Unpeeling the layers

Luke chapter 14:
²⁵Large crowds were traveling with Jesus, and turning to them he said: ²⁶"If anyone comes to me and does not hate his father and mother, his wife and children, his brothers and sisters—yes, even his own life—he cannot be my disciple. ²⁷And anyone who does not carry his cross and follow me cannot be my disciple. ²⁸"Suppose one of you wants to build a tower. Will he not first sit down and estimate the cost to see if he has enough money to complete it? ²⁹For if he lays the foundation and is not able to finish it, everyone who sees it will ridicule him, ³⁰saying, 'This fellow began to build and was not able to finish.' ³¹"Or suppose a king is about to go to war against another king. Will he not first sit down and consider whether he is able with ten thousand men to oppose the one coming against him with twenty thousand? ³²If he is not able, he will send a delegation while the other is still a long way off and will ask for terms of peace. ³³In the same way, any of you who does not give up everything he has cannot be my disciple. ³⁴"Salt is good, but if it loses its saltiness, how can it be made salty again? ³⁵It is fit neither for the soil nor for the manure pile; it is thrown out. "He who has ears to hear, let him hear."

So at first reading, this entire section does not have a whole lot of flow. At first, Jesus is talking about giving up family and friends to follow Jesus. Then he talks, appropriately, about carrying our cross. Then he switches to building towers, fighting wars, and salt.

What. does that have to do with the other.

Okay, so I tried to strip it down and figure out what these stories and examples have in common. After what ended up being literally weeks of thinking about it on and off, I think I have discovered one of what are probably the many layers of this mini-section of Luke's usually so organized writing:

Commitment. This has actually been coming up a bit in conversations my husband and I have had, both with each other and with other people. Even my coworker, a sworn non-religious person (minored in religion at Temple and decided that none of them "spoke to her") understands that if you're gonna do religion, be real about it. Commit. The amount of times in the Bible that Jesus blasts people for being lukewarm, un-genuine, and fake about their beliefs are many -- he often notes that it would be better to just not believe at all than to be wishy-washy about it. Kind of a scary statement to those of us working to integrate faith into our whole lives, not just Sunday mornings or wed. at youth group.

So that's what I think these verses have in common. The first bit, rather obviously, Jesus talks about putting Him before all else.

But then he goes off into talking about building stuff. How you have to plan for layouts and blueprints and contractors. And its true: you don't start a huge building project without planning, and, more importanly, without committing to it fully. If you half-heartedly committ to building an addition to your house, it may end in mayhem. If you committ to it 100 percent. you'll live to see it beautiful and finished, done right.

The same goes for planning wars, apparently. You don't (or shouldn't) just pick up your uncle's old rifle and go running off into some country to declare war. You should get the best military tactical experts, weapons experts, and leaders you know together in a room and let them plan out the strategy. It's not something you do half-way. If you're willing to bet your life and the people who you serve's lives on a violent endeavor, you better committ to it all the way. You better pour the money, the resources, and the blood into that war to be victorious for whatever just cause you have sat down and decided to fight for. You half-ass it, send in half the troops needed, don't bother training them, give them poor equipment and even poorer leaders, and you'll be devoured by the enemy. You'll fail. You'll fall. You'll 'be spit out.'

And then...salt? be salty? be like...little grains of spice that comes out of the ocean? heh? We understand the metaphor, but what the heck does it have to do with fighting wars and building towers?

The same. Committment. You can't eat food that has completely lost its flavor. Well, unless you like the Dutchy style of my current home county. If you want to live like Jesus, and to live so that people know and see and hear you acting like Jesus, you have to maintain that committment, that flavor. If you're a dim light in a room that flickers and sometimes goes out, what good are you? We want a truckload of salt. We want to be those crazy bright flashlights that almost blind people, we're so bright you can't miss us if you try. No luke-warm, mushy, tasteless food. I'm talking Mexican chile sauce, the kind Tim shoveled on his pork and felt his lips burning for 48 hours afterwards. That's committment. Who would use spices in their kitchens if they thought they might lose flavor? Who would buy flashlights not guaranteed to work when you need 'em?