Capital Pointe.
There you go. That's the joke. Not funny? Then you're not from here. If you need an explanation, get this. Ten years ago, permits were issued for the construction of a new hotel / residential tower that was set to be the tallest building in the province. Now, of course, if you're downtown, you may find yourself short of real estate to build the tallest building in the province on, so you would have to knock down existing buildings, dig a foundation, that kind of thing. So the old Plains Hotel was knocked down, the spire was saved to be put on top of Capital Pointe, and the foundation was dug.
And that's where the activity stopped.
For about five years, there has been a massive hole right on some of the most valuable real estate in the city. Where the largest tower was supposed to be, there is a cavern now, and because the hole has been there for so long, the company that was working on building the tower has now been ordered to fill the foundation hole in. So they've made zero progress total. Or, I suppose, negative progress since the foundation was dug, and then filled back in, so negative progress indeed. What a waste.
And it's that sort of thing that gives the Gospel reading that extra bit of punch, you know. As I mentioned, the massive hole where Capital Pointe is supposed to be is a massive joke, you know. Here in Regina, everyone thinks that it's hilarious that nothing was done. A sign of this was that there was an event put together where "we gather to point at the Capital Pointe hole and say 'wow' like Owen Wilson." This is a real thing that actually happened, you know, where hundreds of people showed up and said 'wow' and pointed at the hole where nothing had been built. And the Gospel reading speaks directly to that, you know. In the Gospel reading from Sunday, Jesus turned to the massive crowd and said to them 'Which of you, desiring to build a tower, does not first sit down and count the cost, whether he has enough to complete it? Otherwise, when he has laid a foundation and is not able to finish, all who see it begin to mock him, saying ,"this man began to build and was not able to finish."' Yes. And you know that this is true because when you see a project, particularly the biggest, grandest building in the entire province not being completed, you better believe that you laugh. The level of hubris is off the chain. You thought you could get it done, you thought you could build a monument to yourself, you thought that you complete the biggest building, and you didn't have enough in the tank to finish the job. Let's all gather and say 'wow.'
There was obviously a cost to building Capital Pointe that was not met, and we all had a giggle at the project. And Jesus talks about this in reference to the cost of being a disciple. And this is where things get interesting, because the cost of being a disciple is very very big. Being a Christian, a disciple of Christ, is a heavy investment, it really is. Most of us think about being a Christian as being as complicated as choosing a place to go to on Sunday mornings, when you feel like it, sometimes, twice a year. We think of it as a thing you do, a choice you make that is no more consequential than choosing Avengers vs Justice league, Star Wars vs Star Trek.
We don't think about it as the matter of grave seriousness that Jesus presents it to be. And in this passage, the cost of being a disciple isn't hidden you know, it isn't concealed. It is there, large as life, in easy to understand words, where Jesus of Nazareth says to the great crowds who accompany him 'If anyone comes to me and does not hate his own father and mother and wife and children and brothers and sisters, yes, and even his own life, he cannot be my disciple.'
Were you expecting those kinds of family values from Jesus? Were you expecting him to say that you have to hate everyone if you are going to be his disciple? Because that's where this goes, you know. That's what he ends up saying, that the cost of discipleship is the hatred of all that we are taught to hold true and dear. In our lives, these things are frequently seen as the most important things we have, and here, Jesus is saying that we have to hate them. That seems at odds with the sort of message that you would expect, but in reality, it is exactly in keeping with what the Gospel is all about. I will explain.
If you take the opposite tack from where Jesus is heading, if you say about your wife and children and father and mother and even your own life that these are not things to be hated, but to be embraced, to be loved, and to be loved above all other things, then you will end up in very curious places indeed. You will end up in a world in which you will do what you are absolutely forbidden as a Christian to do, which is to end up altering the scriptures, and the meaning thereof, to fit your circumstances. And this is what people do, and I've seen them do it, where they have very strong, Biblical views about sex outside of marriage, cohabitation, intoxication, whatever you'd like, and when they, or someone the love decides to go against those views they will change their views to fit the paradigm they've found themselves in. And this is how Christians get lost, you know. This is how Christians stop believing in God at all, this is where standards flip and fall apart, when you change your morality to fit your behavior, instead of changing your behavior to fit your morality. People do it all the time precisely because they forget that this is the cost of being a disciple. Not that Jesus is saying that he won't let you be a disciple otherwise, but that by the virtue of behaving and believing this way, you will by definition no longer be a disciple. You can see it happen too, bit by bit, and moment by moment, people rejecting the scriptures, rejecting the truth because it conflicted with themselves, their views, their activity, and their behavior. With nothing new under the sun, people looked at their place next to God, and instead of listening to God's word as presented, began listening to the devil, who has never changed his argument, saying 'Did God really say.....'
You can be very sure that the majority of people who believe something sideways about God got there not by a deep reading of theology, the scriptures or the church fathers.. It wasn't that they read or reasoned into a space that went wherever the scriptures would take them. More often than not, that space was found by wanting a conclusion to be the case, and finding their way there. And this is what must be resisted. The cost of being a disciple is to place all these things, house and home, wife and children, parents and caregives second, and second always to Christ. He must be the centre, he must increase, and we must decrease. If that happens, then something curious also happens. That is, if we want to change morality, virtue and truth to keep our family, we will lose them anyway. Thanks to the fallen world, your family will leave you one way or another, guaranteed. But if you have Christ at the centre, change nothing, allow him to say what he says and believe in his promise of salvation, then you will keep it all. If you seek first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness, then all these things will be added to you.
It doesn't work by cheating, though. If you cheat, if you try to 'put God first' as a way of only keeping those things that he said to hate, then you will find yourself sacrificing God's word all the way, because you'll want to do something that all humans want to do, which is to make sure that the people you know are justified. But you'll want to do that with them being perfect, not forgiven. Which isn't going to work. Christ comes to forgive. If you hold that as the highest esteem, then the rest of those things that you are told to hate, to consider second place, will be given to you as well, and given to you for eternity.
With Christ at the centre, you keep everything. With Christ at the fringes, you lose everything. As usual, we let scripture interpret scripture, and so we let Jesus speak for himself as he does in John 12.
"Whoever loves his life loses it, and whoever hates his life in this world will keep it for eternal life. If anyone serves me, he must follow me, and where I am, there will my servant be also. If anyone serves me, the Father will honor him."
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