The Cost and the Hope of Discipleship

Sunday Sermon Reflection: In this week’s sermon (June 21, 2026), we reflect on the difference between cheap discipleship and costly discipleship. Jesus calls us not into comfort or safety, but into faithful discipleship marked by courage, justice, and hope. Through Jesus’ teaching about sparrows in Matthew, we are reminded that even in difficulty, we are seen and loved by God.

Disciple First, Perfect Later

This week I was reading an article about Donald McGavran. He is known for many things, including writing Understanding Church Growth and helping launch what became known as the church growth movement.

The article explains that McGavran was born into a missionary family in India. He grew up speaking English and Hindi. Later, he and his wife became missionaries with the Disciples of Christ and returned to India, where he worked among the Satnami people.

The article notes that he “readily accepted that baptism, communion, worship, and leadership could take wildly different forms in different communities and that it was wiser to allow diversity of praxis than to impose norms.”

McGavran opposed India’s caste system. After returning to the United States, he joined a Black church and advocated for interracial fellowship. He even sent an open letter to white Disciples of Christ churches in Indianapolis, criticizing their complete segregation from the city’s two Black churches.

And yet, the article wrestles with a difficult question—one captured in its title:

“Donald McGavran’s complicated legacy: The founder of the church growth movement was full to bursting with intercultural adaptation and anti-racist struggle. How did he become the darling of white segregationist Christians?”

Francisco Herrera, the author of the article, identifies several reasons. Evangelicalism gave McGavran a home and supported his work in ways denominational institutions never did. McGavran also became increasingly frustrated with forms of mission that did not intentionally proclaim salvation in Jesus Christ.

But Herrera says the deeper issue was pedagogical.

McGavran made a distinction between discipling and perfecting.

He defined discipling, or making disciples, as the removal of distracting and divisive beliefs from the corporate life of a people. Perfecting, which follows discipling, was the ethical transformation of that discipled group into lives of holiness, justice, and faithful living.

This distinction created two major problems according to the author.

First, it drove a wedge between evangelism and social action. It separated proclamation from ethical responsibility. As Herrera writes:

“Jesus never intended that after we profess to love God, our obedience to the command to love our neighbors should be postponed to a later, more convenient time. They must go together.”

Second, Black and Hispanic evangelicals pointed out that McGavran’s ideas gave white evangelicals theological cover to recast segregated churches as faithful evangelism rather than racism.

When confronted with this criticism, McGavran doubled down. He declared that insisting on congregational integration first—whether the church grows or not—was often contrary to the will of God.

The problem was that, in many settings—and this continues today—

“Disciple first, perfect later” became “disciple first, perfect never.”

I have heard versions of this in Latino church growth conversations:

Evangelize those who already have citizenship and economic stability. Then, later, you will be prepared to evangelize others.

But I believe that this approach creates two additional problems.

It makes discipleship cheap.And it starts assigning value to people.

What Is Discipleship?

In Discipleship: The Way of Jesus, John P. Burgess writes that discipleship can feel like a strange word because it makes unusual and demanding claims on our lives.

To be a disciple means acknowledging the authority of a master. It means submitting ourselves to the guidance and correction of a community centered on that master. It means committing to a way of life shaped by that master.

That master is Jesus Christ.

We live not for ourselves, but for Jesus.

We respond to grace with obedience and gratitude. We trust Christ, follow Christ, obey Christ, and give thanks to Christ.

Discipleship shapes how we pray, worship, and serve.

It also shapes how we live ethically.

But what does that mean? To live ethically means making choices and forming habits that reflect love of God and love of neighbor. It means embodying justice and compassion. It means demonstrating faithful obedience to Jesus Christ in every area of life.

To live ethically is to learn to live like our Master.

Like Jesus.

That means what McGavran called “perfecting”, what we might call sanctification, does not happen later at a more convenient time.

The Holy Spirit is already at work transforming us.

As disciples, we are growing now in holiness, love, justice, and faithfulness. We are continually being shaped into Christlikeness.

There cannot be a “later” in sanctification.

And there certainly cannot be a “never.”

Discipleship is never purely individual. It happens in community, in service, in transformation—and often in challenge, struggle, and fear.

The Cost of Discipleship

In today’s reading, Jesus continues commissioning the disciples he has called.

And things do not look easy.

As Sonia E. Waters observes, the implications of discipleship become progressively grimmer. Those who follow Jesus will be maligned and betrayed. They will carry their cross. Faithfulness may cost disciples comfort, reputation, and safety.

Following Jesus has a cost.

There is something in church growth circles called the Homogeneous Unit Principle, something that has been criticized extensively, but that still seems to exist.

This principle argues that people tend to become Christians “without crossing racial, linguistic, or class barriers.”

The practical implication is simple: churches often grow faster when members share culture, language, class, and social expectations.

In plain terms: it is easier to attract and retain people when everyone feels culturally at home.

But is that costly? Is that difficult? Is that what Jesus modeled?

The irony is that churches like Beechmont Presbyterian Church—multicultural and multiracial congregations—remain a minority in the United States.

Sustaining diversity is difficult. Growth is possible, but it requires intentional leadership and structural adaptation. Retention can be difficult. Minoritized groups can struggle to feel genuine ownership.

This kind of discipleship work is hard. But is it costly? Is it difficult? Is it what Jesus modeled?

I know this much: the discipleship Jesus describes in this passage is not comfortable.

It is challenging. It is costly. It is not about privilege or comfort.

It has everything to do with leaving comfort zones and risking everything—just as Jesus did.

As Denise Thorpe reminds us, faithfulness to Jesus often creates conflict.

She asks questions we should ask ourselves: “What joins us together? How does the love of Jesus allow us to endure fundamental differences that cut like a knife?”

These are question that discipleship must ask.. and if there are answers that are comfortable and easy, then we are not being the disciples that Jesus wants us to be.

The Hope of Discipleship

I have read this passage in Matthew many times.

But this time, what stood out to me were the sparrows.

In Jesus’ time, sparrows were among the cheapest animals sold in the marketplace.

Two sparrows were sold for an assarion, a tiny Roman coin worth almost nothing.

In Luke 12:6, Jesus says five sparrows are sold for two pennies, suggesting merchants threw one in for free. A bonus bird.

Sparrows represented what society considered nearly worthless.

And yet Jesus says: “Not one of them will fall to the ground apart from your Father.”

The sparrows reveal the hope of discipleship.

And that hope is not that suffering will never happen. The hope is that suffering is never unseen.

The people society considers worthless are deeply beloved by God.

Remember what I said earlier: one problem with “disciple first, perfect later” is that it assigns value to the people the church chooses to pursue.

When churches grow without crossing racial, linguistic, or class barriers, what are they really doing? They are choosing people who look like them, speak like them, earn like them, and think like them.

And what happens to those who are different? Do they carry the same value? What is the message we send to those on the margins when our churches look so homogenous?

Jesus chooses sparrows.

Jesus could have said: God watches over lions. God watches over eagles.

Instead, Jesus points to small, ordinary, easily overlooked birds. The sparrows remind us that the cost of discipleship is real—but so is the care of God. And in that, we find hope instead of fear.

God sees. God knows. God is present.

Discipleship rooted in fear says: Protect yourself. Stay with your own group. Avoid risk.

Discipleship rooted in hope says: Seek relationship. Tell the truth. Live faithfully. Love courageously. Trust God.

Sing, Little Sparrow, Sing

There is a song by Marvin Gaye that asks a sparrow to sing. One verse says:

Sing to me of peace and love

Sing to me of God and love

Sing to me about man’s inhumanity

And all the injustice you see

Sing about what to give

Sing about how to live

Sparrows survive adversity through community, attentiveness, and adaptation.

And they keep singing.

They sing about peace and love.They sing about injustice.They sing about what to give.They sing about how to live.

Sparrows do not survive because they are powerful. They survive because they are persistent, aware, connected, and held within creation’s care.

Maybe that is what Jesus wants us to understand.

Discipleship is not about power. It is not about comfort. It is not about protecting privilege. Discipleship is about following Jesus. And following Jesus will cost us something.

It may cost us comfort. It may cost us assumptions. It may cost us convenience. It may even cost us power.

But this is where the gospel comes alive.

Because discipleship is not about becoming perfect before we follow Jesus. It is about following Jesus and being transformed along the way.

What This Means for the Church

What does this mean for us as the church?

It means we cannot say, “Disciple first, perfect later,” if what we really mean is “justice later”—or worse, “justice never.”

Jesus does not call us into cheap discipleship. Jesus calls us into costly discipleship—the kind that crosses boundaries, tells the truth, and risks comfort for love.

This kind of discipleship asks us to listen deeply, share power, make room for one another, and love across difference. It is not easy.

But this is exactly where our Master wants us. And the Holy Spirit is already at work among us.

Not later. Now. Transforming us now. Sanctifying us now. Calling us now.

So be like the sparrows. Small, perhaps. Ordinary, perhaps.

But seen by God. Loved by God. Sent by God.

Sing, little sparrows, sing. Sing of peace and love. Sing of truth and justice. Sing of courage and hope.

Follow Jesus. Trust God. Do not be afraid. Because the God who watches over every sparrow watches over us too, especially when the singing gets hard. Amen.

Bibliography

Burgess, John P. Discipleship: The Way of Jesus. Being Reformed: Faith Seeking Understanding. Louisville, KY: Congregational Ministries Publishing, Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.), 2010.  

Green, Joel B., Thomas G. Long, Luke A. Powery, Cynthia L. Rigby, and Carolyn J. Sharp, eds. Connections: A Lectionary Commentary for Preaching and Worship. Year A, Volume 3, Season after Pentecost. Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox Press, 2020

Herrera, Francisco. “Donald McGavran’s Complicated Legacy.” The Christian Century, June 9, 2026.  Christian Century web article⁠.