Bait and Switch
Would we have signed up for the spiritual journey if we *really* knew what we were agreeing to? Marginal Theology pt 4
Well, I mixed up the lectionary readings from last week and this week, so this is what I should have written about last week, and I should be writing about the lost sheep this week. But holy crap I’m so glad I screwed this up!
Near the end of the article I wrote last
week I was diving into the idea of the “Rational Mind” and the “Sympathetic Mind” as coined by Wendell Berry. I shared that the Rational Mind is always asking, “is it worth it,” and the Sympathetic mind says, “that’s the wrong question.” And this distinction is now HEAVILY influencing how I see these verses, and it’s changing how I want to talk about them. I’m so grateful I mixed up these verses, so I could write something more meaningful about this excerpt.
Luke 14:25-33 “The Cost of Being a Disciple”
25 Large crowds were traveling with Jesus, and turning to them he said: 26 “If anyone comes to me and does not hate father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters—yes, even their own life—such a person cannot be my disciple. 27 And whoever does not carry their cross and follow me cannot be my disciple.
28 “Suppose one of you wants to build a tower. Won’t you first sit down and estimate the cost to see if you have enough money to complete it? 29 For if you lay the foundation and are not able to finish it, everyone who sees it will ridicule you, 30 saying, ‘This person began to build and wasn’t able to finish.’
31 “Or suppose a king is about to go to war against another king. Won’t he first sit down and consider whether he is able with ten thousand men to oppose the one coming against him with twenty thousand? 32 If he is not able, he will send a delegation while the other is still a long way off and will ask for terms of peace. 33 In the same way, those of you who do not give up everything you have cannot be my disciples.
The Neighborhood ‘Bandos
Austin has been one of the fastest growing cities in the US for nearly 20 years. Tech oligarchs and music lovers alike have flocked to the coolest city in the Lone Star State, hungry for incredible barbecue and horrible politics. In so many ways, Austin is a boom-town, growing at a rate that boggles the mind. In my 10+ years here the city is almost unrecognizable. It goes without saying that the real estate market here is BONKERS.
About a mile from my house, on the way to my favorite coffee trailer (whooo Stouthaus!) is a would-be housing development that was started in 2020 and has since be abandoned. Who ever owned the property took a bare, undeveloped piece of land and put in all the pipes and powerlines, built streets and laid foundations, and even got a good way into close to a dozen cookie-cutter, two story homes. Then they stopped.
I have no insight into why this happened, but I have to imagine it had to do with the cost. My guess would be that the developer was reckless with his finances and wasn’t able to secure enough funding to finish the project, and the bank wouldn’t help him out any further. Thus, the houses sit unfinished, and worse for the developer, empty.
The thing about building houses, is you can’t really just stop for several years and pick up where you left off. The almost-houses started to deteriorate. Exposed to the elements, without care, the houses became homes to mold, vegetation, wildlife, and eventually a fair amount of our unhoused neighbors. They also became a hot spot for neighborhood hoodlums looking for something to do, made evident by the bad graffiti—but hey, at least they’re not on their phones, right?
Finishing, and more importantly selling, these homes is now a more difficult and more costly task than it would have been, had they just been finished the first go-around.
Look Deeper, Look Within
At first blush, these verses are WILD. Hate my father and mother? Isn’t that against the 10 Commandments?! What is Jesus on here?! He goes on to talk about counting up the cost of being his disciple. Is Jesus gate-keeping the kin-dom of heaven?! Read with certain intonation, it can feel like Jesus is almost taunting the crowd. And by and large, I’ve found this interpretation to be what most people have experienced.
The evangelical interpretation I was given growing up said that we would have to cut off all ties to those who weren’t believers in order to secure my faith and place in heaven. It just made sense that plenty of people just wouldn’t be able to pay the spiritual cost of being a true disciple. *Gag*
But if that’s not what Jesus is saying, if that’s not the intonation he’s speaking with, then what is he trying to tell us?
Through the gifts of my contemplative practices, I’ve learned that when something in scripture feels off, it’s often an invitation for me to go deeper. Maybe it’s not as simple as it seems, maybe my attention is in the wrong place, maybe I don’t have the experience I need to understand this particular piece. As I wrote last week, the “Rational Mind” asks, “what does it cost? is it worth it?” but the “Sympathetic Mind” says, “that’s the wrong question.” So, what is the right question?
As I shift my focus to my own spiritual journey and what this walk has cost me, something comes into clearer focus. It’s a question I often ponder personally, but also very frequently with my clients: “If we had known what the spiritual journey was really like, would we have said yes?”
My answer to this question is always a firm, “No.” and the majority of my clients agree with me. Luckily we are often in a place where we can laugh about this fact, but we always seem to understand we’ve been victim to some sort of spiritual bait-and-switch.
The Bait
When we start our journeys, there is some sense of hope luring us onto the path. The billboards seem to read, “Your life will be better (in whatever way you specifically want it to be better) if you just do this.”
When I started my journey in earnest in my early twenties, life couldn’t really get any worse (or so I thought) so I figured it wouldn’t hurt to try something new. At first, it felt pretty straight forward, move your body, meditate, understand yourself, and things will improve. I felt better, I thought more clearly, my relationships improved. Great! It’s Working!
But several years in, after a particularly challenging breakup, I dove even deeper. My subconscious motivation was, “If I become an even more spiritual person, then no one can ever hurt me again.” I think this is a promise a lot of people in the spiritual world fall prey to. And I obviously get it. It’s enticing! Who wants to be hurt? I sure don’t. Some of you who’ve been on the journey a while are already laughing. For those of you who don’t yet get the joke, let me explain it.
As an Enneagram 8, my driving motivation is to be invulnerable, untouchable, invincible. Basically I want to be Superman, but without that pesky kryptonite allergy. As I was diving into my spiritual journey, what got me in the door was the idea that this journey would help me attain this unattainable goal. Regardless of type, we all fall for the bait when we start the journey. Type 7? YOU’RE GONNA BE SO JOYFUL. Type 4? You’re going to feel a special and unique Union with the Divine. Type 2? You’re going to feel soooo loved. You get the picture.
But that’s not what we got. In fact, we almost never get what we want, and that’s the real blessing.
(What was your bait? Why did you start your spiritual journey? Take some time to really think and reflect on it.)
The Switch
This where we get the punchline of the joke: Whatever it is that gets us through the door, is pretty much never what we end up getting. In fact, most of the time we get the exact opposite. And what’s worse, we usually end up loving it.
I started off my spiritual journey wanting to be stronger, tougher, unstoppable. Nearly 15 years in, I can tell you: I am weaker, softer, more vulnerable, and must regularly take long periods of rest. I am also more loving, more sensitive, more connected, and more discerning about how I live my life. My life is undeniably better than I could have dreamed it being in my original idea of where this journey would lead, but damn it’s been a hell of a ride. In order to experience all of these good things, I had to be willing to let go of the bait and accept the switch.
This is what Jesus is talking about when he asks us to “consider the cost” of being his disciple. He’s not trying to make an exclusive club of only the best, strongest followers. He’s telling us, in a somewhat cryptic way, that we need to be willing to let go of the bait if we want the switch. He’s asking us if we’re willing to let go of the small, limited, and unsustainable life we’ve built for ourselves in order to step into something more expansive, beautiful, connected, and loving.
And honestly this is hard. It is very often painful. Certainly very confusing. But more times than not, we ease into it. We barely notice the switch until it’s too late to turn back. This is the beauty of the spiritual journey, even in the places where it should be the most excruciating, we’re given the grace to move through it with ease. Then we simply look back and laugh in disbelief at where we are and where we’re willingly headed.
If we actually knew what we were getting into on this journey, would we have said yes? Absolutely not. But we did, and we are better for it.
Missed Invitations
Maybe you missed a couple invitations along the way. I know I did. This journey isn’t a straight line, we drift one direction then another, we make our way back to things we left behind. As I look back, I can see clearly so many invitations to let go of the bait and take the switch, but I wasn’t ready. I didn’t yet have what I needed to take that risk. Sometimes, I’m able to miss an invitation and I’m no worse for the wear. Other times, though, holding onto the bait drives the hook even farther into my own hand.
One of my teachers once said, “We are what we do most,” and it is one of the most powerful sentences I’ve ever heard. The more we white knuckle what we think we want out of life, the harder it will be to let go the next time around. There is no simple stasis on this journey. Much like the abandon houses, when we continually miss invitations, parts of ourselves fall deeper into disarray and disrepair. The more times I’ve hardened my heart, the harder my heart becomes. But luckily, grace is greater than our own shortcomings.
It may be harder, or there may be more clean up required to come back around and accept the invitation to let go, but the invitation is always available. We can always come back and say yes. Always.
Starting Over, Building Better
As I drove over to Stouthaus’s coffee trailer last week, I drove by the neighborhood ‘bandos (short for abandoned houses as coined by a client’s client), to see fresh layers of tyvek lining the exterior of the homes. Some even had new windows. The signage on the outside of the development had been updated, and it’s clear that the houses are going to be finished—and hopefully soon.
Whoever is now in charge of the development is coming back to the invitation and saying yes, and the whole neighborhood will be better for it.
What can you come back and say yes to? Where in your life can you let go of the bait and embrace the switch?
💕💕