Brief synopsis of the readings: Here Jesus is telling his disciples that they have to hate their family and themselves and carry their cross to be his disciple. He goes on to say that before starting a job or going to war, you should make sure you can complete the job or win the battle, let you become a laughingstock.

This is one of those times I’m grateful I’m not a fundamentalist. If we believe that everything Jesus says in the Gospels is literally true and all his words carry the same weight, we would have to believe that Jesus is telling us to love our enemies and hate our family.

Much of the gospel appears to tell us we shouldn’t start something we can’t finish, because if we do, people will laugh at us. Good advice, but does it really stop there? Like last week, we don’t normally turn to Scripture for advice that is obvious.

Perhaps the message here is that we need to be fully committed if we want to be disciples. I’m generally uncomfortable with saying “Well, Jesus didn’t really mean exactly that” because it makes it too easy to water down his message. But I think we can all see his demand that we hate ourselves and our family as a bit of hyperbole.

I believe that Jesus is overstating his message to focus on the fact that we need to be fully committed to his teachings and the call to proclaim his Kingdom. At any given time all of us are pulled in several directions and we all serve many masters: our needs, our families, our careers, our peer group, even our carpool.

But if God is our supreme master and discipleship is our main purpose, this needs to be out in front and there is no room for second place. Jesus’ harsh and unbending words here point us to the hard truth that this path of discipleship is not for the weak or those who are half committed. In the course of his ministry Jesus was constantly battling his disciples who misunderstand his message.

Jesus was far from the only person proclaiming himself the Messiah at that time, and ever since, but we believe he was the only true one. To be a follower of Jesus carries with it the nearly irresistible desire to get a high place at the table. “Remember me? I was with you since the beginning. I’m way better than those who came later.” It is to these people that Jesus says “you must carry your cross and follow me.”

Crucifixion is so far removed from our experience that it’s hard to fully grasp the horror of this statement. We sometimes use the phrase “carry our cross” as a metaphor for shouldering our responsibilities. But those who carried their cross during the time of Jesus were going down a horrible road. The Romans used crucifixion not as a simple method of execution: it was reserved for those who tried to overthrow the empire and they were tortured to death to show what happens to zealots. We see that this happens to Jesus, and while we don’t have a great deal of evidence, we believe that many of his disciples faced the same fate.

Today there is no chance we will face this horrible end, and let’s face it: we live in a place where being called a Christian is often a synonym for being a good person. So what are we to do with this gospel?

Perhaps our message today is found in that very advice not to start something we don’t know we can finish. Or to quote the philosopher Yoda: “Do or do not. There is no try.”

There are certainly good reasons for trying something that may not end in success. If we always play it safe we will almost certainly not reach our full potential. Sometimes we have to be willing to fail to see how much we can do.

On the other hand, though, sometimes we can use that word “try” as a way to make a limited attempt. How often have we seen someone (or let’s be honest, ourselves) attempt something we really didn’t want to do, do a halfhearted job, quit, and say “Well, I tried” knowing nobody is going to blame us.

Several years ago I worked with the Salvation Army. We worked with a population of teen girls who were either pregnant or raising a child as a single parent. They came from the foster care system or juvenile hall. It was a tough job, much more for them than for me. We were teaching them how to take responsibility for another person when often they were still learning how to take care of themselves. One of the jobs that they absolutely hated was cleaning their room before going to school because they knew that someone like me was going to do a room inspection when they left. There was one girl in particular who probably had never made a bed in her life and swore to me that she was never going to pass room inspection. We worked hard with her, and she with us, to break it down to smaller jobs (first you tuck in the sheets, then the blankets, etc.). After making her bed she had to put everything away in her closet, and on like that. I have to confess that I started to wonder if she really ever would learn this stuff. Then one day, after she had gone to school, I went into her room…and it was passable. I was so stunned I got one of my coworkers to come and inspect it too. She passed. When she came back from school I told she passed and she was elated. Then I brought her back to reality by saying: “You do realize that you can never again tell me you can’t do this. I have proof you can.” She then muttered something about how life was easier when she was convincing me that she couldn’t. There was no try; there was only do. I don’t know where she is now, but I hope she’s still making her bed.

Jesus calls us to something that we all think we can’t do. He calls us to treat the last like they are first, to recognize everyone around us as the same precious child of God we see ourselves. In an odd sort of way, we can sometimes do what the early disciples did: Because there are few risks to being a Christian, at least here, we can try to trade our discipleship for fame, or at least popularity. If being a Christian has gone from being the last to now being the first, we are not absolved of our obligation to care for the last. If anything our obligation has increased because we have become the first.

I’m grateful for my time working with teen mothers because they had to learn as teenagers the things I had the opportunity to learn years earlier. I had the good fortune to grow up in a family where we all had to make our beds and clean our rooms. It may not have been fun, but at least I knew how to do it. Only because of that was I able to teach it to someone who had not been as fortunate.

We don’t have to look hard at those who are last in our world. They are the poor, the undocumented, the invisible. They are the lonely, the abandoned, the marginalized. They are us.

And if your family isn’t Christian, please assure them that Jesus isn’t saying that you have to hate them.