only in the future, but now, in this world that we live.

This past summer I returned to New York City for the first time since our family moved to Santa Monica three and one-half years ago. Most of you know that before I entered the ordained ministry as my vocation, I was a corporate banker. The office in which I worked at the corner of Wall Street & Broadway is only two blocks from the site of the World Trade Center, better known now as Ground Zero. I know the area well, for this was where I worked with thousands of other people every day for four years. This was my first opportunity to see the destruction that took place on September 11, 2001.

I had two reactions when I saw the site. First, I noticed the emptiness, the tremendous space that had been opened up in downtown Manhattan. Sunlight now flooded the area, previously blocked out by the huge mass of the twin towers. I saw buildings surrounding the site that I had never noticed before. There was a gaping, 16-acre hole that descended seven stories down into the ground, and it dominates every view. I thought of the suffering and death of three thousand people, the huge pile of twisted steel and ash and smoke that filled the air.

Then I had another reaction. I noticed how much the pit no longer contained the acres of rubble and mud. The air was clean and clear. New concrete and steel foundations have been poured. A complex of new buildings has been planned and something new will rise from this destruction, and it has only been two years. I felt a sense of hope, the promise of new life, life-conquering death.

As I looked down at one end of the site, I saw the cross. You may remember the cross I am talking about. During the clean up of the site, workers found two steel beams joined together in the wreckage in the form of a cross. On one arm of the cross is a large, shiny piece of metal that was melted onto the steel by the fires of 9/11. The cross now stands high in the air, mounted on a large concrete pedestal erected by the construction workers.

In that cross is both death and life. In that cross is both darkness and light. In that cross is both despair and hope. It embodies both our sufferings and our healing. It symbolizes the costly grace of discipleship that we are called to accept as Christians.

Is it all so hard and difficult…costly grace, the cross, Christian discipleship? If so, why are we happy about being baptized into such a difficult way of living? Remember that Jesus tells his disciples that if they follow, they will receive a hundredfold houses and brothers and sisters and mothers and children in this age. You could interpret that literally and say great riches and large families awaited the disciples at the end of the road. However, I think Jesus is talking about a larger truth. I think he is talking about the church, the community of faith that gathers together to make the Kingdom of God a reality. The church that is based on costly grace continues the work of Christ in our lives and beyond. It is going beyond ourselves for the sake of others, and in the process we discover our true selves. In a world where so many are searching for meaning in their lives, this is what we can offer. The price of discipleship is very high, but so are the rewards.

Amen

Notes:

(1) From The Baptismal Covenant II in The United Methodist Hymnal (Nashville: The United Methodist Publishing House, 1989), 40. Ibid.

(2) From the website Ship-of-Fools.com, a posting dated September 23, 2003 by ‘St. Cuervo’ of Berkeley, CA.

(3) For an overview of Bonhoeffer’s life, see Renate Wind’s Dietrich Bonhoeffer: A Spoke in the Wheel, trans. John Bowden (Grand Rapids: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 1992). Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Discipleship, eds. Geffrey B. Kelly and John D. Godsey, trans. Barbara Green and Reinhard Krauss, Dietrich Bonhoeffer Works, Vol. 4 (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2001), 43. Ibid., 44-45.