NRS Deuteronomy 30
15 See, I have set before you today life and prosperity, death and adversity. 16 If you obey the commandments of the LORD your God that I am commanding you today, by loving the LORD your God, walking in his ways, and observing his commandments, decrees, and ordinances, then you shall live and become numerous, and the LORD your God will bless you in the land that you are entering to possess. 17 But if your heart turns away and you do not hear, but are led astray to bow down to other gods and serve them, 18 I declare to you today that you shall perish; you shall not live long in the land that you are crossing the Jordan to enter and possess. 19 I call heaven and earth to witness against you today that I have set before you life and death, blessings and curses. Choose life so that you and your descendants may live, 20 loving the LORD your God, obeying him, and holding fast to him; for that means life to you and length of days, so that you may live in the land that the LORD swore to give to your ancestors, to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob.

NRS Luke 14
25 Now large crowds were traveling with him; and he turned and said to them, 26 "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. 27 Whoever does not carry the cross and follow me cannot be my disciple. 28 For which of you, intending to build a tower, does not first sit down and estimate the cost, to see whether he has enough to complete it? 29 Otherwise, when he has laid a foundation and is not able to finish, all who see it will begin to ridicule him, 30 saying, 'This fellow began to build and was not able to finish.' 31 Or what king, going out to wage war against another king, will not sit down first and consider whether he is able with ten thousand to oppose the one who comes against him with twenty thousand? 32 If he cannot, then, while the other is still far away, he sends a delegation and asks for the terms of peace. 33 So therefore, none of you can become my disciple if you do not give up all your possessions.

In the movie "Crimes and Misdemeanors," Woody Allen plays a character named Cliff Stern. He's a documentary film maker whose life ambition is to make a movie about an obscure philosophy professor whom Cliff believes to be a kind of living saint. For years Cliff has been assembling money and materials, but just as he's about to launch his production, he turns on the news to learn that his beloved subject has committed suicide, leaving behind diaries that reveal his utter lack of hope for himself and all humankind. Devastated and disappointed beyond words, Cliff then discovers that the woman he's fallen in love with is herself a kind of phony.

It happens, and not just in the movies. Sometimes we pour our hearts and souls into people or projects that prove to be unworthy of our commitment. Maybe we knock ourselves out for a boss who turns out to be a jerk. Or maybe we give our best to a relationship that was just never meant to be. And sometimes it's not just that we invest ourselves in the wrong things, but that we over-invest and expect more out of people or positions than they can possibly deliver. We convince ourselves that once we find the right mate, or once we get the right degree, or once we land the right job, then it's all going to be right. We'll be happy. Life will be great. No more worries! And when it isn't all right, when the marriage isn't perfect and the degree doesn't spell instant success and the job isn't everything we expected, we become, like Woody Allen's Cliff Stern, disappointed to the core of our being, crushed, bitter, and resentful.

In today's First Lesson we hear through Moses the central proclamation of all Scripture: that only God, as attested in the Law, confessed by the Prophets, and sealed in the blood of Jesus, only God can satisfy the deepest longings and highest aspirations of every human heart. I know I sometimes think that I might be satisfied with a checkbook that balances and a car that runs, but I also know that I'm kidding myself. We were not made for this world only. We were not made like the beasts of the field, without hope or forethought, but we were, instead, made with minds to roam the universe and with hearts that yearn for eternity. We were made by God for God, or as St. Augustine once so famously wrote of his own yearnings, "My heart is restless until it rests in thee, O God."

God is our destiny, God is our home, God is our hope, and in Jesus Christ, God has opened to us his own heart. In the Word Made Flesh, God has revealed himself to us, so that we may walk in God's ways, seek God's purposes, and live God's will. For only as we live in, with, and for God are our lives founded on the rock that will not crumble and the foundation that will not fail. Any one or anything else can only disappoint us. You cannot substitute any created thing for the Creator without coming to realize that you've built your life on sand. "Things fall apart, the center cannot hold," and our lives can only dissolve before our eyes unless our hearts, minds, and souls rest in the God of heaven and earth.

But does this mean that only God is good? Are we supposed to love only God and despise everything else? No. Over all the works of his hand God said, "It is good," and in God's goodness we are blessed to enjoy "food and clothing, home and property, work and income," that is, everything needed for this life. But the moment we make any of these good things our ultimate good, then we destroy them. You've seen this. You've seen people who love their home or family or work so much that those good things become to them like a god, the focus and organizing center of their lives. And as a god (small 'g'), they can only prove false, because only God (capital 'G') can save us. Only God can give us the purpose and meaning that will not shatter under the stresses and strains of this life.

This is the logic behind the hard saying of Jesus in this morning's gospel: "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." Is Jesus abolishing the Fourth Commandment? Is Jesus saying that we have to despise the people closest to us? Is Jesus condemning us to lives of unfeeling, stony detachment? No, no, no. What Jesus is saying, and saying in the ancient language of Middle Eastern overstatement, is that we cannot cling to anything or anyone in a way that either compromises or competes with our commitment to the God revealed in Jesus, or at least not without dire consequences.

This is often a very tricky problem for us as parents. We can't help but love our kids, and sometimes we love them so much that they become the purpose and meaning of our lives. But kids grow up, and if we've made our kids our sole reason for living, then as parents we can find ourselves resisting their growth and maybe even fighting to keep them children, dependent on us and unable to cope on their own. Or in another scenario, our own kids will pick up that we have actually built our lives around them, and rather than disappoint us and leave us without meaning, they sabotage their own lives and keep on behaving as children long past childhood, even as we complain about them never growing up.

Therapy can help a lot with these issues, but the spiritual nub of the matter remains the same: Only God is worthy of our ultimate loyalty. Only God can grant us the hope that will never fail. Only God can, in Jesus, open to us the way that is truth everlasting and life without end.

So choose life. Choose blessing. Choose the God who has chosen you for honor and glory and power in the Kingdom of the only Son.

In the Name of the Father, and of the + Son, and of the Holy Spirit.
Amen.