Lectionary Reflection for Proper 8C on Luke 9:51-62

DECISIONS, DECISIONS

Many years ago, when I was the worship director of a small ‘Word of Faith’ congregation here in South Africa, I invited my parents to join me at a special service at the flagship megachurch of our movement.^¹ I don’t remember the occasion or the preacher, but I do remember that after the usual evangelistic message, he invited people to raise their hands if they wanted to give their lives to Jesus. My father, who had been a devoted follower of Christ for many years, raised his hand as a sign of reaffirming his faith commitment. What he hadn’t expected was that he, along with everyone else who had responded, was called out of his seat and herded into a counselling room in some other part of the building, while the congregation clapped and cheered. After the service, when we were finally reunited, I asked my father why he had raised his hand and what had happened. He replied that he had been moved to respond, but that the counsellor who was assigned to him seemed to have only one script to follow. He led my father in a “sinner’s prayer”, spoke to him about following Jesus, and tried to capture as many of my father’s personal details as possible, as he had obviously been trained to do. But frustratingly, he did not seem interested in why my father had responded. All he seemed to care about was the decision.

A few years before this, I had entered the Christian ministry in the Methodist Church of Southern Africa, shortly after the ‘Church Growth Movement’ started. In the church of my childhood, graphs indicating trends in attendance and financial income didn’t exist. In my ministerial training, nothing was said about tracking the growth of the communities we would lead, and we were never encouraged to get “decisions for Christ”. But when I began work, it was in a local church congregation that had already been strongly influenced by church growth principles. The graphs were prominently displayed, with bright colours for each metric, in the church office. It took me a few years, but I eventually came to understand that my ‘success’ as a minister would not be measured by any attempts I made to deepen my commitment to Christ or that of the communities I served. It would be judged by how much money was in the church’s bank account and how many people filled the pews on Sundays. Fundamentally, the global Church of which I had become a part had mostly begun to value decisions over discipleship.

CAPITALIST CHRISTIANITY

Somewhere along the way, more and more churches became convinced that they could only fulfil their calling if they developed clear marketing campaigns and identified their ‘target markets’. Somehow, it became a Gospel mandate to segment communities along demographic lines, and produce a constant stream of highly entertaining, age- and gender-appropriate content designed to address “felt needs” and get people to “make a decision for Christ.” But all the decisions secured by these churches have only helped to turn Christianity into a capitalist venture.² Ask almost any pastor how their church is doing, and they’ll tell you about their attendance figures and the giving of their people. Look at the roster for almost any church conference and you’ll see a list of the current favourite megachurch pastors, speakers, and authors (most will be all three). Listen to the music in almost any contemporary worship service and you’ll likely find that most of the songs, if not all of them, will have been written by one of the “Big Four” megachurches: Hillsongs, Bethel, Passion, or Elevation. In the United States, 70% of worshippers attend the top 10% of churches (in terms of size).³

Church has become big business, and increasingly, the values that drive how we do church are those of capitalist businesses. In one of the larger churches I served as a minister, the chairman of the financial committee became deeply frustrated that I seemed uninterested in turning our community into a “ten-million-rand-a-year church” and that I refused to pander to the wealthiest members in order to motivate them to give more. When I was asked publicly to thank someone who had made a large donation to our church, I refused and opted instead to express thanks to everyone who chose to support our ministry financially, especially those for whom giving was difficult. It was not a popular decision.

Capitalist Christianity⁴ is a version of the Christian faith that not only sees capitalist ideology as biblical and designed by God, but that shapes the Church according to capitalist principles. You know your faith has been influenced by capitalism if you believe that wealth is a sign of God’s blessing and poverty is a sign of God’s curse or punishment. Capitalist church leaders see other churches as competition and believe that megachurches are God’s ideal for Christ-following communities, while ignoring the devastating impact that megachurches have on smaller communities in their locations.⁵ Capitalist Christians tend to be more concerned with things that can be measured, like money in the bank, bums on seats, and fame or social influence, than with intangible qualities like the fruit of the Spirit—which can themselves come to be defined in capitalist terms. In this framework, “decisions for Christ” become the primary goal of the Church and its preaching, while other kinds of important decisions—like how to use our finances in just and sustainable ways or how to serve and love the poor and vulnerable—are seen as distractions at best or socialist distortions of the Bible at worst.

RESPECTING BOUNDARIES

The Christ of Luke’s Gospel didn’t seem all that interested in these kinds of decisions. Jesus was not concerned with drawing crowds or manifesting “God’s blessing” through the accumulation of wealth. On the contrary, in Luke’s version of the Beatitudes, Jesus spoke blessing to the poor, hungry, and grieving and woe to the wealthy, full, and laughing (Luke 6:20-26).⁶ It’s not that decisions didn’t matter to Jesus. It’s that he was concerned about different kinds of decisions and their impact on our lives and relationships. For Jesus, decisions are not about productivity, but integrity; not about a moment of change, but a lifetime of transformation and contribution.

The Gospel reading for Proper 8C marks an important shift in Luke’s Gospel. After describing Jesus’ ministry in Galilee, the writer now begins the famous ‘travel narrative’ which runs from 9:51 to 19:50. This section of the Gospel contains a lot of content that is unique to Luke and is focused on discipleship. The preceding sections in the Gospel include Jesus’ transfiguration, and the conversation with the disciples about who was the greatest among them and whether to stop someone casting out demons in Jesus’ name. This is the point at which Jesus “set his face to go to Jerusalem” (9:51 NRSV) after having twice predicted his coming death. The context for the stories that follow, then, is Jesus’ decision to embrace his sacrificial mission.