Exodus 3:1-15
Romans 12:9-21
Matthew 16:21-28
“Costly Discipleship”
This morning’s Scripture readings are difficult ones. It’s not that they are difficult to understand, but that they are difficult to embrace because they tell us that being a Christian is going to require us to do difficult things.
These are probably not the texts that will convince your non-religious friend that they should become a Christian. Rather than elaborating all the blessings that come with the Christian faith and being a part of a Christian community, the Apostle Paul lists all the things that are required of us as disciples.
Be patient in affliction, give generously to help others, bless people who persecute you, associate with lowly people, love your enemies and care for them. Or as Jesus put it: “If any wish to come after me, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me.”
Do not respond to evil with evil or to hatred with hatred, but respond with goodness, with grace, with love that has not been earned. Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.
I know that many of you have been learning to live in this way for many years. I say “learning” because no matter how old we are or how long we’ve been practicing this Christian life, it’s still hard. It’s hard to be patient with difficult people. It’s hard to be kind to someone who has been rude or cruel to you. It’s hard to keep on responding in love when your instinct is to respond in anger and to repay them with the hatred you have received from them.
Of course, as we walk the difficult path of discipleship, we know that Jesus is the one who shows us the way. It is his footsteps in which we are called to walk and his example we are invited to follow. But sometimes “Be like Jesus” just feels a bit beyond us, and we need some examples and inspiration from other Christians who have walked the path of discipleship before us.
Catholics are most likely to turn to the saints of the church for inspiration, and that is certainly an option. But this week, many people have been finding wisdom in the life and witness of the singer, Dolly Parton, who died earlier this week.
In a 2023 cover‑story interview with Consequence Live, where she spoke with Hayley Williams of Paramore, Dolly reflected on how she handles conflict, criticism, and people who behave badly. She was talking about how she responds when she “runs up against” people who are rude, hurtful, or hostile.
She said: “In my own self, I just try to love people. I try to find the God light in everybody, and I try to let mine shine extra hard when I run up against that.”
She continued: “There is a God piece in all of us, and I try to find that in everybody – even the worst people, there’s something good in there.”
She explained that she tries to meet negativity with love, patience, and a deliberate effort to see the good in others. She framed this as part of her spiritual practice — looking for the “God light” in everyone and letting her own light “shine extra hard” in moments of conflict.
She also connected this to her understanding of human nature, saying that people who hate often do so because they have never been loved enough, which deepens her resolve to respond with compassion rather than retaliation.
Dolly Parton spent decades being underestimated, mocked, or pressured — from early interviews that belittled her appearance to public controversies where critics attacked her faith, her politics, or her businesses. Despite that treatment, she consistently responded with grace, humour, and a refusal to let cruelty harden her.
None of us are living the kind of life in the spotlight that Dolly Parton lived, but I wonder if her example can be an inspiration for us as we strive to live in harmony with one another, to respond to criticism with humility and to cruelty with love.
This morning’s reading from the Book of Exodus provides us with another great example of a person who responded to God’s call to do something very difficult. Moses was called and sent by God to go to the Pharaoh of Egypt and to bring God’s people, the Israelites, out of Egypt where they were enslaved and suffering greatly.
As an Israelite by birth, Moses had been found and raised by Pharaoh’s daughter as an Egyptian prince. He became a person of privilege who nonetheless seemed to recognize and feel for the suffering of the slaves. But what could he do about it?
In Exodus 2 (which the lectionary skips by) there is a story about Moses seeing an Egyptian beating a Hebrew slave. In a surge of anger and solidarity with his people, Moses kills the Egyptian and hides the body.
Doesn’t that sound like returning evil for evil? – exactly what the Apostle Paul would later say we must avoid?
When the act becomes known, Pharaoh seeks to kill Moses, forcing him to flee to Midian. Moses ceases to be a powerful Egyptian ruler and builds an entirely new life. He defends the daughters of Jethro at a well, is welcomed into their household, marries Zipporah, and has a son named Gershom. In today’s text, we find Moses in his new occupation as a shepherd, looking after his father-in-law’s flock.
From his previous position of power, judging and killing the abusive Egyptian was the easy thing for Moses to do. And even if we have never done something so extreme, we can probably relate to his instinct. We want to mock or belittle those who have hurt us or those we love. We want to strike back at those who have done harm to the vulnerable people among us.
But like in Moses’ story, God is calling us to a more challenging mission that is not rooted in revenge, but in God’s love and concern for those who are suffering. Loving our enemies doesn’t mean simply accepting their cruelty and the harm they are doing in the world. But it means that we avoid becoming judges who return evil for evil. We trust God to be the judge, and we listen for how God is calling us to participate in the mission of love.
Moses was called to the difficult mission of going back to Egypt and leading the Israelites out of slavery, through the wilderness, and into the promised land. He didn’t feel like he had the gifts or resources to do such an enormous and difficult task, but God said, “I will be with you, and eventually you’ll be back here worshipping me on this mountain again.”
I don’t imagine that Dolly Parton ever had a vision of a burning bush or heard God’s voice clearly sending her on a mission of love to help the poor, oppressed, and suffering people of God, but that’s exactly what she did. I think it’s safe to assume that her priorities and her generosity were rooted in the same faith that helped her to respond with kindness and love, even to people who were treating her poorly.
She avoided getting involved in politics or using her voice to criticize others. Instead, she poured her success into helping others: she founded the Imagination Library, which ultimately donated over 300 million free books to children worldwide; she invested $1 million in COVID‑19 research that helped support work leading to the Moderna vaccine; and she gave millions in disaster relief, including $1 million for Hurricane Helene recovery in Tennessee. She also quietly funded high‑school band uniforms, paid college tuition for Dollywood employees, and used royalties from “I Will Always Love You” to support a Black neighborhood in Nashville.
Our particular calls will be different from those of Moses and of Dolly Parton, but I don’t think they’ll be any less difficult, any less costly, or any less important in God’s mission of love in the world. We are living in a time when it seems like evil and injustice are growing all around us, and we are called by God not to return evil for evil, but with God’s help, to overcome evil with good.
In all our costly discipleship, may we know God’s presence with us and trust in God’s promises.