The Joy of Discipleship

sermon by Torin Eikler
Luke 14:25-33, Micah 6:1-8
Heritage Series Week 2: Discipleship

“Which of you, intending to build a tower, does not first sit down and estimate the cost? Or what king, going out to wage war will not first consider whether he is able to win?”


Anabaptists have taken these words very seriously from their very beginnings over 500 years ago. And why not, their situation was not so different from that of the early church. In the social climate they found themselves in choosing believers’ baptism was tantamount to open rebellion against the state. Inevitably, it made them outlaws who had to live on the run in constant fear of retaliation from the authorities – retaliation ranging from mild harassment to the confiscation of all goods to banishment and even to death. The costs were great and the decision to embark on that journey was not taken lightly.

In the early part of the 16th century, a boy named Dirk Willem was born to a farming family in what is now the Netherlands. Not much is known of his childhood, but like most people of that time, he was baptized into the Catholic Church – which was the state church at the time. During his early life, the region in which he lived changed allegiance a few times according to the political needs of the ruling prince, and each change was accompanied by a change from the Catholic Church to the newly formed Lutheran Church and eventually to the Church of the Netherlands.

Moving back and forth between churches that condemned each other as heresy according to political expediency led Dirk to join others questioning the validity of either church, and he eventually joined the small but growing group of Christians who were called Anabaptists. The decision made him a fugitive from both churches and the state that supported them, and it wasn’t too long before he was arrested and imprisoned for his beliefs along with many others.

But Dirk Willems escaped from the prison tower, in a scene reminiscent of Hollywood fairytales. In the dead of winter, he tied together strips of cloth to make a rope which he used to slide down the prison wall to freedom. But as he set out across the countryside, a guard spotted him, shouted an alarm, and gave chase.

In Dirk's path of escape was an ice-covered pond. With little choice, he took a risk and crossed the thin ice safely. His pursuer, however, was not so lucky. A big man – as guards often are - he broke through the ice and fell into the frigid water where he struggled to stay afloat, calling for help.
Dirk saw this, and where others would have thanked their lucky stars or praised God for deliverance, he heard the cry of someone in need. Believing in Jesus' teaching to love even one's enemies, he turned back and rescued the guard. As a result, he was arrested again and placed in a more secure prison where he remained until he was burned at the stake, in 1569.

If faithful people like Dirk Willems were to choose the path of discipleship as they understood it, they had to consider all that could be required of them first.


For us – today, in this country – things do not seem so dire. We live in a time and place where we are free to live according to whatever faith we may choose. And we have little to fear in the way of retaliation – at least if we choose a Christian church that tends to fit within the accepted social norms. Yet, even for us the requirements of discipleship are significant.

In the middle of the 20th century, a boy named Ted Studebaker was born to a farming family in western Ohio and joined the West Milton Church of the Brethren as a young man. When the time came for Ted to register for the draft, he wrote a letter to the US government explaining that he refused to join the military because he believed that the lives of all people are sacred. The government accepted his statement, and when the Vietnam War began, he was excluded from the draft as a conscientious objector.

But, Ted went to Vietnam all the same. He knew that people were suffering because of the war, and he felt a call to go and help them in whatever way he could. So, he volunteered to spend two years living and working with Montagnard hill farmers, teaching them new agricultural methods to help ease the food shortage brought on by the war. He stayed with them even when the fighting moved close to Di Linh – where he was living – because he believed working with the Vietnamese was the only way to truly bring peace. In a letter to his mother, he explained his decision to stay saying, “Above all, Christ taught me how to love all people, including enemies, and to return good for evil.” Not much later, he was executed in 1971 by Vietnamese soldiers who misunderstood the situation and say any American presence as a threat.

Even now, if we choose the way of active, rich discipleship we are bound to experience some persecution – be it overt and violent or subtle and backhanded, legal or social. It may just come from simple misunderstanding or a sense of disbelief. After all, do you know anyone who would actually invite a homeless stranger to live in their extra room or give their time and money religiously to bring food to the hungry and destitute? Who would seek to save the life of someone who murdered a family member? Who would choose violence and suffering in pursuit of reconciliation instead of fighting back and defending life and country? These things which are so much a part of our faith tradition (and even our own congregation) are absurd in the eyes of the culture we live in.

And yet, all those things and more are part of Christian discipleship. In this passage alone, we are told that we must be prepared to give all that we have to help those in need. We are even warned that we may have to leave behind cherished family members if they stand in opposition to the life of discipleship. Elsewhere, Jesus adds:
* turning the other cheek,
* loving our enemies enough to pray for their well-being,
* showing mercy and compassion to the suffering, the weak, and the outcasts,
* setting aside our own self-righteous sense of judgment to make way for
God’s grace,
* and taking the good news of the life promised in Christ to the ends of the
earth – teaching others to be disciples as we go.
And that only is only the beginning. Count well the cost indeed….

But, which of us can actually understand all that it means to be a disciple?


When I found out that Carrie and I were expecting a child, I was very happy and very nervous. We had done a lot of reading and talking with others about parenting, and I continued to scrabble for information as I tried to get a picture of what would be required of me as a father. But, as the day of Sebastian’s birth came closer and closer, I realized that I could never really understand how my life would change. As all of you who are fathers – and mothers for that matter – know, it just isn’t possible to know what will be required of you when a new child comes into the family until it happens.

And in some sense, it is much the same when we make a commitment to follow Christ. No matter how much time and effort we put in, we can never fully count the costs of discipleship until they come upon us. If we really thought about it, I suspect that none of us would seek baptism if we were intent on a full reckoning before we stepped into the water.

But that’s not really the point of Jesus’ words. He was not asking for a guarantee of complete fidelity and absolute success in advance. He of all people understood how meaningless such promises would be. He was asking his followers to open their eyes. Bearing the cross of discipleship requires deliberate sacrifice and leads us to risk ridicule as we seek to follow Christ. Jesus wanted the people to consider what it actually might mean to become a disciple before making a superficial commitment they would have trouble keeping and soon regret.

And yet, Jesus was not trying to discourage people from following him. It is true that when we consider all that we must do and everything that may be required of us as disciples, we can easily become overwhelmed. But if we focus too much on the details and particulars, we miss the joyful promise of new life brought by Christ. If we stare at the disappointment of the rich young ruler, we miss the delight of the woman at the well – running to tell everyone about the living water she had received. We miss the passion of the Gerasene man proclaiming the gift he received when Jesus freed him from a legion of demons. We miss the tears of grief turned to joy on the face of Mary when she met the resurrected Christ at the tomb.


On the day that Sebastian was born, I experienced the most incredible joy. It mirrored and expanded the joy that I felt when Carrie and I were married and the freedom and renewal I felt at my baptism. I still had no idea what was in store for me as a father, nor was I prepared for how wrong I was about the things that I expected to be part of the process. Still, even in the most frustrating, irritating times, there is an unceasing flood of joy in my heart – joy that flows from the love I have for my son.

Is it so strange that discipleship should be the same? Jesus, after all, summed up the life of discipleship in terms in simple terms. “Love the Lord your God with all your heart and soul and strength. And love your neighbor as yourself.” Micah echoed the theme years earlier saying, “What does the Lord require of you but to do justice, love kindness, and walk humbly with your God.”

It all comes down to love:
* love that is strong enough to draw us forward into the lives of others –
lives filled with joy and pain,
* love that breaks down our barriers so that we can become tools of the
Holy Spirit, sharing the promise of new life with others through
simple words and even simpler acts of mercy and kindness,
* love that echoes and responds to the love of God made plain in the
salvation and new life freely offered in Christ.

Sisters and brothers, the life of discipleship can be difficult and filled with sacrifice, but we choose that life in faith because of the great love that we have been shown. And, responding in love, we find joy along the path – and ever-flowing stream of new life refreshing and renewing us as we go into the world in service. Let us, then, renew our commitment to discipleship today and every day. Let us model ourselves after our friend and teacher: the Christ who “for the joy set before him – for the joy set before him, endured hardship and suffering … even death on the cross.”