THE COST OF BEING FAITHFUL

Dr. Richard J. Henderson June 22, 2008

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Psalm 86:1-10 (responsive)
Matthew 10:24-39

Introduction

How many times have you heard it said, "We just want our child to be happy"? Unfortunately, we often hear it as an answer when kids are not doing what their parents want them to. "I know, but we just want him to be happy." A young child is running wild, disregarding the other children around him. The parents' response is "He's happy. We just want him to be happy."

Sometime kids do the most irresponsible things and the parents' response is "But we just want them to be happy."

I

Don't you wonder why we chose happiness as the standard? I mean, why don't we say, "We just want our kids to be content?" That would be laudable. Or we could say, "We just want our child to learn responsibility." What parent doesn't want that? Why do we think of happiness as the ultimate goal?

As Christians it might make more sense to say, "We just want our kids to be faithful." What would be involved in wanting faithfulness for our kids? For one, I suppose we would put Christian worship and education as a higher priority than soccer or dance lessons. We would be most concerned that they knew the love of God in their lives. Maybe we would help them understand the Sermon on the Mount by the time they reached fourth grade.

Some learning about faithfulness would put us and our children at risk. A university chaplain said one time that the frantic calls he got from parents were not, "Help, my son is a sophomore and I'm worried that he is sexually promiscuous," or "Help, I think my daughter might be abusing alcohol or drugs!" but it was instead, "Help, I sent my child to the university to be a success and he has become a religious fanatic!" The chaplain said by fanatic they meant that he was going with a church group to teach reading in Haiti. Success trumps faithfulness.

There is risk involved with faithfulness. Going off to Haiti isn't the safest thing to do. There is some danger involved. But God doesn't call us to be safe; God calls us to be faithful.

Some parents can block us from being happy, at least for a while. And some parents can block us from learning faithfulness, by not showing us the meaning life can have. We parents can keep our children from faithfulness by not showing them that there are some things worth living for..and worth dying for.

II

There is a cost to discipleship. If you take the Christian faith seriously, some people will think you are a "religious fanatic," or at least a little odd, or no fun, or a spoilsport.

For some young Christians being faithful means going on a spring mission trip rather than the traditional Spring Break. Faithfulness makes us think of other people, not just ourselves. So now we don't just do what we feel like doing, but do what Jesus teaches us to do.

A Methodist bishop called to talk with a pastor whom he had sent to a church that paid $7000 less than the church where he had been. The pastor said to the bishop, "You don't have to apologize to me for sending me to a position that means a pay cut. I came into the ministry from a $100,000 job with an oil company. There's nothing you can do to hurt me as bad economically as when Jesus called me to go to seminary and become a preacher."

There is a cost to following Jesus. Sometimes it is economic. Sometimes it means taking risks. Often it is making difficult choices.

III

Our gospel reading today is one of the most difficult things Jesus said. He talks of setting a father against his son, a daughter against her mother. Your foes will be the member's of your own household. His words show the cost that early Christians had to pay for their faith.

Families in Jesus' day were very important. A great deal was involved with the family - a person's sense of honor, the love and care of parents and siblings. When someone decided to follow Jesus, often their family disowned them.

Christians were considered renegades, if not heretics, by traditional Jews, so that those who went to follow Jesus were often ostracized by their families. Frequently family members would not speak to them again. The decision to follow Jesus had huge repercussions. It often meant saying good-bye to their families for good. A Christian had to make extremely difficult choices in following Jesus.

IV

There is no direct road to happiness - it is always found on the way to something else. If we set out to be happy we will almost certainly fail. Happiness is a byproduct of living for something worthwhile, of being content, and of living well. Happiness is not a goal; it's the end result that comes from what we are doing with our lives.

To set out with the idea that we want to give our children happiness is futile. It's not like we can leave it to them in our wills. They will only find happiness by finding something worthwhile to live for, by being content with enough, by giving their lives for other people. For genuine happiness there is usually a cost involved.

Conclusion

The guest speaker was a South African leader who had been a key figure in bringing an end to apartheid and freedom to his land. He was an ordained Christian minister. After his inspiring speech he answered questions from the audience. A university student asked how his family got along while he was doing all the work he did, and did he worry that he was putting not only his own life in danger, but those of his family as well?

The speaker answered that his family had paid a high price, and that he asked for the forgiveness of his wife and each of his four children for being away from home so much. He said that his heart ached when he heard that one of his children had received a death threat.

As grown adults now, all four children agreed that it was worth all the cost to have helped bring about such great changes - to help in bringing freedom. Life wasn't easy for them, but they learned the importance of having a faith they could live for...and a faith they were willing to die for.

Amen

Special thanks to L. Gregory Jones for inspiration for this sermon, especially in his article, "Our Children's Happiness," in the Christian Century, May 19-22, 1999, and to William Willimon in "Disruption," Pulpit Resource Vol. 36, No. 2.

© Richard J. Henderson 2008