CMLC 2025-09-07 Sermon

Howdy! You know, one of our sister congregations

in our Lutheran Church circuit asked me if I

wanted to attend a men's retreat in Montana over

Labor Day weekend. I thought, why not? I'd like

to escape Houston and the concrete jungle that

we have here. I wasn't sure what to expect, but

it turned out to be an amazing time of fly fishing,

boating, hiking, shotgun practice, and whatever

struck our fancy up there. Believe it or not,

I caught five fish! Five times more than I ever

caught before! Yes! Ah, increased lifetime from

one to six, oh man. And some guys went golfing,

but I have absolutely no golfing skills, I can

barely even do putt -putt. So, I find myself

on that Saturday, standing on the edge of a cliff

about 40 feet in the air, looking down into a

river. From below, it hadn't looked all that

high. But once I climbed up and stood on the

edge, I realized... The cliff was higher than

I expected. Now, I had seen a few people already

jump, and everyone was fine. The depth was over

100 feet. I had my water shoes, and I was jumping

in feet first like everybody else. Everything

was fine, but my knees started to shake. My heart

was pounding, my stomach dropped, my hands gripped

the rock behind me. And I thought, what am I

doing up here? Now, something you should assume

about your pastor is that he turns almost everything

into a spiritual metaphor. I even have the mug

to show it. I thought to myself, what if God

were telling me to jump? Don't worry, He wasn't

telling me to jump. But what if? Would I trust

Him? Would I obey even if I was afraid? Now I

know God doesn't work like that. He doesn't just

tell us to jump off of cliffs to prove our faith.

But I had been scared a lot when I was a kid.

I avoided too many challenges that would have

helped me when I was younger. So since then,

I sometimes look for things that make me a little

uncomfortable, safe things, but to give me those

experiences. And that's where my mind went. If

God asked me to do something scary, something

that made no sense to anybody else but me, would

I obey? And then another thought hit me. Why

climb all the way up here if I'm not going to

jump? I had already made the climb. The choice

was in front of me. I couldn't stay neutral.

You don't just stand on a cliff for the rest

of your life. Was I going to stand still and

make my friends wait another hour and a half

while I stood there? Or was I going to leave?

So I jumped. Life in Christ requires we choose

Him daily. Isn't it amazing how we can take the

simplest of things and make it into something

complicated? Moses faced something like that.

He had brought the children of Israel out of

Egypt. And they kept complaining, I'm going to

save you from the oppression and the slavery.

But we are just tired of walking. God just wanted

the people to follow Him. Moses showed them that

God's Word isn't far away or unreachable. His

commands are not impossible. His will is acceptable.

And yet they kept hesitating and pulling back.

When we realize that we have a choice before

us life and prosperity with God Death and destruction

without him God calls his people to decide We

are meant to choose life not by looking for the

quick thrill of jumping into a river But by loving

the Lord walking in his ways and holding fast

to him That is what leads to life and blessing

And here's where the metaphor of my cliff jump

stopped being just a metaphor. Because when I

hit the water, I didn't cross my arms the way

I should have. The impact caught me right in

the chest, the spot in my sternum where my chest

muscles were weakened years ago by cancer radiation

therapy, and it fractured. Yes, I am preaching

with a fractured sternum right now. Following,

even in a silly practice metaphor like that jump,

cost me something. It hurts, and it still does.

There's plenty of ibuprofen in my office at this

moment. But that's the reality of the Christian

faith. Following Christ is not just about the

moments that work out neatly, or prayers that

get answered in exactly the way we wanted, or

paths that always feel smooth. Sometimes faith

costs. Sometimes obedience hurts. Jesus doesn't

hide that. In Luke 14, Jesus said to the great

crowds, if you want to follow me, count the cost.

Whoever does not carry his cross and follow me

cannot be my disciple. He says it plainly, count

the cost. Don't pretend discipleship will be

painless. That's how life often works, right?

We all face these cliff -edge moments. We oftentimes

want our Christian faith to be just a neutral

choice. It's just the default. The default for

normal people. Where we just cruise along the

river and watch the cliffs from a distance. Wouldn't

that be a great way for Christian faith just

to be? But there are moments in our lives where

we find ourselves at a place where neutrality

is no longer possible. where indecision itself

becomes a decision. When you try to say, I don't

want to take a side, and that actually default

gives you a side already. Do we stand for the

people that are being oppressed? Do we tell someone

when they've gone too far and we cannot accept

it any longer? The question is always the same.

Am I willing to jump? Am I willing to take the

risk? Am I willing to pay the price? We need

to count the cost. when we follow Jesus. And

often it's not the climb that's the highest part.

We may talk a good talk, saying what we would

do if the choice was in front of us, how we must

be willing to choose what isn't what others would

accept. It's the choice at the top that matters,

when we don't feel the ground under our feet

and we have to keep moving forward. It's the

moment when the cost becomes clear, when we realize

This could hurt when we know not everyone, maybe

not even those closest to us, will agree or understand.

That's when faith gets real. But don't miss this

either. Life on the other side. Life is on the

other side of that leap. When I told my mom later

on because yes, I went ahead and called her afterward

You know, that's what you do because I knew how

bad it would be if I saw her sometime in the

next month And she gave me a hug and I Winston

Payne and she were to say what's going on if

I didn't tell her she'd be very unhappy I'm like,

okay, let's just do it. Hey mom Her immediate

response Why would you do that? And then after

a nice long pause, she added, well, you're 45

years old. You can make your own decisions. Thanks,

Mom. And she's right. Nobody could make that

decision for me, not even the people who love

me the most. But isn't that when we make the

most important decisions in our lives anyway?

Jesus was very clear in Luke 14. He's walking

along with the crowds, and He turns to them and

says, if you want to follow Me, count the cost.

This won't be easy. It may mean putting Me before

your family, before your possessions, before

your comfort. It will cost you everything, and

that's a hard word. It's one thing to cheer Jesus

when He heals us, when He multiplies bread and

fish. Thank you for letting me walk better, Jesus.

Thank you for making sure we had plenty to eat

for lunch today. But to follow Him? To really

follow when we're called to eat His body and

drink His blood? To accept the sacrifice that

He showed us on the cross and that now defines

our lives? That means putting our lives in His

hands. Even if it bruises us. Even if it costs

us. Even if it breaks us. even if it kills us.

And then Jesus starts talking about salt. If

salt loses its saltiness, how can it be made

salty again? How does that make any sense? Have

you ever had your little canister in the pantry

and gone up and grabbed something out of it and

said, ooh, that tastes like sugar? Well, if you

did, your dad probably was pulling a joke on

you. But salt is salt. How is salt not salty?

Now pure salt, the kind we buy in stores today,

it doesn't lose its saltiness. Pure sodium chloride

and ACL, table salt, it cannot stop being salty.

It's a stable compound. If you put it on your

tongue in a hundred years, that's great because

that means you live to be a really old age. But

it's still going to taste like salt. But in Jesus'

day, salts often came from places like the Dead

Sea, where it was a mixture of salt, gypsum,

sand, and other minerals. And if that mixture

was exposed to moisture, the actual salt would

dissolve away, and it would leave a chalky, tasteless

white powder that looked like salt, but tasted

like nothing. It was useless. Always wondered

what... Jesus was referring to. That's what discipleship

without commitment is like. It still looks like

the real thing on the outside, but it's lost

its purpose. That's what happens when we claim

to follow Christ, but we back down when others

look at us and say, why would you want to do

that? Why would you want to do that thing that

Jesus would say? See, a disciple who loses their

distinctiveness their flavor becomes like that

residue. Still looks like salt, but no longer

useful. And that's what it felt like on that

cliff, when suddenly, a young girl climbed to

the top. Now, I'd already been up there for an

hour by then, and her father went up there with

her and showed her how easy it was, and he jumped.

And then her older sister, came up and held her

hand to jump with her. Only the young girl let

go at the last second. I looked at her and it

was like, that was slick. That was slick. Well

done. Now, she stood there with me for at least

another half hour while others were trying to

convince her to jump. They kind of gave up on

me. And they were triggering to convince her

to jump. For some reason, Some comment made by

her father. He had climbed back up again brought

to mind a physics lesson for me because well,

of course it did and I started rambling about

how the law of gravity unlike other laws that

may change is just the appearance of gravitational

acceleration in the universe made to appear as

if it's a downward momentum because of living

on what appears to be a flat surface, but is

actually curved and Then the girl looked at me

and said Why are you talking to me about this

instead of jumping?" Forty -five seconds later,

I jumped. And two minutes after that, she jumped

with her family. Why did that comment get me

to jump? Because we realize that the very thing

that gets us to do the hard things is when we

realize our part in living in faith for the next

generation. didn't want that girl to let my fear

become an excuse for her to avoid something she

really wanted. Something that maybe she needed.

I wanted her to be brave in ways that I wasn't

when I was a kid. When we come back to church,

when we have our own children, we walk away from

abuse because we can't let others see that as

an example of how to live. When we leave our

dream job so we don't miss out on spending time

with our nieces and nephews. When we stay with

a lower paying job so we can spend time with

the kids who need us the most. But salt isn't

something that changes how salty it is over time.

Salt doesn't decide to lose its saltiness during

college and then find it again after the fun

years end. Salt is either salt or it isn't. Are

you salt? And if you are, where is your flavor?

See, here's the question. Where are you standing

at the edge right now? What cliff has God brought

you to? Maybe it's a decision to forgive someone

who hurt you. Maybe it's a call to give more

generously than feel safe. Maybe it's speaking

about your faith in a place where you'd rather

keep quiet. There are introverts. It happens.

And maybe it's letting go of something that you've

been clinging to. It just feels a little too

scary to let go of. Maybe standing on the edge

is scary. But frankly, the leap may bruise you.

It may even fracture something. It may mean people

close to you shake their heads and say, why would

you do that, Christian? But the leap is where

faith becomes real. It's where life with Christ

begins. And as a church, that is our calling

too. To follow Christ, not to jump off cliffs

per se, but we're called to be salt. Not to look

like salt, but to live without flavor. We are

meant to live with flavor, with distinctiveness,

with faithfulness that endures. We are called

to be a people who don't just stand on the edge

of the cliff admiring the view, but who leap

into the waters of God's promise. Because here's

the truth, choosing life in Christ isn't about

avoiding pain. It's about trusting that the life

he gives is greater than any cost we could bear.

Moses said it long ago, choose life so that you

and your children may live. Jesus says it even

more clearly, whoever loses his life for my sake

will find it. So may we not hesitate at the edge.

May we count the cost and still leap. May we

choose life by choosing Christ. And don't forget

to cross your arms when you jump. Thanks be to

God.