The Two Towers: Homily for the Twenty-third Sunday in Ordinary Time Year C One Catholic Life

Once upon a time there were two towers.

Both towers began to be constructed about the same time,

in the late 1800s.

Both were constructed in Europe and designed by European architects,

and both of them were ambitious projects,

with plans for multiple levels, huge arches,

and decorative statues.

Each structure was designed to reach high into the sky,

and to be built of sturdy stone.

And both of these towers are unfinished to this day.

Both architects died during their construction,

and neither building was ever completed.

Today Jesus talks to the crowds about building a tower.

He compares building a tower

to being his disciple.

When you construct a tower, he tells the crowd,

you must count the cost beforehand.

In the same way, he says,

to be his disciple,

you must count the cost,

you must understand fully what it takes to follow him.

Otherwise you may find yourself unable to finish the work.

There is a cost to building a tower.

There is a cost to being a disciple of Jesus.

What is the cost of discipleship?

Jesus is very clear about this:

“Whoever does not carry his own cross and come after me

cannot be my disciple.”

The cost of discipleship is the cross.

The spiritual writer Dietrich Bonhoeffer explores this idea

in his book The Cost of Discipleship.

Bonhoeffer distinguishes between what he calls

cheap grace and costly grace:

“Cheap grace is grace without discipleship,

grace without the cross, grace without Jesus Christ.

Costly grace is the treasure hidden in the field;

for the sake of it, a man will gladly go and sell all that he has.”

“Such grace is costly because it calls us to follow,

and it is grace because it calls us to follow Jesus Christ.

It is costly because it costs a [person] his life,

and it is grace because it gives a [person] the only true life…

Above all it is costly because it cost God the life of his Son…

and what has cost God so much cannot be cheap for us.”

“…what has cost God so much cannot be cheap for us.”

Jesus did not give up his life for us

so that we could “leave the world for an hour or so

every Sunday morning and go to church…”

He gave up his life so we could follow him 24/7:

carrying our own cross each day,

letting go of all that we possess, and all that possesses us.

Today we hear Jesus ask us if we have we factored that

into our calculations for building a spiritual life.

We often calculate costs in life.

How much do I need to save for a down payment for a mortgage?

How long will it take me to save it?

We calculate how much a vacation will cost us,

or what kind of car we can afford,

how much we’ll spend on gas or maintenance.

We calculate and estimate and predict.

Jesus is inviting us to do the same thing

with the spiritual life.

Jesus challenges us to calculate the cost of discipleship.

Because if we don’t,

we risk leaving the work of our spiritual lives unfinished,

like a building that is abandoned before it is done,

like a tower that is never completed.

Returning to the two unfinished towers we started with,

we saw that they had a lot in common.

Both were made of stone, both were started over 100 years ago,

both remain unfinished.

But there are also some significant differences between them.

The first one was designed in Scotland

by a man named John Stuart McCaig.

It was McCaig who commissioned the tower to be built,

and it was McCaig who designed it.

His purpose was to create a lasting monument to his family,

in the style of the Colosseum in Rome.

He designed it to be an elaborate structure,

with arches and arches,