Wis 9:13-18, Psalm 9-10, 12-17, Luke 14:25-33

I imagine Jesus chuckling at us as he asks, “If one of you decides to build a tower, will he not first sit down and calculate the outlay to see if he has enough money to complete the project?” “Oh, yes,” we reply, “We are intelligent and foresighted and we check our resources carefully before we begin to build.”

Jesus knows better; he is aware of the reality which his listeners don’t see – or at least won’t acknowledge as something that could happen to them. There are, Jesus knows, unfinished ‘buildings’ around!

Right now I am in the process of helping my brother plan and calculate the costs of his double-storey family house. No matter how well we calculate, the costs of building materials always seems to cost more than we anticipate. There are the unexpected delays, the builders ever changing suggestions, the plumbing and electrical complications and the unpredictable tropical weather patterns. I am not sure if my brother would have sufficient finance to complete his dream home. If this happens then his unfinished house becomes another monument to the futility of our best laid plans.

I wonder if it wasn’t this reality of inestimable outlay which Jesus was comparing to the cost of discipleship, rather than the surface message of “plan ahead”. On several occasions Jesus speaks about the price of being his follower. Today he talks about turning ones back on family and shouldering the cross. On other occasions he asks his followers to sell all his possessions, and finally, he asks the big question to be willing to give their lives.

As a priest I know that the cost of discipleship seems pretty clear to me: relationships, possessions, life. The price of following Jesus is high; in a word he asks EVERYTHING.

I have recently celebrated my tenth year of priestly ordination and have ministered in west Africa, south Pacific and now currently in Australia. I believe I have not begun to realize in my heart the significance of “everything”. Sometimes it saddens me to even think that I have not yet given everything. Like my brother who wants to add another room here and there, I may have probably fallen in love with the blueprint but have not seriously considered the sacrifices necessary to meet the payments.

Even now as time and energy pass by, the costs are going up with the unpredictable winds of change. I am not growing any younger hence the “everything” becomes dearer. What I thought and felt to be the crosses of my youth now stoops my shoulders and sometimes tears my skin. That  “yes” which I committed myself to many years ago now was only the beginning. Who can really calculate the cost of discipleship through the years?

Yes indeed, I can count the tears, the relationships lost, possessions and personal dreams which had to be sacrificed, number of farewells, and the sense of loss and isolation as a priest and follower of Jesus Christ.

I don’t know if I would still have enough to complete this following of Jesus. Perhaps I can’t . Perhaps those who do not understand will say of us as they did of Jesus, “That person began to build what he could not finish”.

 Only God will know when and how it is going to be completed. The project is not ours but God’s. The invitation is to TRUST HIM that together as a church and the rest of humanity – we can afford.