Beaumaris Castle, which we visited on our recent holiday in Anglesey, has been called the most beautiful and most technically perfect castle in Britain. It’s not as large as Caerphilly, it doesn’t sit on a dramatic cliff like Chepstow, it doesn’t dominate its adjoining town like Conwy and Harlech. But it does have an ingenious symmetrical concentric design of “walls within walls” and it includes a moat, four lines of fortifications and hundreds of arrow slits, not to mention inner passageways, a portcullis and “murder holes” at the entrance. This was “state of the art” military architecture of the late 13^th century, and a triumph for its designer, James of St George.

The castle was the last of the “ring of iron” which the English king Edward I built to subdue the Welsh. Construction began in 1295 after Madog ap Llywelyn’s rebellion had been ruthlessly quashed. An entire village was swept away to clear the site for the castle and town of Beaumaris; its inhabitants were relocated 15 miles away on the far side of the island. Progress was rapid at first, with 450 masons, 400 quarrymen and 2,000 labourers working to dig the moat and start raising the walls. But this came at a cost of £210 per week in wages alone, which was unsustainable for the king who was now fighting a new war in Scotland. The work slowed down each year until it ground to a halt in 1300. It did restart and continued in dribs and drabs but stopped for good is 1330. By this time the huge sum of £15,000 had been spent and it was estimated that at least £684 more was needed to finish the castle. But it never happened; the money had run out.

Jesus was, we assume, a carpenter, and we have no record of him building a castle or even putting up a garden shed! But one of the parables we read certainly suggests that he had a head for business; indeed we can imagine a customer coming to his workshop with a big commission and being asked, “Have you counted your pennies? Are you sure you’ll be able to pay me when it’s finished?” For here Jesus talks about a man (presumably a fairly wealthy one) who decides to build a tower or a grand house. And he says, “That man must do his sums properly before he gets the builders to start. If he doesn’t, and finds that he’s run out of cash with only the foundations laid, he won’t just be broke but will be the laughing-stock of the whole town” – we may wonder if Jesus had a particular person in mind as he spoke!

Of course Jesus wasn’t really talking about quantity surveying, estimates, cashflows, contingencies, potential overruns and remedial work. Nor, in his other story, was he really talking about military strategy and a general’s need to carefully assess his enemy’s forces before going into battle. No; he was talking to people who were saying that they might become his disciples, warning them not to jump at it lightheartedly but think very carefully about the possible costs (and we’ll come back to that) before committing themselves. Although similar, the two stories do make slightly different points, for the tower builder is free to choose whether he goes ahead or not, while the king is being invaded and has to make his military response (this seems uncomfortably pertinent when we think of the Ukraine). So in the first story Jesus is saying, “Sit down and decide whether you can afford to follow me”, while in the second he says, “Sit down and decide whether you can afford to refuse my demands”. Serious reflection is required!

Jesus seems to be making a perverse and off-putting point, doesn’t he? You’d think he’d want as many people as possible to become his disciples, yet here he seems to be deliberately discouraging them from doing so. He clearly has no interest in playing a numbers game, saying that he has several hundred followers while Rabbi Eliezer down the road has only managed to attract a few dozen (and, believe me, that’s a game which Christian ministers sometimes play when they meet together). So why does Jesus speak in the way he does?

I think the answer comes in the opening words of today’s passage: “Large crowds of people were going along with Jesus” – they’re enthusiastic, they like what they’re seeing, they might even think that they’ll pick up a bit of reflected glory if they can call themselves “disciples”. So Jesus has to say, “Stop! – you’ve got it all wrong. Discipleship isn’t about miracles and crowds and excitement, although they’re great. It will also mean facing criticism and opposition, even experiencing pain. Following me is no walk in the park; indeed my disciples must be prepared to keep going even to the point of losing their lives in the same ghastly way as I will shortly lose mine. I’d love you to follow me: but think carefully before you take the first step”.

This sounds rather different to the call of the very first disciples, who seem to have made an instant response to Jesus. For instance, Mark tells us that “Jesus walked along the shore of Lake Galilee and saw two fishermen, Simon and his brother Andrew, catching fish with a net. He said to them, ‘Come with me, and I will teach you to catch people’. At once they left their nets and went with him”. James and John behave in exactly the same way, dropping their nets and leaving their gobsmacked father in the lurch.. Equally Matthew tells us about Levi the tax collector, sitting in his office. When Jesus said, ‘Follow me’ he too dropped what he was doing and went off with him. However we don’t always know the back story. For instance, was this the very first time the fishermen had encountered Jesus? Perhaps it wasn’t, perhaps they’d already got to know and build up trust in him. And as far as Levi was concerned, we’re told that he had already witnessed Jesus teaching, performing miracles and having his first run-in with the religious authorities. In other words their response to his calling may not have been as spontaneous as we might think.

So what does “being a disciple” actually mean? It’s clearly more than believing a set of Christian doctrines: that God created the world, that he loves us and wants to form a relationship with us, that he sent his Son to our world where he died and rose again. It’s good for us to know what we believe, I’m not saying that it isn’t; but Jesus asks for more than that. Being a disciple also involves more than attending church on Sundays; again, I’m not decrying that for one moment because I think that worshipping together is a good thing. But it’s not the start and finish of following Jesus. And, to take things further still, there’s more to discipleship than just helping out at church from time to time. Although of course every church is grateful for all the practical support it gets, discipleship (and I’m quoting) “isn’t periodic volunteer work on our own terms and at our own convenience”.

No; it’s a way of being, of living, of doing things differently to everyone else because our thinking is always being influenced and guided by God. It means – as Jesus told so many people – reassessing our attitudes to time, money and career which are no longer ours but God’s. It may even impinge on our closest relationships: as Jesus says in today’s passage, “Whoever comes to me and does not hate father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters, and even life itself, cannot be my disciple”; or, even more comprehensively, “Those who do not carry their own cross … cannot be my disciples”.

All this leads me to ask some awkward questions. For instance, do people actually make a conscious decision to follow Jesus? That’s probably true for someone converting from (say) Islam, or perhaps deciding to follow Christ in a fiercely secular state such as North Korea: they know that they’re making a step which will have huge repercussions. But, in my experience, most people in Britain come to faith gradually. They can’t put their finger on the moment when they “first believed” or realised that their parents’ faith had become their own; they’ve crossed the frontier from “unbelief” to “faith” without knowing exactly when that happened.

It also raises a question for ministers and evangelists, which is “how high should they set the bar” for those wishing to follow Jesus? On the one hand they might ask potential converts to carefully consider what they are doing – which runs the risk of putting them off. On the other hand they may be so pleased to see new members in their church that they’ll accept anyone without question – which could mean that their churches are full of people called Christians who have never really become committed disciples. So it’s a tricky one – and, as we’ve seen, Jesus himself didn’t seem to have been consistent!

Over the years, in fact from the earliest days of our faith, many people have experienced the cost of true discipleship, of standing up for Jesus in a hostile environment. The first to pay the ultimate price was Stephen, stoned to death in Jerusalem not only for preaching that Jesus of Nazareth was the promised Messiah but for declaring that the Jewish leaders of his day were “stiff-necked people, uncircumcised in heart and ears, [and] for ever opposing the Holy Spirit”; many others have followed, at least three of them in our own city of Cardiff. And of course countless thousands of people have immersed themselves in dangerous situations, bound the wounds of the injured and diseased, devoted themselves to caring for the needy, proclaimed the Gospel in places where few seemed willing to listen; they may at times have felt depressed or discouraged, tempted to say, “If only I hadn’t decided to follow Jesus, life would have been so much more pleasant!”. Yet they know deep inside them that their dedication has been worthwhile. They have trod in the footsteps of Jesus and looked forward to their eternal reward: “Well done, good and faithful servant”.

One person who not only counted the cost of discipleship but also railed against the “easy-believism” of what he called “cheap grace” was the German theologian Dietrich Bonhoeffer, who lived as Hitler’s evil regime was tightening its grip on society and the churches. Bonhoeffer refused to toe the Nazi line, speaking out against the persecution of Jews and losing all possibilities of rising to high office in his denomination. He was instrumental in founding an underground theological college and joined the “Abwehr” secret police force which covertly undermined the Government. I close with two quotes from his book “The Cost of Discipleship”, written in 1937:

“Grace is costly because it calls us to follow Jesus Christ. It is costly because it costs a man his life, and it is grace because it gives a man the only true life. It is costly because it condemns sin, and grace because it justifies the sinner. Above all, it is costly because it cost God the life of his Son: ‘ye were bought at a price’, and what has cost God much cannot be cheap for us.

“And if we answer the call to discipleship, where will it lead us? What decisions and partings will it demand? To answer this question we shall have to go to him, for only he knows the answer. Only Jesus Christ, who bids us follow him, knows the journey’s end. But we do know that it will be a road of boundless mercy. Discipleship means joy”.

Let’s do our sums, count the cost – and follow, boldly and gladly.