Hypothetical "Morning Prayer" Sermon

Today I preached for the first time in my homiletics class. The assignment was to write a 3-5 minute sermon for a Morning Prayer worship service. The goal was to aid people in their prayer/meditation on the Scripture that was just read, not to give a longer sermon like one would at a Eucharist.

I preached on the Gospel lesson from today in the Daily Office Lectionary, Luke 14:25-35.

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According to the picture of Jesus we receive in the Gospels, he wasn’t much of an advocate of “traditional family values.”

You know what I mean. The “good Christian family” some churches like to talk about, the kind we’re all supposed to have: a spouse (of the opposite sex, of course), and beautiful and well-behaved children, whom we love more than life itself. If we’re good Christians, our family will be the most important thing in our lives, right?

Not according to Jesus.

“Whoever comes to me and does not hate father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters, yes, and even life itself, cannot be my disciple.” (Luke 14:26)

Earlier in Luke’s Gospel, Jesus chastises would-be followers who want to delay following him for reasons that seem reasonable and even honorable by the “family values” standard – one man wants to first bury his father, another wants to go and say goodbye to his family. But Jesus will have none of it. “Let the dead bury their own dead” (Luke 9:60), he says to the first man, and to the second, “No one who puts a hand to the plow and looks back is fit for the kingdom of God” (Luke 9:62).

Jesus calls us to follow him with single-minded devotion – we cannot love anything more dearly than him if we want to truly be his disciple.

Singer/songwriter Susan Werner captures the essence of this call to single-minded devotion in her song, “Courting the Muse.” In it, she personifies the “muse” that inspires her writing. The song goes like this:

Well I lit up all the candles and I turned out all the lights
And I waited up all hours, but she did not come by last night
She is beautiful as music, but jealous to the bone
And she will only love you if you love her alone

She used to sleep beside me in my narrow single bed
When I took public transportation, I was badly under-fed
And she loved me more than a lover, more than anyone I’ve known
Yes, she will truly love you if you love her alone

But then came some fame and fortune, and I got to feeling pleased
And I paid her less attention as my situation eased
So she left me for a busker on the Spanish steps in Rome
And I could see that she loved him cause he loved her alone

Now every night I light the candles, and I pray that she’ll return
For I have learned the double lesson that all her suitors learn
Don’t get too much lovin’, don’t care what you own
Cause she will only love you if you love her alone

People of many religious faiths have observed that “double lesson” that Susan Werner speaks of – that emotional attachments to both people and things can block us from being open to the inspiration that is waiting for us if we devote ourselves fully to God. While I wouldn’t go so far as to say that God will only love us if we love God alone, the Bible certainly portrays a God much like Susan’s muse – “beautiful as music, but jealous to the bone,” demanding our exclusive love and trust.

Jesus invites us to follow him at the expense of all else because only in doing so can we truly come to know the love we so often seek from other sources. If Susan’s song were about today’s Gospel reading, perhaps it might end like this:

Don’t get too much lovin’, don’t care what you own.
‘Cause you will only know love if you love him alone.