A 'realistic battlefield assessment' Luke 14:31-33
Merry Vole
Shipmate
in Kerygmania
Luke 14:31-33
New International Version
31 “Or suppose a king is about to go to war against another king. Won’t he first sit down and consider whether he is able with ten thousand men to oppose the one coming against him with twenty thousand? 32 If he is not able, he will send a delegation while the other is still a long way off and will ask for terms of peace. 33 In the same way, those of you who do not give up everything you have cannot be my disciples.
War is costly -so is choosing to follow Jesus. Is the cost too high? For a military leader in the time of Jesus, defeat on the battlefield might result in humility, torture or even death. So appeasement might be 'Common Sense' (as the current POTUS might say).
I know this is about the cost of being a disciple -but Jesus chose this analogy. And I've never heard anyone preach on the passage.
New International Version
31 “Or suppose a king is about to go to war against another king. Won’t he first sit down and consider whether he is able with ten thousand men to oppose the one coming against him with twenty thousand? 32 If he is not able, he will send a delegation while the other is still a long way off and will ask for terms of peace. 33 In the same way, those of you who do not give up everything you have cannot be my disciples.
War is costly -so is choosing to follow Jesus. Is the cost too high? For a military leader in the time of Jesus, defeat on the battlefield might result in humility, torture or even death. So appeasement might be 'Common Sense' (as the current POTUS might say).
I know this is about the cost of being a disciple -but Jesus chose this analogy. And I've never heard anyone preach on the passage.
Comments
Though maybe THAT is the point--to force you into seeing that. I don't know.
* I'm thinking of the passages that say things like "Whoever tries to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses it for my sake and the Gospel will save it for eternal life." Jesus doesn't ever seem to envision a happy ending for anybody who hears the call to discipleship and says, "Thanks, but no thanks."
Make of that what you will.
I'm wondering whether there's something in Jesus' analogy about 'asking for terms of peace' being something to do with me/us seeking peace with God because we realise that we can't go on opposing Him and His will for our lives?
It hit me hard. I recall a link to a similar teaching in Hebrews was made (?), so, while people may disagree with his interpretation, it didn't come from nowhere.
But that is not the end of the story. There is the resurrection and Peter is restored.
So maybe this teaching falls into that category. Like: "let me bury my father first" - "Let the dead bury their own dead". Or "camel through the eye of the needle". Jesus sets what is by human standards an impossibly high bar. We will fail to meet the bar. But that is not the end of the story.
It's so easy for me to see what is meant.
Surrender! Surrender, surrender, surrender.
After I lost what I thought was everything, and was living on faith and fumes in a basement on a borrowed mattress; when even what remained, my precious family, that too was required; still I lived on in love and in the faith of the goodness of my life even if it was the hardest thing to justify.
It's easy to point to God and Christ and say "Praise Him!" when the world looks at you and envies your influence, affluence, contentment and success.
I had nothing, and what I had was stripped from me "untimely" - as I experienced it - I could have ended it then and there, and that impulse was mighty. Yet here I am, fully surrendered to the fact that my life still requires my participation, and with the profound conviction that the best is still yet to come, because the Christ still lives and moves in some corner of my consciousness and I am completely subordinate to that.
Resistance is futile. Life wins. Love wins. Christ wins.
AFF
While I am not at the state you were, this past year has been a shitshow to put it mildly. Much of my own making, not attributing this same cause to you/others, we all have our passions/unhelpful behaviours, but some external I think also. Luke as a physician, reflecting His Master as a term in our hymns/prayers is "Christ the Physician of our souls and bodies", was helpful. As was your sharing. God bless.
He has left these things for a while, but not utterly renounced them. Jesus hasn’t asked him to. Peter knows he may have to go further with the actual losses in the future (indeed, to the point of martyrdom), but the “we have left everything” out of his mouth is either hyperbole or refers to an attitude. I’m figuring it’s the attitude, and that that’s what Jesus asks of those who follow him. Not everyone ends up losing everything in actual fact, but they have to be prepared for that possibility.
So far I have no problem with it. I mean, it’s hard, but it makes sense. What confuses me about the army text is that there’s the implication—no, the statement!—that someone could decide the price is too high and decide NOT to embark on the venture (tower building, war). But there’s no similar get-out alternative for Christian discipleship. Either you agree to lose everything (in potential) for Jesus now, or you lose everything in actuality later, precisely because you’ve lost him.
Come to think of it, maybe I’m misreading it. Jesus spoke of a tower left incomplete—and of course the obvious example of that was the one built in rebellion against God at Babel. So taking that as a possible key, maybe the wise man is the one who counts the cost of rebellion against God and decides it’s too high to start; and the wise king is the one who realizes fighting the great King (God) is unrealistic, and sues for peace by following Jesus.
I’m starting to like this. Because of course, if you DO take the wise course and follow Jesus (sue for peace), you will lose something for sure; but you will survive (and thrive!) which is absolutely not the case for the rebels. (Before anyone brings up the “carry your cross” but, that’s no exception; for the follower of Jesus is promised resurrection.)
Like Kierkegaard's Knight of Faith ... gets up every morning prepared to sacrifice his firstborn a la Abraham, and goes to bed every night singing God's praises that today this was not required of him.
AFF
That resonates with me. We are far more easily persuaded to believe something the first time compared to a second time after we have already believed but then rejected that belief.
I don't know--there's something very calculating about that, and it doesn't fit with the Lord I know. I mean, I can't imagine him advising anyone to believe or disbelieve on such pragmatic grounds. He's much more the type to go for your heart--this smells of going for your wallet, if you see what I mean. Life insurance. no, fire insurance. It smells wrong.
Two quotes before you have the instruction to take up your cross.
And then textually immediately after the three lost thing parables.
Particularly in Lent, it might be worth considering how Jesus must have reckoned up his resources before going ahead to the cross.