One of the most significant seasons in my spiritual life began when I answered an invitation not unlike the two classified ads we just heard read. It didn’t invite me to adventure on the high seas or through a time warp, but it did play up the challenge inherent in answering the call.

I was 21, had just graduated from college and moved to Bloomington, Indiana to start music school. My first Sunday in town, I went to check out the local UCC church. In the bulletin was an announcement that read something like this:
“New small group forming. Weekly meetings for the next nine months. Daily reading and journaling. Participants must be able to commit to being present and doing the work. Informational meeting after church today. Safety not guaranteed.”

OK, maybe not that last part. But there was a challenge implicit in that announcement that hooked me. I had never been in a small group. I didn’t really know what one was. But it sounded like this bulletin thought maybe I wasn’t cut out for it, didn’t have the chops. And I wanted to prove it wrong. More than the challenge, though, I responded to the promise which I heard. Something in me said, “If they are warning me off, that means there must be something of value here, something that isn’t easy, that takes work, something that has meaning. This is where growth lies, where transformation lies.”

A week later, nine of us made a small circle in the candlelit fellowship hall and began our journey. Over the next nine months, we shared our lives as deeply as I have done with any group. We prayed with one another and sought knowledge of and relationship with God, and found it, and cried a lot and laughed a lot. And my life was changed. That group is where I first felt called to ministry, and in many ways it is responsible for the way that I minister today.

The announcement that first Sunday was right. It took a lot of hard work, and time, and dedication during what turned out to be a fairly difficult year personally. And more than the work, it was right about the danger and challenge. The group asked me to look more deeply at myself and my faith than I had done before, and that looking led toward pain and confrontation on the way to transformation. And it was right about that transformation.

Perhaps I am a sucker for such invitations, for the scent of adventure and the thrill of a new challenge. But I am not alone. While the story of Shackleton’s ad in The Times is apocryphal, it continues to be told because it has power. The classified ad on time travel is real. Or at least, it is a real fake. It was thrown into a 1997 issue of Backwoods Home Magazine as a joke by an editor looking to fill some space. Over the years, the ad has gotten hundreds if not thousands of replies from would-be time travelers. They are drawn not solely to the dream of past or future but also by the call of challenge and danger, of the growth that can happen when our safety is not guaranteed.

In his book Community, Peter Block says that being clear about the cost of saying yes, what he calls “naming the hurdle,” is an essential part of any invitation. He writes, “We need to tell people explicitly what is required of them should they attend. There is a price to pay for their decision…paradoxically, even though there is no cost for refusal, there is a price for coming. Everything that has value has a price. Make the price explicit, so that the act of showing up carries some accountability.”
When I read those words, I thought of our passage from Luke about hating your family and taking up your cross. As you can imagine, this was one of the stories that our Luke bible study group in the spring had some trouble with. I was doing my best to make the case for Luke as the gospel writer who should be closest to progressive hearts. He emphasizes the role of women in Jesus’ ministry. He highlights Jesus’ radical economic message and preference for the poor. He expands the circle of who is included to ethnic and sexual minorities. I was spending much of our time on passages like the opening one today in which Jesus tells his followers that when they host a party they should invite all the people whom they would never have included, all those who have nothing to give in return. This is the extravagant welcome that we like to talk about here and that I had told my bible study group to expect from Luke. But then we got to the very next passage, and I wasn’t sure what to say.

“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.” Now, all the commentaries agree that Jesus is exaggerating for effect. But even if it is an exaggeration, it has to mean something. As a new parent, this passage is especially hard to hear.

Ironically, I remember reading passages like this as a kid and loving them. In the exaggerated drama of childhood, where no matter how great your family is you hate them for some part of every week, the intensity of Jesus’ words made perfect sense. There was something so powerful and subversive in them. They were the opposite of what everyone around me was saying. Like those classified ads, they seemed to dare me to make sense of them. And I did. Intuitively, I knew that someday I would be asked to choose between the wishes and dreams of the people who loved me and wanted to keep me safe and the call of God to leave that safety and be the person I am created to be. I could see that the teachings of this man to love enemies, and not return violence, and live simply and not worry, and speak up for those on the margins – if I did even half of this stuff it was going to cost me.

Now, through the eyes of a parent, I see that it was precisely the deep love that can live in families that led Jesus to choose such extreme words. The point is not anything about families themselves. The point is that cost. Whatever we value, we are asked to consider risking it for the way of love and justice.

I hadn’t remembered when I went looking for this passage that it began with Jesus’ sayings about hospitality and welcome. But Luke is known among the gospel writers for putting things in order. It is no mistake that these two very different sayings are put together, that we get a kind of spiritual whiplash when we read chapter 14. On one hand, the wide welcome. And on the other, the steep price. Luke knows what Peter Block, and the editor of Backwoods Home, and my minister in Bloomington understood, that these two pieces are inseparable, that the invitation always comes at a cost.

It’s easy for me to forget that. Or it’s convenient for me to forget that. I’ve preached lots of sermons on widening the circle, but very few that tried to name the hurdle or count the cost. We stand up every Sunday and say, “whoever you are and wherever you are on life’s journey, you are welcome here,” but I stop short of adding, “safety not guaranteed.”

I think part of this is that I am all too aware of what others have had to say about that cost: that it means believing certain doctrines, or assenting to certain rules, or denying or devaluing the people we were created to be. The cost I have heard about is something which seems completely disconnected from the life and teachings of Jesus, and it is something I am simply not interested in.

But if it’s true that everything of value comes at a price, then this community, which has been of such great value to me, must also come with a cost. So what is it?

I was stuck there last week, wondering how to name the hurdle of being welcomed into this community, wondering at the beginning of another year, what exactly I am inviting you to. And then I attended our All-Board Kick-Off.

As our afternoon closed last week with almost 100 UCG members silently dreaming together, writing all over the walls of Reimer Hall, I had a eureka moment. If you’ve been welcomed into this community, and are wondering what exactly you’re being asked to do and give this year, let me read you a few of their answers:

Forming “deepening, lasting, more-than-just-Sunday-morning friendships”
Engaging in “transformative spiritual experiences”
Providing “support for my transgender grandchild”
And “support for those who will not be here in 50 years”
“making UCG carbon neutral”
“growing flowers”
“putting a new roof up to keep us dry”
“encouraging our children to use their gifts in service to the community”
“raising awareness of mental illness”
Exploring hard questions like: “why are there so few people of color at UCG?”
“advocating for a statewide non-discrimination act”
“developing a health ministry”
“seeking opportunities to put ourselves in new, perhaps uncomfortable situations so we can grow”

We have a lot of work to do here. And this list is far from complete. But beyond all the things we want to do, more important than these individual ideas – as good as they are- is that they come from the hearts and minds of our friends and neighbors here. The real ask that comes with our welcome at UCG, is that you share yourself with us. The hurdle that we name is that we need your gifts, your passions, your unique difference to make this place truly a beloved community. We are asking you to risk being your full self in this place and to welcome and love our full selves. And if the gift that you bring is sadness, or exhaustion, or doubt, we need that especially.

We will guarantee your safety. This is a safe space. But we can’t always guarantee your comfort. We’re all stretching a little bit here. It’s hard work reaching toward one another in love, putting our real selves out there and seeing what happens. And what happens is that we sometimes get hurt or hurt others and we have to seek forgiveness and reconciliation. There is little honor or recognition in case of success. We won’t be paying you upon your return. The hours are long, and the work is difficult. We make lots of mistakes. You probably wouldn’t like it. But many of us have found something of great value here. And you are most welcome.