Familiarity breeds contempt.
When you are constantly exposed to something, you become so de-sensitized to it that it loses its impact. It could be violence on TV, news about war, racism, or Manchester United doing badly.
The same applies for the truth about Jesus. Often the hardest people to speak to about Christianity are those who have grown up surrounded by it.
Jesus often experienced the same challenge when speaking to people from religious backgrounds.
The Pharisees were the religious elite of the day. They prided themselves in being good and keeping the rules. They were very familiar with the Old Testament in the Bible. But they ended up rejecting Jesus, the one the Old Testament points us to.
Jesus told them a story of a Homeowner hosting a banquet in Luke 14:15-35. In the Old Testament, the Kingdom of God was pictured as a great banquet with God himself as the host. (cf. Isaiah 25)
In the Middle East, at the time of Jesus, guests were at times invited to banquets. On the day of the banquet the host would send his servants to say that the food was now ready and to come quickly. To accept the initial invite and then to decline the later summons was extremely bad manners. And yet this is what the original invitees had done.
But they all alike began to make excuses. The first said to him, ‘I have bought a field, and I must go out and see it. Please have me excused.’ And another said, ‘I have bought five yoke of oxen, and I go to examine them. Please have me excused.’ And another said, ‘I have married a wife, and therefore I cannot come.’ (Luke 14:18-20)
Other priorities had surfaced and became top priority.
Security
We see the priority of security. The first person had bought himself a field, a property, some land.
Owning land, or property, or a stock-portfolio may give us a sense of security. I don’t need God because I have a field, land, property, a stock portfolio, a pension fund.
We are tempted to find our security in those things.
Self-worth
The second person had bought five yoke of oxen.
Oxen ploughed the fields. Oxen picture work, money, business and profit. Many people find their self-worth in their work or in in their wealth. These take priority over the banquet because these become my first allegiance and top priority. My sense of self-worth can be directly proportional to my bank balance. Money becomes my master.
Significance
The third person has just got married and this illustrates family and relationships which are good gifts from God. But this person finds their significance in these things, not in God. In fact, they prevent this person from following Jesus.
Aren’t these excuses quite revealing?
Jesus tells us that people turn their backs on the Kingdom of God by using all sorts of excuses. Other priorities take over. At first these people are keen, but something or someone steals their allegiance.
Note that the problem is not with the banquet, but with the people themselves.
No doubt, the Pharisees must have been getting quite angry at this point as they knew Jesus was speaking about them. They were so familiar with the Bible, yet it bred contempt, and they turned their backs on the King of God’s Kingdom.
Cost
Jesus ended the story and addressed the great crowd following him. The crowd was made up of all sorts of people and would-be disciples. He instructed them (and us) on the cost of following him, rather than making excuses.
v26 “If anyone comes to me and does not hate his own father and mother and wife and children and brothers and sisters, yes, and even his own life, he cannot be my disciple.
Family is a good gift from God. The Bible says that if we do not care for our family, we are worse than unbelievers. (1 Timothy 5:8) The 5th Commandment is to honour our father and mother. We ought to love and care for our families.
However, in the 1st century Jewish context, following Jesus probably meant that your family disowned you. In the 1st century, if you cherished your family above all else, you would never follow Jesus.
Therefore, if you desired to follow Jesus, you would have to put your devotion to Jesus above your devotion to your family. Compared to your devotion to Jesus, the love for your family would seem like hate.
In fact, at the end of the v26, Jesus calls us to hate our own life. What he means is not that we self-harm ourselves, but that our allegiance changes from our families, and even from our own selves, to Jesus. I can no longer run my own life, I submit to real King.
V27 explains this more.
Execution
In the 1st century, if you saw anyone bearing a cross, you knew they would die soon. They were on their way to be executed. They no longer controlled their own destiny, and their life was in the hands of another.
v27 Whoever does not bear his own cross and come after me cannot be my disciple.
As a consequence, there can be no casual devotion in Christianity. There is no such thing as a part-time Christian. To be a Christian you must die to self, metaphorically execute yourself, and live for Jesus. Casual Christianity is not Christianity. Those casually following Jesus are in fact not following Jesus.
V33 is the conclusion.
V33 So therefore, any one of you who does not renounce all that he has cannot be my disciple.
You and I must be willing to reject and surrender anything and everything in order to follow Jesus because in the Kingdom of God there can be no ad hoc adherence.
Why? Is God possibly a narcissistic megalomaniac?
No. It’s because if you are not putting Jesus first, you are putting something else first. And Jesus said you cannot serve two masters.
Who or what do you give your allegiance to? What takes priority? Your boyfriend or girlfriend? Your company? Your own desire for wealth, popularity or an easy life?
Or do your give your highest devotion to the One who is able to give ultimate security, self-worth and significance? The One who is worthy of all allegiance, the Lord Jesus Christ.
You will soon discover that putting Jesus first is the very best thing you could ever do.