Luke 14.25-33 Give up your possessions

When I was growing up, Labyrinth was one of my favorite movies. David Bowie plays the Goblin King. It begins with Sarah, played by Jennifer Connelly, acting out a story in the woods. It starts in the middle.

Sarah: Give me the child. Through dangers untold and hardships unnumbered, I have fought my way here to the castle beyond the Goblin City to take back the child that you have stolen. For my will is as strong as yours, and my kingdom is as great…

[thunder rumbles]

Sarah: For my will is as strong as yours, my kingdom as great… Damn.

[pulls the Labyrinth novel out of her pocket]

Sarah: I can never remember that line.

[then, her eyes light up as the answer dawns upon her]

Sarah: You have no power over me.

The opening scene is a foretelling of the tale about to unfold. The entire story in just a few simple lines. The only problem is that Sarah has forgotten the end of the story.

When she first enters the labyrinth, not an easy task in itself, she initially struggles just to get inside. Then she finds herself in an endless corridor not a maze at all. Eventually, she gets frustrated with going in a straight line and in her anger slams her fists against a rock wall.

What do they mean by “labyrinth?” There are no turns. This just goes on and on.

In a huff, she collapses against the wall, and a tiny voice speaks, “‘allo.”

She turns to see a worm sitting right neck to her head. A tiny brown slug like thing with blue tufts of hair and a little scarf.  His name is William. “Did you say hello?”

“I said ‘allo, but close enough.” All worms now have British accents in my mind when they speak.

“Do you know the way through here?”

“No, I am just a worm.”

“I have to solve this labyrinth but there are no turns or openings. It just goes on and on.”

“You are not looking right. It’s full of openings.”

“Where are they?”

“There is one right across there.” He tilts his head to the wall, Sarah had just hit her fists against.

“No there is not.”

“Of course there is. Try walking through it. You will see what I mean. Go on then.”

Sarah stands and looks at the wall. “That is just a wall. There is no way through.”

“Things are not what they seem here. Do not take anything for granted.”

Sarah proceeds to follow William’s directions despite her disbelief and lo and behold, as she walks forward and looks to the left and the right, she can now see corridors going off in both directions. She immediately starts walking down one of them. “Hang on!” calls the worm.

She takes a few steps backward. “Thanks for the help.” As if the worm were stopping her for being impolite.

“Do not go that way. Never go that way.”

“Oh, thanks,” Sarah says and runs off in the other direction.

We are left momentarily with the worm, who is shaking his head. If she had gone that way, she would have gone straight to that castle.”

I feel like this scene is the story of our faith journey with Jesus Christ, who talks in what feels like a very confusing manner, like William the Worm. Jesus tells us this story Luke 14:25-33

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.

Because if you missed it, Sarah wasn’t supposed to go that way. All she had to do was walk straight to her destination. Wouldn’t have been much of a movie mind you, but isn’t that us? We listen to half of what is being said, immediately jump into action and go the wrong way?

In this world we possess more than things. We possess ideas and beliefs. We think the world operates in certain ways by certain rules that we have decided exist. We refuse to believe that salvation is as simple as walking straight to God and instead choose to see nothing but the walls, barriers, and obstacles our minds create. We think that any reward worth obtaining can only be acquired after fighting through dangers untold and going through hardships unnumbered. It cannot possibly be as simple as dispelling these illusions and walking straight to the end.

We need a plan of action! Hoops to jump through, riddles to solve, goals for life and daily living. Boxes to check off. We forget that the evils of this world have no power over us. This labyrinth of life we are walking in is a prison of our own making. We have to give up our need for possession and control to reach the end. We have to stop blaming evil, the devil, a goblin king, for our problems. It is we who create them, not him.

The barriers in our lives creating this maze are of our own making! We can walk right through them if we so choose. But we have to trust the most unlikely of sources. A human being who walked this earth 2000 years ago is telling us not to go that way. Throw away all your preconceived notions, all your rules and regulations of life, do not go that way. DO not go the way of your ancestors, do not go the way of society, do not go the way of materialism storing up treasures on earth, do not continue in the direction you are headed in.

All of these things have created barriers to God in our minds. The labyrinth in our head is of our own making. As human beings, we love to complicate the hell out of simple things. Just look at how hard it is for us to do something so simple as to love one another! All the excuses we come up with, exceptions, rationalizations of why we cannot do it. We build walls. We built this labyrinth. We try to blame the devil for it, but it wasn’t it’s us. We want to have someone to blame to carry the cross for us instead of accepting responsibility and carrying it ourselves.

Sarah forgot the simple words time and time again. “You have no power over me.” The devil has no power over you as the Goblin king had no power over Sarah that she did not give to him.

A worm, one of the lowest creatures of them all, offers only the truth. Don’t go that way. Never go that way. Just go straight toward that castle. Ignore every perceived barrier you have dreamt up and just keep on walking. Straight shot to heaven. No detours. But what do we do? Don’t go that way? Oh, of course, I’ll just go the opposite way, which is also wrong.

What is it going to take for us to realize that even by changing direction, we’re still going the wrong way? We are not going straight to God; we’re just going down a different path in our own self-created internal labyrinth. Just so we can say at the end through dangers untold and hardships unnumbered, I have fought my way here to the castle to take back that which was stolen.

God’s going to look at us and say “Why on earth did you fight your way here? All you had to do was walk straight toward me! Nothing was stolen from you. I offered you a gift through my son, which you refused to receive. You said you’d rather do it your way.”

Know anyone like that? People who take pride in fighting their own battles? Doing things the hard way? Yeh… let’s just all accept that’s probably us. I know it’s definitely me. I used do everything the hard way. But more and more, as my faith grows stronger, I realize, I don’t have to. It seems strange, and my mind doesn’t like it, but even in the most difficult situations, I don’t have to believe the illusory walls I have created in my mind that “I’m not good enough.” Or that “I need more than what I have.” I can just walk straight through those walls and go straight to God.

Those voices that taught me I needed to have more and do more are wrong. I have one mission. Walk straight to the castle of God. I can tell those forces, whether they be from my mother, my father, my sister, my brother, or life itself, “You have no power over me.” I refuse to follow all your twists and turns. I refuse to accept these walls of my own creation. I am not going that way. I am going to walk straight to that castle.