This Sunday's gospel reading is one of those ones that starts out, and you can get sucked into this first line and miss the rest of it wondering what the first line means. Let's take a look at it. He who loves father or mother more than me is not worthy of me. Now that's a line that could get you into your head thinking about that for the next three weeks, wondering what Jesus is saying. He goes on to say, and he who loves son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me. And again, we could spend the next three years trying to break that one down. And he who does not take his cross-- he who does not take up his cross and follow me is not worthy of me. That one, we understand, but we might have missed that one because we're still fixated on the other ones. He who finds his life will lose it, and he who loses his life for my sake will find it. He who receives you receives me and he who receives me receives him who sent me. He who receives a prophet because he is a prophet, shall receive a prophet's reward and he who receives a righteous man because he is a righteous man shall receive a righteous man's reward. And whoever gives to one of these little ones, even a cup of cold water because he is a disciple, truly I say to you, he shall not lose his reward. So what is Jesus saying? We're going to take a look at that, but the theme I want to put in your mind is, do you see a path forward to a better place? Whatever it is that's happening in your life right now, do you see a path forward to a better place? And if you don't, are you considering all the options are there some that maybe you're not open to, or there's some that you're not considering because when we don't see a path forward to a better place, we start to lose hope. We start to lose hope. And we have to be mindful of when our heart gets near that place. A reading like this, we could spend the next three hours just talking about the first line. If you love your mother or father more than Jesus, you're not worthy of Jesus. What does that mean? What was Jesus really saying? We could get sucking that, okay? We get stuck in the next one. Sons and daughters more than Jesus. If you love them more than Jesus, you're not worthy of Jesus. Again, you can get sucked into that one. When I'm reading the Bible, I'm not reading it as a scholar. I'm not reading it as a historian. I'm not reading it to understand every single word that Jesus said. I'm reading it to hear what God is saying to me today. And I encourage you to do the same thing. When you read descriptions, be on the lookout, hearts, minds, ears open to what is God saying to you today. And so the first line, I don't know what to make of that. We could do a lot of study and get into it. Second line, struggle with that one. But when he says, and he who does not take up his cross and follow me is not worth him. I understand exactly what that means. I'm not confused about that, okay? And so I have to ask myself, okay, what is my cross? Am I taking up my cross? Or am I leaving my cross on the side of the road at the side of my life? And what is your cross? And our cross has changed from time to time. You're cross today is different than it was a month ago, maybe, or different than it was ten years ago, and it would be different, maybe a month from now or 10 years from now. We all have different crosses to bear at different times in our lives. And our tendency is to not want to carry them. And this week's gospel is an invitation to pick up and carry the cross. But you can't carry your cross if you haven't identified your cross. If you haven't said, "Okay, that is my cross." And there's something about, the mentality, the attitude, the psychology of carrying the cross that requires that we say, "Okay, that is a cross for me to bear," and that we do take it up and that we do take it up lovingly. And of course, the problem with the cross is that it comes at a cost. The problem with taking up our cross and bearing our cross and carrying our cross is that it does come at a cost. And so the question becomes what are we willing to give up? What are we willing to give up in order to carry our cross? And who benefits from us carrying our cross? Because sometimes it helps to keep that in mind. And are we willing to make sacrifices? Because there's no Christianity without sacrifice. You can't just have everything else and, "Oh yeah, let's be Christian as well. And it won't cost us anything and it won't be any sacrifice to anybody." That's not Christianity. That isn't anywhere to be found in the life and teachings of Jesus Christ. He said it would come at a cost. He said it would require sacrifice. And he wants to teach us to sacrifice. He wants to teach us to carry our cross. Why? Because he wants us to suffer? No. Why? Because he wants to make our lives miserable? No. Why? We have to keep asking why? Because he wants to teach us how to love. More than anything else, he wants to teach us how to love. And love comes at a cost. Love comes at a price. And love always requires sacrifice. And if it doesn't have those things, you can call it whatever you want, but it isn't love. And so what Jesus is trying to teach us above all is to love. He wants to he wants us to be able to love more this week than last week and more this year than last year and more ten years from now than today. And so he's constantly giving us these lessons. This is how you love. This is how you grow your heart. This is how you expand your heart. This is how you learn to love people who are close to you and people who are not close to you and people who you like and people you don't like. He wants to teach us how to love. And so when we ask the question, do you see a path forward to a better place for you at this time in your life? Very often, we don't look at the obvious answers. And one of the obvious answers is pick up your cross and get moving. What do we want to do? We don't want to pick up our cross, and we want to sit down and pity ourselves and pity our situation and pity the world, and. No. What is Jesus saying? Pick up your cross and move forward. And it's interesting how this type of surrender, this type of sacrifice liberates us from our selfishness. And in liberating us from our selfishness, we're all of a sudden, able to see many, many new paths, and most of all, the one new path that leads us to not just a better place but the better place that God wants to lead us to at this time in our lives.