Genesis 21:8-21
Matthew 10:24-39
Beloved, there are some scriptures that do not let us stay comfortable. They
do not come gently into the room. They do not pat us on the back and send
us home feeling better about the way things already are. Some scriptures
come like truth with dust on its feet. They come from the wilderness. They
come from the edge of a broken family story. They come from the mouth of
Jesus with words sharp enough to wake us up.
Today we hear Hagar and Ishmael sent away with bread and a skin of water.
We hear a mother wander until the water runs out. We hear a child placed
under a bush because she cannot bear to watch him die. And we hear Jesus
say, “A disciple is not above the teacher.” “Do not be afraid.” “Take up the
cross.” “Those who find their life will lose it, and those who lose their life
for my sake will find it.”
And if we are honest, most of us know something about that kind of
scripture. We know what it is to come to the Word wanting comfort and to
find a call. We know what it is to come looking for reassurance and to hear
Jesus asking for our whole lives.
So if we came to worship looking for a faith that costs nothing, this may not
be the morning for that. If we came looking for a Jesus who only blesses
what we already believe, this may not be the morning for that either. Because
Matthew 10 does not give us decorative Christianity. It gives us discipleship.
And discipleship has a cost.
But before we talk about the cost, we need to talk about what a disciple is.
Because somewhere along the way, we learned to make discipleship sound
like membership. Like it means we attend, we agree, we belong to the right
group, we sit in the right place, we know the right songs, we have our names
on the roll. And all of that may matter. But that is not the heart of it.
A disciple is a learner. A follower. An apprentice of Jesus. A disciple is
someone whose life is being shaped by the life of Christ. Not just our beliefs.
Not just our Sunday language. Our instincts. Our choices. Our courage. Our
mercy. Our relationship to power. Our willingness to tell the truth. Our
willingness to love when love becomes inconvenient.
That means discipleship is not just what we believe about Jesus. It is what
happens when the way of Jesus begins to believe itself into us. Into our
decisions. Into our habits. Into the way we speak. Into the way we spend.
Into the way we welcome. Into the way we notice who has been left out.
A disciple is not someone who has mastered Jesus. A disciple is someone
being mastered by grace. We are still learning how to forgive. Still learning
how to serve. Still learning how to tell the truth. Still learning how to lose the
false life so the true life can be found. And Jesus says, “It is enough for the
disciple to be like the teacher.” Not above the teacher. Not more respectable
than the teacher. Not safer than the teacher. Like the teacher.
And that is where the cost begins. Because if we follow Jesus, sooner or later
we will be led to the people Jesus sees. We will be led to the ones crying in
the wilderness. We will be led to those cast out, the thirsty, the pushed aside,
the ones the family system decided were expendable. Sooner or later, we will
be led to Hagar and Ishmael.
Genesis 21 is hard because it tells the truth about how easily people can be
cast out when their presence becomes inconvenient. Hagar is not sent away
because God stopped seeing her. She is sent away because the household
could not hold the complexity of her story. Ishmael is not placed under that
bush because God forgot him. He is placed there because human fear,
jealousy, and power made a decision that put a child in danger.
And the text does not let us look away. It makes us sit with a woman whose
water is gone. It makes us hear the cry of a child. It makes us face the truth
that sometimes what we call order, what we call peace, what we call
protecting the promise, can become a way of pushing somebody else into the
wilderness.
That is why this word matters when we remember Juneteenth. Juneteenth
tells the truth about freedom proclaimed and freedom delayed. It tells the
truth that liberation can be announced and still not be delivered. It tells the
truth that some people were made to wait for news that had already been
declared. And it asks the church a question: will we be satisfied with freedom
as an idea, or will we become disciples who labor for freedom as flesh and
breath and bread and water?
And in Pride season, this word matters too. Because the church has too often
been part of the household that sent people away. Too often we have called
exclusion faithfulness. Too often we have confused control with holiness.
Too often we have left beloved children of God under bushes of shame,
silence, and fear, while telling ourselves the family was safer that way.
But disciples of Jesus cannot make peace with casting people out. We cannot
claim the open table and practice a closed heart. We cannot say that Christ
welcomes all as God has welcomed us, and then build little fences around
grace. We cannot be a movement for wholeness in a fragmented world if we
are comfortable leaving some people fragmented for the sake of our comfort.
The cost of discipleship is that Jesus will not let us keep a private faith that
avoids public love. Jesus says, “What I say to you in the dark, tell in the
light; and what you hear whispered, proclaim from the housetops.” In other
words, the grace that has found us cannot stay hidden in us. The mercy that
has saved us cannot become a secret we protect. The love of Christ is not
meant to be whispered only where it is safe.
That does not mean discipleship is loud for the sake of being loud. It does
not mean we confuse courage with cruelty. It does not mean every
disagreement needs our volume. But it does mean that following Jesus will
ask something of us. Sometimes it asks our silence to become speech.
Sometimes it asks our comfort to become compassion. Sometimes it asks our
certainty to become humility. Sometimes it asks our prayers to grow hands
and feet.
And that is costly because the world often rewards the opposite. The world
rewards staying neutral when the vulnerable need protection. The world
rewards keeping peace when truth is needed. The world rewards looking
away from the wilderness as long as the table inside the house is still set.
And if we are honest, that is tempting. It is tempting to stay inside where the
table is set. It is tempting to talk about love in general instead of practicing
love in particular. It is tempting to say everybody is welcome without asking
who has learned not to believe us.
But Jesus says discipleship will rearrange our loyalties. “Whoever loves
father or mother more than me is not worthy of me.” That sounds harsh, and
we should not soften it until it loses its edge. But Jesus is not telling us to
stop loving our families. Jesus is telling us that even the most precious
relationships in our lives cannot become idols that keep us from the way of
God.
Sometimes the cost of discipleship is that we have to disappoint people who
preferred us before grace made us braver. Sometimes the cost is that we have
to tell the truth in rooms where truth is not welcome. Sometimes the cost is
that we have to choose the kin-dom of God over the approval of people who
love us but want us quiet.
And then Jesus says, “Whoever does not take up the cross and follow me is
not worthy of me.” Now, we need to be careful here. The cross is not every
inconvenience. The cross is not every difficult personality we have to endure.
The cross is not suffering for suffering’s sake, and it is not a divine invitation
to stay in harm. The cross is what happens when love confronts the powers
that deal in fear, domination, and death.
To take up the cross is to follow Jesus into a way of life where mercy matters
more than reputation, where justice matters more than comfort, where truth
matters more than politeness, and where love is more than a feeling. It is
embodied. It is practiced. It is costly.
But here is the good news: Jesus never names the cost without also naming
the care of God. Right in the middle of this hard teaching, Jesus talks about
sparrows. Two sparrows sold for a penny, and not one falls apart from God.
Even the hairs of our heads are counted. So do not be afraid. We are of more
value than many sparrows.
That means discipleship is costly, but it is not abandonment. It is demanding,
but it is not loveless. It calls us to lose our lives, yes, but only the lives built
on fear, self-protection, silence, scarcity, and the need to be approved by
everybody. Jesus does not ask us to lose the life God loves. Jesus asks us to
lose the false life that keeps us from receiving the life God gives.
And that brings us back to Hagar. Because when the water is gone and hope
is thin and the child is crying, God hears. God hears the voice of the boy
where he is. Not where Abraham left him. Not where Sarah wanted him. Not
where the household could explain him away. God hears him where he is.
And then God opens Hagar’s eyes, and she sees a well of water. The text
does not say God dropped a brand-new well out of heaven. It says God
opened her eyes. Grace was already nearer than despair allowed her to see.
That is the grace at the heart of discipleship. God does not call us to costly
love and then leave us without water. God does not call us to public mercy
and then abandon us to fear. God does not call us to become a people of
wholeness and then refuse to heal what is broken in us.
And maybe that is part of the invitation today. Not just to ask, “What will
discipleship cost us?” but also to ask, “Where has God already placed a
well?” Where is grace already near? Where is mercy already moving? Where
is Christ already waiting for us to open our eyes?
As Christians, we come to the table every week because we need to
remember this. We are not disciples because we are strong enough. We are
not disciples because we are pure enough. We are not disciples because we
have figured it all out. We are disciples because Christ keeps calling. Christ
keeps feeding. Christ keeps welcoming. Christ keeps forgiving. Christ keeps
sending.
The table teaches us what discipleship is. We receive what we did not earn.
We make room because room was made for us. We are gathered into one
body, not because we are the same, but because Christ is Lord. We are
welcomed as God has welcomed us, and then we are sent to become that
welcome in the world.
So yes, discipleship costs us something. It may cost us the illusion that faith
can be comfortable all the time. It may cost us the privilege of looking away.
It may cost us the safety of silence. It may cost us the false peace that
depends on someone else’s exclusion. It may cost us the life we built around
fear.
But what we receive in Christ is greater than what we lose. We receive a life
rooted in grace. A love stronger than fear. A courage that does not have to be
cruel. A mercy that does not run out. A table where we are fed for the road.
A Savior who knows the cost of love because he has carried it in his own
body.
And the love of Christ does not simply admire us from a distance. It comes
near. It enters the wilderness. It hears the child. It opens the well. It gathers
those cast out. It feeds the hungry. It tells the fearful, “Do not be afraid.” It
tells the church, “Follow me.”
So let us be disciples. Not perfect people. Not fearless people. Not people
who always know exactly what to do. But people learning Jesus. People
practicing mercy. People telling the truth. People making room. People
willing to lose the life fear built so we can find the life grace gives.
And if we are tired, if we are afraid, if we are not sure we have enough
courage for all of that, then we come back to grace. We come back to the
table. We come back to Christ. Because the call of discipleship does not
begin with our strength. It begins with God’s love. And it does not end with
our failure. It ends, again and again, with mercy.
For the God who heard Hagar still hears. The Christ who calls disciples still
calls. The Spirit who opens eyes still opens wells in wilderness places. And
the grace of God will be enough for the cost of love.
Thanks be to God.