23rd Sunday in Ordinary Time (C) – September 7, 2025

St. Joseph – Wichita, KS

Wisdom 9: 13-18b; Psalm 90:3-6, 12-14, 17; Philemon 9-10, 12-17; Luke 14:25-30

The Crowd Followers

We all know what a “bandwagon fan” is, right? A.k.a., the most despicable kind of fan? Bandwagoners—if you don’t know—bandwagons are those people that (conveniently!) begin to follow a team when that teams starts to get really good. Don’t know if you’ve heard of the Golden State Warriors—but a few years ago this random team from California became very popular in Kansas. The Chicago Cubs—they had this little problem for about a hundred years. But then in 2016 they became very popular. There was a twenty year period not to long ago where people in town were not too concerned about missing a Chiefs’ game. Then a guy named Pat Mahomes showed up and apparently everyone had been a Chiefs fan their whole life. Bandwagoners: they always show up when things are good, and fun and exciting and you’re winning and everything it going well! But if you’re a die-hard fan, bandwagons are the lowest of the low—and you know they’re be gone once things get tough.

Or think of our attention span: our deep care and concern for things—I’ve noticed it’s about as long as the news cycle, or as long as it is popping up on our Facebook feed. The news or our Facebook feed tell us something is important and our blood starts boiling! We talk to our friends about it, lose sleep, get angry or frustrated. But then two weeks later, once it drops out of the news, once it isn’t popping up on our newsfeed…it (conveniently) isn’t really on our mind anymore—almost like nothing ever happened. Everyone is talking about it, and all of a sudden no one is talking about it.

Many churches—I think of the church right next to my home parish in Wichita—there is a mega-church right next to it and it is always packed. And you can look at it and think, “Man, what are they doing right?” But then you look at the hidden data behind their attendance, and you find out that the turnover rate for that church and many like it is something like 90%. In other words people show up for a few weeks, a few months—but then they’re gone. It’s just a stream of new people all the time.

All of this—I’m going to piece this all together eventually, don’t worry— All of these crowds are following Jesus, and that’s when we need to pay attention. Jesus draws crowds, for sure! And he ministers to the crowds, he preaches to them, sure. But whenever a crowd shows up—go study the life of Jesus and you’ll see—Jesus doesn’t get excited and enthusiastic. He gets skeptical. And he goes, “What are you doing here? Do you know what it takes to follow me?” And he kinda dwindles down the crowd, he weeds people out.

Very famously in John 6, Jesus feeds 5,000 people. But then he starts saying “crazy” things like, “Unless you eat my flesh and drink my blood you have no life in you.” And people are like, “You’re weird.” And they leave. And Jesus lets them leave! He’s always skeptical about why crowds are following him. Jesus never goes, “Man, look at all of these people! This is great! Finally we’re successful.” Never.

It said in our Gospel, “Great crowds were traveling with Jesus, and he turned and addressed them, ‘If anyone comes to me without hating his father and mother [and that word “hate” doesn’t mean disdain or despise or resent, it means “to love less,” not placing even your mom above Jesus], wife and children, brothers and sisters, and even his own life [your own job, the Chiefs], he cannot be my disciple. Whoever does not carry his own cross and come after me cannot be my disciple.…Anyone of you who does not renounce all his possessions cannot be my disciple.”

So what is Jesus doing? Jesus is calling out people’s very limited attention span: they get caught in the exciting stuff, the miracles and healings and such, but that’s it. Jesus is calling out the bandwagon fans: people who are around because he’s doing so good at the moment. He’s asking, “Do you understand what’s really going on here?” Jesus is calling them out—and really he’s calling us out, that’s why we read the gospels—and he’s challenging them, he’s challenging us to take a step. And it’s that step from fan, bandwagon fan, to disciple; to take a step to the next level; to take a step toward a total and intentional and concrete discipleship in every part of our life. Jesus begins to bring up the one thing we tend to avoid and don’t want to talk about: commitment, intentionality, purposefully following him, turning over every part of our life to him.

Cheap Grace vs. Costly Grace

Jesus’ words are hard. But we can’t avoid them! We can’t sidestep them! So often, we want to put a nice “spin” on what Jesus says. We want to say, “Well, Jesus really just means you need to be a good person.” Or, “Jesus is just speaking hyperbolically. Really he just wants you to go to Mass on Sunday, if it’s not too much trouble that is. He doesn’t mean everything in your life should revolve around him. Just go to Mass when you can, be a good person. That’s all.” There is a big study out there that shows—the majority of Catholics and Christians just think this is about believing that a God exists, be a good person, and then we all go to heaven when we die.

But that’s not it; that’s simply not the case. Because Jesus makes it very clear: following him is going to cost us. That’s the little parable he tells in the middle: “Which of you wishing to construct a tower does not first sit down and calculate the cost to see if there is enough for its completion?” There is a cost. It will cost you something. Have you ever thought about that? You are going to have to put some skin in the game. “Have you counted the cost?”

A Christian martyred during World War II by the name of Dietrich Bonhoeffer—Bonhoeffer wrote this little book about this, called The Cost of Discipleship. He talked about a difference between what he calls “Cheap Grace” and “Costly Grace.” He says that many places are preaching about this “Cheap grace,” where you can be forgiven without repenting, you can be baptized and receive the life of Christ but you don’t have to follow the Church’s discipline (like going to Mass, or being an active member of the parish, tithing, following her teachings), you can receive Communion without going to confession (how many of us will continue to go to communion when we have committed serious sins but haven’t gone to confession?), we can receive absolution without personal confession (again, we don’t even thinking going to confession is a thing, we haven’t been in years). “Cheap grace,” Bonhoeffer concludes, “is grace without discipleship, grace without the cross, grace without Jesus Christ.” We’re a good person, just be good. What is he getting at? Bandwagon fans. Pay attention when it’s fun to pay attention—at Christmas or Easter, or when mom comes to visit (Sorry moms that are in town. Your kid is definitely here every Sunday.) But Bonhoeffer’s point is that this isn’t what this is.

“Costly grace,” on the other hand, “Costly grace is the treasure hidden in the field; for the sake of it a man will go and sell all that he has. It is the pearl of great price to buy which the merchant will sell all his goods.” We’ll pluck out the eye which causes him to stumble. We’ll leave our nets, our life, our whatever to follow Jesus Christ. We go all in.

What the early Christians, the Persecuted, and the Martyrs show us

This is what the early Christians and the persecuted Christians and the Christian martyrs show us. The very early Christians were turned into human torches (burned alive as lamp posts along the Roman streets); they were skinned alive; beaten and tortured to death; fed to lions.

I like to tell the story of the Austrian farmer during World War II named Franz Jägerstätter. Franz, like many Austrian people of the time, was drafted into the German army, conscripted to serve as a Nazi soldier. And he refused—he refused to swear an oath to Hitler. His faith would not allow him to go along with this. And he knew it would cost him. He discussed the matter with his wife, and he was determined to not betray Christ, not to go along with the demonic plans of Hitler. And sure enough, he was convicted of treason and sentenced to death.

And this isn’t just long ago, or during World Wars. The persecution of Christians rages in Africa and the Middle East and southeast Asia. A few year in Uganda, a man hanged his wife and two children because the mother and oldest child converted to Christianity. And that’s just one out of thousands of examples. These people all knew the cost of following Christ.

Following the Crowd vs. Following Christ

The question is: do we? Now, to be sure, here in Kansas it is pretty unlikely that we would ever face that kind of horrific persecution. But what we will face is verbal assaults—either in person or online. We will face innuendo about being bigoted, intolerant, unloving. (I mean, back when I was in Lyons teaching the middle school Confirmation kids—middle school—I was explaining to the middle schoolers why I wear black as a priest. And one of the girls, 7th grade, says under her breath, “Well, it’s because you can’t wear rainbow colors in a church.” In her innuendo, I was labeled a bigot.) It will cost you time, friends, comfort. It will cost you job opportunities. It will cost your life. Jesus isn’t looking for some bandwagon fans. He doesn’t need a crowd to make him feel special and important. Crowds? He doesn’t need them. Jesus, what he wants—he wants you, your heart, your life.

A Decisive Decision: Counting the Cost

There is a lie out there that many churches will give you (and I can give you the address if that’s what you’re looking for)—but there’s this lie out there that grace is cheap: just say this little prayer, tell Jesus you love him, then go do whatever you want because you’ve been saved by the blood of the lamb and no sin can take that away. And yes, God loves you no matter what, God’s heart burns with an infinite love for you no matter what, will forgive you of anything! (And we’ll get into that next week with the Gospel, the story of the prodigal son)—but God will also respect your freedom, and he will let you choose to reject Him, to walk away.

Personally, I’m done with my own bandwagon and fanboy following of Jesus. (This Gospel really convicted me this week. Sorry that you’re having to bear the brunt of that today, ha!) Like, I’ve told myself, “I’m a priest, I gave my life to Jesus, I’ve definitely counted the cost.” That’s easy for me to slip into. It’s easy for me to say, “Well, I’m a priest, so I’m obviously doing fine.” But at the same time begin to slip into reclaiming my life.

That’s Pope Benedict would say, “The world offers you comfort. But you were not made for comfort. You were made for greatness.” And this greatness comes from following Christ. From giving everything to follow him. And so I think, as challenging as this Gospel may seem, it is also a great call to action, a call to greatness. A call to once again place the Lord above all else.