There may be some irony in the fact that the Senate is hearing arguments about military action against the government of Syria just as the assigned Gospel lesson, Luke 14:25-33, asks in verse 31, “Or what king, going out to wage war against another king, will not sit down first and consider whether he is able with ten thousand to oppose the one who comes against him with twenty thousand?”
Though the point of the parable of the warring kings and the preceding parable of building a tower is the cost of following Jesus, there does seem to be a more literal application of these verses in the present military discussion. Assad could be seen as the king with a lesser force, needing to consider whether he dare oppose the might of U.S. forces and persist in his fierce efforts to hold power in Syria. On the other hand, it might be well for the U.S. to put ourselves into the parable and consider the awful cost of entering yet another military arena, a cost in both American lives and money as well as in Syrian lives. Not to mention the very real possibility of furthering the destabilization of Syria and the larger Mideast.
Again, Jesus’ point is something else. Building and warfare are simply illustrations of costly endeavors which one considers well before beginning. Yet maybe tying these parables to very real situations will help us realize that the costs of following Christ are also very real. Belief in Jesus is not meant to be a quick, cheap insurance policy for eternity. Its consequences and demands are immediate and tangible.
T.W. Manson is supposed to have said, “Salvation may be free, but it is not cheap.” And of course there is Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s masterful denunciation of “cheap grace” in The Cost of Discipleship. How can we preach and live the kind of expensive and demanding discipleship which Jesus is teaching us here?