Comfortable Christianity?
Matthew 10:32–33, 37–38; 19:27–30
Oops!
It’s Father’s Day, and we’re gathered to hear Jesus tell us that loving our fathers — or our children — more than Him makes us unworthy.
How’s that for a Hallmark moment?
I imagine some of you shifted uncomfortably in your pews just now. Maybe you’re thinking, “Father, surely this is one of those passages we can explain away. Surely Jesus doesn’t mean what He seems to be saying.”
But before we rush to soften these hard words, let me tell you about a conversation I had this week. A parishioner — I’ll call him Spyro — emailed me this week. “Father,” he said, “I’ve been thinking about the saints we’ll be celebrating this Sunday. And honestly? I don’t get it. These people gave up everything — family, comfort, even their lives. They seem so… extreme. So different from us normal Christians.”
Spyro’s question haunts me because I suspect he’s not alone. When we look at the great cloud of witnesses — the martyrs who faced lions rather than deny Christ, the desert fathers who abandoned civilization for caves, the mothers who gave their sons to monasteries — they seem like spiritual athletes competing in a league we’ve never even dreamed of joining.
And here we are, celebrating them on the same day we honor earthly fathers, wrestling with a Gospel that seems to pit our love for Christ against our love for family. Something doesn’t add up.
Ugh!
Here’s what I think is really going on: We’ve made Christianity comfortable.
Oh, we haven’t done it on purpose. We’ve simply lived in a time and place where following Jesus doesn’t cost us much. We can believe in Christ and still get promoted at work. We can go to church and still fit in with our neighbors. We can call ourselves Christians without anyone threatening to feed us to wild animals.
So we’ve created what I call “living room Christianity” — a faith that fits nicely into our already-established lives without rearranging the furniture too much.
We skip church when we’re tired because, well, God understands we need our rest. We give a modest amount to charity, but not so much that it impacts our retirement plans — after all, we need to be responsible. We pray, but mostly for blessing on what we’ve already decided to do. We read scripture, but we’re quick to contextualize away anything that might demand significant change.
And when we read about the saints, we admire them the way we might admire Olympic athletes — impressive, inspiring, but clearly playing a different game than the rest of us.
But what if they weren’t playing a different game? What if they were simply playing the same game we are, but without the luxury of comfort that has lulled us into thinking Christianity is supposed to be easy?
The martyrs didn’t choose between Christ and family because they were more spiritual than us. They chose because the choice was forced upon them. Saint Perpetua didn’t abandon her infant son because she loved him less than we love our children — she loved him desperately. But when the empire said, “Deny Christ or die,” she discovered what mattered most.
The desert fathers didn’t flee to caves because they were antisocial. They fled because they recognized that comfortable civilization was the enemy of radical discipleship.
These saints weren’t different kinds of Christians. They were Christians in circumstances that didn’t allow for comfort.
Aha!
Which brings us to today’s Gospel, and the question Spyro really asked: “How can we be as bold as the saints?”
The answer lies in understanding what Jesus means by “taking up our cross.” We often spiritualize this — we talk about the cross as life’s difficulties, our personal struggles, the burdens we bear. But Jesus is being much more concrete.
In the Roman world, when someone carried a cross, everyone knew where they were going: to die. The cross wasn’t a symbol of struggle; it was an instrument of execution. When Jesus says, “Take up your cross,” He’s not talking about enduring hardship. He’s talking about dying.
But dying to what?
Here’s the grace hidden in this harsh Gospel: Jesus isn’t asking us to love our families less. He’s asking us to love them — and ourselves — differently.
The saints discovered that when we die to our need for comfort, our fear of loss, our desire to control outcomes, we don’t love less — we love more freely. Saint Perpetua’s love for her son was purified, not diminished, when she chose Christ over her own life. Her martyrdom became a witness that drew others, including perhaps her own child, to the faith.
When we make Christ our first love, everything else falls into proper order. When we seek first the Kingdom of God, all these other things — including healthy family relationships — are added unto us.
Whee!
So what does this look like for us comfortable Christians?
It means recognizing that our comfort might be the very thing keeping us from the abundant life Christ promises. It means asking not “How little can I give and still be a good Christian?” but “What is Christ calling me to surrender so I can love more freely?”
For some of us, it might mean actually tithing — giving ten percent even when it feels financially uncomfortable, trusting that God will provide. For others, it might mean saying yes when asked to serve in ministry, even when we feel too busy. It might mean having difficult conversations with family members about faith, even when it’s easier to keep the peace.
It might mean — and fathers, listen carefully on this Father’s Day — modeling for our children what it looks like to put Christ first, not by loving them less, but by loving them with the fearless, self-sacrificial love that flows from the cross.
The saints weren’t superhuman. They were ordinary people who found themselves in circumstances that demanded extraordinary faith. But here’s the beautiful truth: those same circumstances exist today, if we have eyes to see them.
Every time we choose generosity over security, we’re carrying our cross. Every time we speak truth in love when silence would be easier, we’re following Christ. Every time we prioritize worship over comfort, service over self-interest, we’re walking the path of the saints.
Yeah!
The saints teach us that Christianity was never meant to be comfortable. It was meant to be transformative.
When we embrace this — when we stop trying to fit Jesus into our comfortable lives and start letting Him reshape everything — we discover what the saints knew: that losing our life is the only way to find it.
This doesn’t mean we become extreme or neglect our responsibilities. It means we hold everything — our families, our plans, our comfort — with open hands, ready to follow Christ wherever He leads.
And here’s the promise: when we do this, we don’t become less human. We become more human. We don’t love our families less. We love them with the fierce, protective, self-sacrificial love of Christ Himself.
So on this Sunday of All Saints, as we honor both the saints and earthly fathers, let us ask not for comfortable faith, but for bold faith. Let us pray not for easy lives, but for the courage to pick up our crosses daily.
The saints are not our superiors in a different league. They are our family, our guides, our companions on the narrow way. They whisper to us across the centuries: “Come on. Follow Christ. It’s worth everything you’ll give up, and more than everything you’ll gain.”
And perhaps most importantly for Father’s Day: they show us that the greatest gift we can give our children — and receive from our fathers — is the example of a life that puts Christ first, trusting that everything else will fall into its proper place.
The comfortable cross is no cross at all. But the cross carried in love? That’s the path to resurrection.
Amen.