In our politics today, if you want to characterize the other side, your opponent, as someone that you shouldn’t vote for, one of the first words that you reach for is this one: Extreme.
He is on the extreme right, we might say of our opponent.
Or she is on the extreme left, if we want to characterize them as the worst person for which we could possibly vote.
What are we trying to say? We’re saying that we are “Us”. We are part of the crowd. We are the majority.
But they are “Them”. They are outside of the majority. They are a small group with radical ideas. Their ideas are too much for the majority to take. Get rid of those people. Vote against them because they are extreme.
As I think about Jesus, despite the characterizations of being loving, merciful, and full of grace – which he most definitely was and still is – he was also extreme, and he expected his disciples to be the same way. Jesus was all of the way in with regard to his mission, and he expected his disciples to be all of the way in, in exactly the same way. He was completely committed to the task at hand, to carrying out the mission that he was on, and he expected his disciples to do the same.
Jesus had just finished giving the sermon on the mount and as he came down and began to travel, he had large crowds following him. Seeing the crowds, he decided that it was time to cross the lake. Now was the time to start to sift between the people. Some would go with him and others would not and so some of the people began to speak up.
“Teacher, I will follow you wherever you go,” said one of the teachers of the law.
But Jesus knew that this would be difficult – in fact, too much for this man:
Jesus replied, “Foxes have dens and birds have nests, but the Son of Man has no place to lay his head.”
Matthew 8:20
Then another person wanted to go as well, but he had a problem in his family. His father had died: “Lord, first let me go and bury my father.”
But Jesus told him, “Follow me, and let the dead bury their own dead.”
Matthew 8:22
How many of us would be repelled today by Jesus saying things like this?
Jesus, are you saying I can’t even have a house? Wouldn’t we object that shelter is a basic human need? Don’t I need that before I can follow you?
Jesus, are you saying that I can’t even bury my father? Is not the love of a son for a father something that you want to honor? Is not the obligation to my family extremely important?
It isn’t very difficult to understand the objections. I think most of us, if we heard a teacher respond to someone who had these objections today, say that Jesus wouldn’t permit him to have a home and also still follow him. Or Jesus wouldn’t permit a person to bury their father and also still follow him… I’m pretty sure that each of us would say that the teacher is much too extreme.
And yet, that is precisely what Jesus said.
In fact, if anything, we might say that Jesus was intentionally driving people away. And I think that if we said that, we would probably be right. It seems to me that he was calling people to himself at an extremely high cost. The time to separate the disciples from the crowd had come, and the way that Jesus had decided to make the separation was with a calling that was so high, it was difficult for the people to accept.
Jesus wasn’t trying to keep a big crowd around him. He was looking for the few who were willing to be completely committed to knowing him and to being a part of the work that he was doing.
The same is true even still today. Nothing has changed. If we think that Jesus is fine with us remaining to be part of the crowd, we are mistaken. If we think that Jesus was just sort of mainstream, and he wants us to just sort of be mainstream, we are mistaken.
There was nothing mainstream about Jesus. He is the king over all things. He is the creator and king of the universe. And yet he came to purchase each of us with his blood to come out of the kingdom of darkness and into the kingdom of God. It doesn’t get more extreme than that. It is not possible be more committed to your cause than that.
And that is who Jesus called each of his disciples to be as well. That is still who he calls us to be, even today.