NOTES for Luk 14:33

This idea is repeated several times in the Bible in various versions. What's the matter? Why the Lord considers it so important? Maybe because He sees that our will "to have" has a deep sinful nature. This will is going to assure the base of our “self”, our independence from God and from one another, the desire to strengthen with whatever it is our pride and to rise on the others "poor". But God's plan is the creation based on love that is interconnection, interdependence and mutual exchange.

Jesus does not say here that we should have nothing; He asks "to give up ", not to grant a lot of importance for what we have, not to consider our property in any way as a valid support in our life, but to put all our hope, all our confidence in God. Of course, people always try to keep aside something for "the bad day". And aged people have habit to save up for their funeral. And now we can remember this example. The Gospel tells us about one of these aged people, a respectable man, who beforehand took care of his future funeral, and got ready a precious grave … And later, he made acquaintance with Jesus and began to consider himself as one of His followers, a hidden follower because he was afraid of religious authorities. Now Jesus is dying on the cross, and this man called Joseph of Arimathaea loses the fear. He goes to Pilate and obtains the permission to bury the Lord. Giving his grave to Jesus, he gives up what he has: the human foundation of hope for the respect of the surrounding and a worthy end of life; but instead, it is especially at this moment that he stops being a "hidden" follower of Jesus and becomes a real follower.