Then [Jesus] said to the crowd, “If any of you wants to be my follower, you must turn from your selfish ways, take up your cross daily, and follow me. Luke 9:23
“The Bible is very easy to understand. But we Christians are a bunch of scheming swindlers. We pretend to be unable to understand it because we know very well that the minute we understand, we are obliged to act accordingly. Take any words in the New Testament and forget everything except pledging yourself to act accordingly. My God, you will say, if I do that my whole life will be ruined. How would I ever get on in the world? …
I open the New Testament and read: “If you want to be perfect, go, sell all your goods and give to the poor, and come, follow me.” Good God, if we were to actually do this, all the capitalists, the office holders, and the entrepreneurs, the whole society in fact, would be almost beggars! … I have wanted to make people aware and admit that I find the New Testament very easy to understand, but thus far I have found it tremendously difficult to act literally upon what it plainly says.”
Søren Kierkegaard in Provocations: Spiritual Writings of Kierkegaard (New York: Plough, 2014) 197-199.
Why share this provoking thought today? I want everyone to understand, through the candor of a brilliant Danish philosopher, that while the NT is easy to understand, following it is really hard. Obedience costs us everything, so rather than obey, like selfish scheming swindlers, we act like we don’t understand or as if no one is watching. Humor me. Coming out of a weekend of scholarly discourse, I feel the need to speak with prophetic candor some comments with which I believe Kierkegaard would concur.
We read the NT and often see only the pain and not the gain and so we fail to follow. We only see the pain of letting go in Matthew 19:21 (which Søren quotes above) and miss the gain that Christ promises in return “a hundred times as much” and “eternal life” in Matthew 19:29. We rationalize away through self-talk that the tough texts neither apply to us nor make any sense, so we functionally ignore them. In so doing, we miss, that Jesus is not calling us to a life of destitution but a posture of distribution.
Thanksgiving week, at least for Americans, is perhaps the greatest timeframe when we must “turn from our selfish ways.” We tend to over indulge on food. We focus on entertaining ourselves rather than serving others. We spend money we don’t have on things we don’t need. All the while, Jesus calls us to abandon that path for a different one. Let’s not ignore Him because all we see is sacrifice. His way leads to abundance and life as God designed for us to live it.
Father, we give our Thanksgiving week and our whole lives to you anew and afresh today. Give us courage to follow your teachings regardless of how difficult they seem and no matter what anyone else does. Help us, by your Holy Spirit, let go of things we cannot hold on to to gain the things we can ever lose. Bless us with priceless time with family and friends and help us not forget to care for our neighbors, especially those in need, so we reflect your love to the world. Hear our prayer in the name of Jesus. Amen.