Readings: Deuteronomy 30:15–20; Psalm 1; Philemon 1–21; Luke 14:25–33

“Count the cost” (Luke 14:28): famous and forbidding counsel from the Lord of liberty. On the one hand, “counting the cost,” estimating the damage, facing the likely sacrifice, sounds so familiar to our pragmatic, quantifying, what’s-in-it-for-me sensibilities; on the other hand, the venture Jesus invites disciples to enter, free of illusion and with clear vision, leads to unprecedented exploits, a different world, a new life.

In worship we are invited into that world, to breathe the air and to taste the food of that strange new country, the land of the Trinity. Worship of the true God costs. How could it be otherwise? “He must increase, but I must decrease” (John 3:30). And yet that can only be so, can only happen, because we are by God’s grace joined with the one who gave himself utterly, whose very existence was self-expenditure, whose death has become for us life and whose life is our future.