Luke 14: 25-33 / Offered to the Rockport PC, Port Murray, NJ
Well, there you have it. If you want to be a disciple of Jesus, you have to hate your father and your mother, and your spouse and children, and your brothers and sisters, and even your life itself. You have to measure the costs of being a disciple of Jesus before you decide to pick up the Cross and carry it with him. These are Jesus’ words, “So, therefore, every one of you who does not bid farewell to all his possessions cannot be my disciples.”
So, there you have it. Call the realtors and sell your homes. Call the auction houses and sell all your valued possessions. Call Goodwill and the Salvation Army and give away all the rest. Clean out your garages and your closets. Sell all that you possess. If you don’t do all this and shed all the possessions that distract you from carrying the Cross of Christ, you cannot be a disciple of Jesus.
You cannot pick up the Cross of Christ and decide part of the way through your faith journey that you want to opt out. In order to follow Jesus, you have to be all in!
This is what Luke’s recorded testimony tells us that we must do in order to recognized by Jesus as one of his disciples? To our ears this is harsh and most difficult to conceive of much less to actually carry out. We hear these words and wonder if there is an escape clause, a silver lining if you will, that would make this all more palatable and easier for us to follow. Maybe there is. Let’s take a look.
In Luke’s account of this day, Jesus is being followed by huge crowds, and he looks upon them realizing that most are just hangers-on. Most of them have a completely wrong notion of what he was there to do for them. Very few of them understood who God’s Messiah was and what his purpose was. They didn’t understand God’s plan for Creation least of all what the Messiah’s role would be in securing God’s plan.
So, Jesus looks upon them, the people who were followers, the people who had been fed on the hillside, the people who were coming to him because of the rumors that were circulating that he just might be God’s Messiah. What that meant to most of them was – great legions of God’s armies clashing with and finally defeating all of Israel’s enemies and then finally freedom for the nation of God’s Chosen people.
Jesus looks out upon them and tells them, No. If you are following me thinking we are marching to a great military victory, then no, you are here for the wrong reasons and you cannot be one of my disciples.
So, Jesus tells them in the harshest terms what it would take to be one of his disciples. Let me share his words with you again,
“If anyone comes to me and does not hate his father and mother, and wife and children, and brothers and sisters and even his own life too, they cannot be one of my disciples.”
This is so hard and I’m going to be honest with you, I find this a very difficult passage to speak to you on, this morning. Personally, I am not enamored of the thought of selling all I have so that I may lead worship with you this morning. I have difficulty warming up to the notion that before I can love Jesus, I have to hate my wife, my children, sister and brother. Do I have to hate my father and mother? Doesn’t the Fifth Commandment tell us to honor our Father and Mother? Aren’t these all gifts bestowed upon me by God. How is it that I should hate them?
Are we to pile all of our possessions onto the offering plate? Or, instead of passing the Peace of Christ, should we pass the hatred of a true disciple? Is that what Jesus is telling us here.
It that’s the lesson we hear, we must be missing something. So, as I often do, I went to William Barclay’s commentary on Luke for some insight and understanding.
Barclay suggests one of the reasons that it is hard to understand why Jesus appears to be so harsh, is that we aren’t understanding how ancient peoples used the Aramaic language and the meanings of the words Jesus spoke in Aramaic. Barclay suggests that when they are translated into English, the intent of his words is misconstrued.
If we take our English translations of ancient Aramaic as they stand, then we will be forever scratching our heads until they bleed without understanding Jesus’ meaning.
Barclay suggests that we should not be taking our English translations of the ancient Aramaic languages to follow them literally.
Barclay would say, “No,” and he writes this, “When Jesus tells us to hate our nearest and dearest, he does not mean that literally. What Jesus means is that no love in this life can compare with the love we must bear to him.”
To understand what Jesus’ intent may be, we need to first take into account where he was, what he was doing and who he was doing it with.
First, you should recall that in the timeline of Jesus’ ministry, he was nearing the end, and he was now on the road to Jerusalem. He knew that he was on the way to the Cross. The crowds who were following him thought that Jesus and they were on the way to a new Jewish kingdom. The crowds thought that Jesus as God’s Messiah would throw off the yoke of slavery – of Roman domination – and set them free. That is where the crowds thought they were going. They didn’t understand that Jesus was heading somewhere else. Jesus knew where he was going but the crowds who were following him did not.
He had made his assessment of the costs of picking up his Cross and was ready to pay that cost. These people in the crowds following him had no idea of what was to come and what the cost might be.
Who was in the crowd? These were part of the five thousand who had been fed the loaves and fish. These were the people who had witnessed miracle cures and healings, who had seen people raised from the dead. They were following Jesus because they believed that this miracle working prophet could raise an army of God’s elite angels and defeat the Roman army, overthrow their occupation, and free Israel once and for all. There were Zionist among them whose sole purpose was military engagement to overthrow the Romans.
But that is not where Jesus was heading. Their objective was not Jesus’ purpose. Their political objective was not what Jesus was willing to die for. Jesus was not on the road to worldly power and glory. Jesus was on the road to suffering and sacrifice and the people who were following him – if they truly wanted to follow Jesus to his end – then they would be called to make sacrifices of the dearest things in their lives. They may not be called to go to the Cross but the choices that they would have to make in order to be a disciple of his would cause just as much agony. They would be called to feel the pain of separation from the father and mother, family and friends – all who loved them. Some would be called to have their possessions stripped from them to die naked in humiliation. Some would be called to give up their love of this life and love Jesus first and foremost.
So, Jesus turns to people and gives them the ultimatum that we read here today.
But – and this is the thing we have to be careful about when translating from ancient languages to our limited English language. Barclay warns us “we must not take Jesus’ words with cold and unimaginative literalism. The language of the middle east was and is as vivid as the human mind can make it. When Jeus tells us to hate our nearest and dearest, he does not want his words to be taken literally. What Jesus is saying is that no love in this life can compare to the love we must devote to him.”
Now, I believe that spouses, children, parents and siblings are gifts bestowed upon us by the Father. They are blessings. We should not hate God’s blessings. But we should keep them prioritized. Our first love should be for God, the Father, Christ the Son, and the Spirit of God. We should love the gifts that God bestows upon us but not forget where they come from. But – and this is a very big BUT – we cannot allow any of what God gives us to supplant our love for the Father. Loving fathers, mothers, family and friends is important, but we should never them to come before loving God.
Jesus comes to us in the name of the Father. He comes sharing and reflecting all of the love and compassion of the Father. He comes on behalf of the Creator God who called all things in to being by his Word and then pronounced it all good. God does not want us to hate that creation. NO, we are called to love God’s creation and be good stewards of it. But Jesus reminds us that we are called first to walk in God’s garden and to love God, to have a righteous relationship with God, first.
When humankind was created, it was created with the sole purpose of sharing in the bliss of being with God in the Garden. And the gifts that God bestows upon us are meant to enhance that existence. But – and this is the caveat – none of that is meant to replace God. None of what God blesses into our lives is meant to come first, to distract us, to blind our vision so that we don’t see where we are marching when we pick up the Cross to follow Jesus.
As the story of the Garden goes, humankind was tempted by its desire to have more for itself than God had intended. Now let me be clear. I believe that God had intended that humankind be blessed with all the good things in God’s creation. But God never desired humankind to choose those things first before we choose to be with God. God’s plan was for humankind to have a righteous relationship with God and to walk in bliss with God in the Garden for all eternity.
But we chose otherwise. We chose the things. We chose to love the things God had blessed us with rather than God first. And that is what Jesus is getting at in his comments to the people that day.
The people were following Jesus because of what they wanted from him and God – not for what God had planned for them. The people wanted God’s Messiah to serve them and not God, to throw off the oppression of Roman rule. Repel these foreign invaders out of their promised land. This land belonged to God’s Chosen People. It was their land; their heritage and they had no desire to share it with any others.
But that was not what the Messiah was there to do. The Messiah had come to heal the rift between God and God’s broken creation – the creation that we so selfishly chose over God and then destroyed not only our relationship with God but creation, as well.
The Mesiah’s role was to make the ultimate sacrifice that would heal all the wounds in God’s creation and make it whole again; make it one again with God.
But the people didn’t see it that way. They did not want to share the relationship that they had with God. They wanted to keep it for themselves. They choose their little corner of creation, and they loved it more than they loved the God who gave it to them.
That is where Jesus found himself. As he looked out over the crowds, he was facing the fact that a vast majority of the people following him were there for the wrong reasons. So, he challenged them.
Jesus was saying, if you choose to love all of the things of this life over a love of God, then you cannot be one in me.
A few short weeks ago on the lectionary, Luke recounted Jesus’ parable of the rich fool. The rich fool you will recall was blinded by all of the wealth he had amassed in this world. He never once considered what his relationship should be with the God who was the source of his blessings. No, instead he built up barns to store his newfound surplus wealth for himself. Then God steps into his life to tell him that he had been a fool; that everything he had devoted his life to would die and rot away into dust. He had a chance to devote his life to building up a right relationship with God, but he blew it.
Isn’t that the same thing that Jesus is saying here? If we want to be one in the Christ, we need to subjugate anything in this life that can distract us from loving him and God.
So no, Jesus was not headed for the military conquests that the people wanted. Jesus was going to the Cross so that he could heal the brokenness of this world. He was giving up all that God had blessed him with in the world – his parents, his siblings, his friends, and his disciples – he was giving up all the things he loved to submit in obedience to the Father who he loved more than any of these.
And that is what Jesus wants us to do. Jesus is not asking to us to hate all the blessings that God has bestowed into our lives but rather to love God more and the things of this life less. Can you do that?
May this be so!
