Deuteronomy 30:15-20; Luke 14:25-33

This passage in Luke 14 begins with Jesus delivering a seriously troubling description of discipleship. “Hate your family” and “Carry your cross”? Yikes. Before you run for the hills, remember that this is the same Jesus who said, “I came that they may have life, and have it abundantly” (John 10:10). Who sat down to dinner with people that the religious show-offs thought were unsavory. Who welcomed outcasts, healed the sick; who said loving your neighbor was more important than anything else, which would include your neighbor who’s a family member. Somehow, this passage must be consistent with that Jesus.

We need to figure out what “carry your cross” means before we can make sense of “Whoever does not carry the cross and follow me cannot be my disciple” (Luke 14:27). Do you assume that maybe there’s one “correct” answer? Were you taught growing up, or maybe you absorbed it in a long life of singing old hymns, that the cross has something to do with suffering and forgiveness of sins? Have you ever wondered what the cross meant for Luke? For Matthew? For Mark or John? For Paul? The New Testament doesn’t have a uniform answer to that question. There is no one correct biblical answer.; it’s a conversation.

What Luke brings to that conversation is an exceptional concern for the poor and marginalized, and a tender heart for the outcast and the forsaken. So, for Luke, “carry your cross” could mean to carry the ministry of Jesus forward by seeing those whom the world overlooks. It could mean favoring the marginalized, even when it might lead to your own discomfort.

In my NRSV version of the Bible, the bold heading before this passage is “The Cost of Discipleship.” But is it really a cost? Or is it a choice? The verses from Deuteronomy come from a long speech Moses delivers to the people Israel after giving them the law, part of the covenant between God and God’s people. Moses explains that they have in front of them two paths: life and prosperity, or death and adversity. If they choose the path of following God’s law, treating each other fairly, welcoming the stranger and caring for the needy, and loving your neighbor as yourself (Leviticus 19:18), then the people will thrive. Imagine, for a moment, a society that makes that choice; imagine a society that chooses kindness, fairness, civility, and generosity. It’s true that the Hebrew Scriptures also include some ancient Middle Eastern rules that are odd or even repugnant to us today. But Jesus pointed out that what it all boils down to is “Love God and love your neighbor as yourself. Do this and live,” he said (Luke 10:28). So, Moses says that if the people choose a different path, a path of ignoring these basic rules of human fairness and kindness, they will perish. “Perish” might sound like a threat of divine punishment, but it’s just logical consequences. If you don’t live in harmony and fairness with the people you encounter, the consequence is discord, enmity, strife, and violence. If you don’t care for the needy, you’ll find yourself hunkering down to protect your stuff because you’re afraid someone will try to take it from you. If you don’t take care of the earth that is our home, it won’t take care of us. Consequences. God says, “I have set before you life and death, blessings and curses. Choose life so that you and your descendants may live.”

Choose life. If we think of our faith as being primarily about what it costs, about what we give up, what we sacrifice, then we’re forgetting that life – all of life – is full of choices that cost us. We’re limited beings and very often when we choose one path it means we have to give up another path. Parenthood, marriage, careers, education – anything that takes commitment and effort has a cost. But that isn’t why we choose them, is it? Even when we know our choice will impact our lives in huge and unforeseen ways, even when we know there will be a “cost,” what we’re more likely to feel when we take the job, embark on the marriage, or extend ourselves in generosity is joy and gratitude, a sense of rightness, or in Christian terms, a sense of calling.

That is what the cross means here in Luke. One commentator writes, “The cross is not unique but representative of what life is. To carry your cross is to carry the choices and burdens and realities of a life that has made a certain commitment – a commitment to a way of life that is committed to bringing about the Kingdom of God here and now. That’s certainly what it meant for Jesus.”

What about the hating your family thing? Is Jesus ignoring “Honor thy father and thy mother,” one of the Ten Commandments (Deuteronomy 5:16, Exodus 20:12)? I’ve known a number of people who had to choose between a relationship with a family member and their own integrity or well-being. For Luke’s audience, following Jesus would have put family relationships at risk. And so even here, Jesus is saying, choose life; choose what will bring life, wholeness, shalom, to you and to the whole world.

What a different way of being it is if we think of the cross as a way of choosing life, rather than fixating on death. This isn’t to say Jesus’ death doesn’t matter. It’s encourages a conversation about why it matters. Maybe it matters for Luke because the cross was Jesus standing up to empire, resisting the powers that dominate, oppress, and enslave.

I quoted Barbara Ehrenreich on August 10, and I am drawn to her wisdom again. She was asked in an interview what she would give up to live in a more human world. She answered, “I think we shouldn’t think of what we would give up to have a more human world; we should think of what we would gain.”

Choose life.

© Joanne Whitt 2025 all rights reserved.

Resources:
Karoline Lewis, “Carrying the Cross,” August 28, 2016,
http://www.workingpreacher.org/craft.aspx?post=4706.