In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen. Glory to Jesus Christ! [Glory to him forever!]

Today’s gospel can be somewhat deceptive, because we could listen to the gospel reading this morning and say, “Well, that doesn’t apply to me. I’m not rich. Poor guy, had to give up everything that he has to follow Christ.” But of course this would be to miss the point of the gospel reading and also the epistle reading this morning. So we want to talk about the cost of following Christ.

The question that this young man poses to the Lord Jesus Christ actually has to be understood. “Good Teacher, what shall I do to inherit eternal life?” This particular story is actually told in all three of the synoptic gospels: Matthew, Mark, and Luke. And they all have little different takes on it. But lest we think that this is simply about going to heaven, this is, again, to misunderstand the point of this gospel.

Eternal life for a Christian is not simply something that happens after you die, especially those of us—as Orthodox Christians, we should understand that to be in Christ is to partake of life itself. When we come forward to receive Communion, are we not receiving eternal life? Are we not receiving that life which is eternal, directly from the Life-giver? Indeed, our understanding of grace itself, far from being a sort of a notion of unmerited favor or the outward sign of an inward grace, grace itself is God himself. When we partake of grace, we are partaking of God. He is giving himself to us.

So when we say, “What must I do to inherit eternal life?” another way that we might ask is: “What do I need to do to be in communion with God? What do I need to do to be united with God?” And certainly, at that time, when Jesus says, “Well, what’s written in the Law? Do the ten commandments,” and he rattles some off. “All of these things I’ve kept from my youth.” Although frankly—this is my own personal opinion, so take of it whatever you want—one that he didn’t mention was the first commandment: to acknowledge God: “You shall have no other gods before me.”

And the reality is that we can make gods of so many things, not just money. We can make gods of everything that comes into our life. We can make gods of work. We can make gods of intellectual pursuits. We can make gods of our body. We can make gods of food. Anything which completely sort of takes us away, takes our focus away from the one thing needful, from what St. Herman himself said: “Every day, every hour, every minute, let us love God above all things.” That’s what he says.

So when this man comes and he says, “What must I do to inherit eternal life? What do I need to do to be connected to God?” he says, “Yeah, you’ve done all these things, but one thing you lack. Sell all your stuff. Give to the poor, and come and follow me.” Now, lest we think that would be kind of harsh—why is he telling him to do that? I want you to hear, eight chapters before that, Luke records this:

Now it happened as they journeyed on the road that someone said to him, “Lord, I will follow you wherever you go.” And Jesus said to him, “Foxes have holes and birds of the air have nests, but the Son of Man has nowhere to lay his head.”

What a strange answer! Of course, there’s more, but what Jesus is really saying is: He wants to rest in the lives of those who want to follow him. He wants to be united to them. He wants to be in them. And the restlessness of man and the way he’s constantly seeking after things of the world and not after things of God.

Then he said to another (Jesus said), “Follow me.” But that man said, “Lord, let me first go and bury my father.” Jesus said—

Listen.

—“Let the dead bury their own dead, but you: go and preach the kingdom of God. And another said, “Lord, I will follow you, but let me first go and bid farewell to those who are in my house.” Jesus said, “No one, having put his hand to the plow and looking back, is fit for the kingdom of God.”

Harsh? Or is it really telling us the cost of what it is to follow Christ himself, that nothing should separate us from that—not money, not even family, not our past. Don’t look back! “Let the dead,” Christ says, “bury the dead.”

There is an immediacy that should be inside of our desire to follow Christ. And we see everything in our past, regardless of the goodness of it— When Christ says, “Let the dead bury their own dead,” he’s not saying that was a horrible part of your life; he’s saying: Let it go. Focus on what is before you. Focus on Christ. Focus on your union with Christ. Focus on your eternal life. These are certainly very difficult, challenging words, and it kind of flies in the face of our contemporary understanding of religion.

What is religion in the eyes of the world? It’s something that sort of gets you through life, comforts you. And if it doesn’t somehow comfort you, it’s wrong: find something else that comforts you. While there isn’t— It doesn’t seem much comfort in the words “Leave everything and follow me,” there is more to what Christ says.

When we’re called to follow Christ, it says:

He heard this. He became very sorrowful, for he was very rich. And when Jesus saw that he became sorrowful, he said, “How hard it is for those who have riches to enter the kingdom of God. It’s easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God.” And those who heard it said, “Who can be saved then!?”

Were they all acknowledging that they were all rich? No! They were all acknowledging that it’s difficult to leave everything and follow Christ. And here’s the important thing to keep our mind on when we’re presented with that challenge; it’s his next words.

“The things which are impossible with men are possible with God.” And Peter says, “See, we have left all and followed you.”

“We’ve done this, Lord; we did it. You told us: Drop everything; leave our families. ‘Follow me’: we did it!” And here’s the promise: “Assuredly—” When Jesus says, “Assuredly,” it’s not like “Maybe.” When Jesus, the God of the universe, the Creator of the world, says, “Assuredly,” it’s like: “You can bank on this. This is as true as the hand in front of you.”

“Assuredly, I say to you, there is no one who has left house or parents or brothers or wife or children for the sake of the kingdom of God who shall not receive many times more in this present time—”

Listen. It’s weird. How do we receive—house or parents or brothers or wife or children, if we’ve left them in the present time? We’re going there.

“—and in the age to come, eternal life.”

How do we receive it in the present time? The epistle reading. The epistle reading:

Therefore, as the elect of God, holy and beloved, put on tender mercies, kindness, meekness, longsuffering, bearing with one another, forgiving with one another. If anyone has a complaint against another, even as Christ forgave you, so you also must do. And then put on love, which is the bond of perfection.

What do you gain when you leave everything? You gain the body of Christ. What do you gain when you leave your family? You gain the new family of the body of Christ. What do you gain when you leave your home? You gain your new home, the body of Christ.

And it’s imperative that we understand that. On the one hand, it’s a wake-up call to those of us who have grown up in the Church. It’s easy. I’ve been Orthodox all my life! I haven’t given up anything! Nothing! And I need to figure out what it is that I’m supposed to give up, and it’s anything that I make a god of, anything that I worship at the altar of that’s not Christ, that keeps me from union with him.

And we have people that are knocking on the door of our faith, knocking on the door of our church, and saying, “I want that.” And Jesus is standing there and saying, “Leave it all behind, and come and follow me.” And, man, that’s hard, because I know many of you who have embraced the Orthodox faith after you’ve become adults. You’ve had to leave relationships and families and maybe even parents or children or relatives, and I know the pain that you withstand every time there’s—I don’t know—Christmas or Easter, and you’re going here and you’re going there, and you’re saying, “But I have to go to church. Oh, my Easter’s on another day.” All these things are very difficult for you.

But the reality is you have to keep your eye on the promise of God. You are receiving a blessing now because you have a new family, and that means everybody needs to see each other as your new family, as your new home, and you need to believe that Christ’s promise is true: that you will receive eternal life if you are faithful to his promise. Do you believe that?

This is probably the most challenging part of the Christian life, because in our contemporary society, what people want to do is they want to bring the world in with them. We have a sort of a new kind of political identity, right? Oh, you have to be— You’re a Black Orthodox Christian. You’re a poor Orthodox Christian. You’re a gay Orthodox Christian. You’re a convert. You’re a cradle. That’s not what the Scripture says! Right before the epistle reading, two verses before the epistle reading:

Do not lie to one another, since you have put off the old man with his deeds.

That’s the old man!

And have put on the new, who is renewed in the knowledge according to the image of him who created him, where there is neither Greek nor Jew, circumcised nor uncircumcised, barbarian, Scythian, slave nor free, but Christ is all in all.

You’re not white, you’re not black; you’re not poor, you’re not rich; you’re not a slave, you’re not free—you’re in Christ. You’re not Greek, you’re not Russian—you’re not any of that; you’re in Christ. You’re not a former Protestant, you’re not a former Catholic, you’re not unmarried, married, whatever—you’re in Christ. And we have to remember that when we are counting the cost, to embrace the fullness of the faith.

And if we don’t feel like we’re receiving the fullness of the faith, go back to step one. Go back to step one: What have I not left behind? And not just things: sins! What sins have I not left behind? What of my former life have I not left behind to fully embrace what Christ promises to me now—now; he said that: now!—and in the kingdom of God.

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, what a high ideal Christ presents to us. I can’t imagine any other response than what the disciples responded, what the people around Christ when he said this responded: “Who can be saved!? Who can do this?” And Christ just says, “With God, all things are possible.” That’s our synergeia; that’s our synergy cooperating with God, working with God, allowing ourselves to be filled by God. This is our teaching.

Comfortable religion is just— it’s not Orthodoxy. It’s not— It shouldn’t be Christianity! It shouldn’t be any of that. It should be something that we’re constantly striving for a higher ideal, and we’re looking at ourselves, and we’re counting the cost, and we’re seeing: What have I made [an idol of] in my life, that I need to drop so that I can follow Christ? To him who is our light with the Father and the Spirit be glory, honor, and majesty, always, now and ever, and unto ages of ages. Amen. Glory to Jesus Christ!