Fin
Luke 14:25-33
Click here to view: Fin
This is a hard word to hear. There are no two ways about it. I imagine that those who hear it are waiting for me to tell them that Jesus did not really mean what he said when he suggested to the large crowd that had gathered around him that to be his disciple, that is to be one of his students, one of his followers, even one of his believers, one first has to hate. Come again, Jesus? I thought we were supposed to love. Isn’t that how the old camp song goes, they will know we are Christians by our love? Isn’t the whole point of this thing we’re called to be as church about love, that people are supposed to see us Christians and marvel at how we love? And anyway, there is just too much hatred out in the world already. Do we really need more? What makes this word so hard from me to hear is all the time I spend distancing myself from brothers and sisters in Christ whose actions feel so very hateful, who hide behind their hatreds and call them religious freedom. Surely that isn’t what you want your disciples to do, is it Jesus? Surely that isn’t what it means to be a believer?
But then, that isn’t necessarily who Jesus would have us hate. Jesus isn’t talking about hating the same-sex couple that wants to buy a wedding cake, or the person hoping to make responsible use of contraception in deciding how and when they’ll bring children into this world. Jesus isn’t talking about hating someone of a different faith tradition, or no faith tradition. Jesus isn’t talking about hating the person who is a stranger to us. And really, that’s what makes this even harder to hear. No, the hatred it sounds like Jesus is invoking as a requirement for following in his way is a hatred of those who are closest to us: our parents, our spouses, our brothers and sisters, even our very selves. How’s that? Whatever happened self-esteem, Jesus? How about having a little self-worth?
It reminds me of a line from one of my favorite movies, Mean Girls. When the pages of the burn book containing all the hateful things these mean girls haven’t written about their classmates get distributed to the school, chaos ensues. All the girls in the school are assembled in the gym where the principal invites one of the teachers to talk to the girls. Say something that will help with their self-esteem, he suggests. She replies, “it’s not a self-esteem problem, I think they’re all pretty pleased with themselves.” Maybe that’s what Jesus is getting at. Maybe the hatred Jesus is inviting the crowd into isn’t really about hating anyone, or even hating themselves, so much as it’s about the habit we have of seeing everything in terms of our “selves.” It’s the ego’s great achievement to believe that we really are at the center of it all, that what is happening whether it’s something good or something terrible is happening because of us- because of how good we ourselves are, or how terrible.
But does that have to do with family? Why do we have to hate our family to follow Jesus? Well, let’s take a quick pop quiz. Think of a family member, one of the categories Jesus names: parent, spouse, sibling, child. Got it? Now, how do you think of them? What I mean is, how would you introduce them to someone that you work with, or a neighbor? Would you say this is my… fill in the blank: mom, dad, etc. Language is a tricky thing, but the words we use shape the way we think. So, we can’t help but place that personal possessive pronoun in front of the relationship. This is my mom, my brother, my daughter. It’s little like Daffy Duck bouncing around a cave full of treasure in the old Looney Tunes cartoon, “Mine, mine, mine.” But it rarely stops there. We talk about my neighborhood, my people, my team, my tribe. We even sing, This is My Country/ land that I love. Now to be sure we might include some other people in that category. We might concede and even come to make common cause with the other people who share that neighborhood, or circle of friends, or team colors, or even the country with us. But implicit in the way we talk about such things is that at some point what is mine is not yours- however we decide to determine who that ‘you’ is. The people close to us become the ones we would do anything to defend and keep safe. They are the loves that turn us against those we fear might harm them. They are the loves that determine who we hate. They are the loves that often dictate how we draw the line between who belongs to ‘us’ and who we see as ‘them.’ The problem with such a line is that, as someone has once observed, Jesus is always on the other side of it. Jesus is always on the side of the people we would try to exclude. So if we are to come to him, if we would be his disciples, if we are to trust in who he is and the way he would have us go as those who follow him, we cannot do so if those we love, those whom we would protect, put us in a position to hate the very people Jesus loves, which it turns out- is everyone.
Notice who Jesus is talking to here. The passage opens by explaining that large crowds had begun to follow him. That’s great, Jesus. Things are really starting to take off. Now, just be sure to keep them around. Don’t say anything too challenging, or difficult for them to hear. Maybe give them a few pointers on strengthening their families, be a better parent, build a healthy marriage. And what’s his daily meditation? Hate your family and whoever does not carry the cross cannot be my disciple. Are you kidding me right now? As if the hating weren’t bad enough, you’re going to go political on people? Talk to them about crosses? You know who uses crosses, don’t you? The Romans, that’s who. Only the single greatest military superpower the world (up to that point) has ever known. What do you have talk about crosses for? Crosses are for agitators. Crosses are for criminals. Is that what you want, Jesus, a bunch of subversive law-breakers as your disciples? Jesus’s message about forsaking our loves isn’t about prerequisites. It’s not that this is the requirement for following him, or being a part of the movement inaugurated in him; one in which the realm of God’s power and presence is made manifest in the world; redeeming it, healing it, and making it whole. But at some point there will be things that we have to say ‘no’ to, in order to say, ‘yes,’ to what God is doing in our lives and in this world. At some point we have to recognize that the ego’s impulse to do “what’s best for me and mine,” isn’t just out of line with what Jesus is about, it is what gets in the way of what Jesus is about.
So, to the large crowds that kind of like this Jesus fellow, that think he’s got some interesting things to say. Well, following him isn’t really a halfway thing. Maybe not at first, but eventually. And it’s best to know where this thing is headed before we start down the path with him. Where it’s headed is to a cross. Where it’s headed is a confrontation with the powers of this world, be they political, or economic, familial or personal. Where it’s headed is the place where we can no longer seek what it is we want, because what we want most is to protect ourselves and all those whom we love, and what God wants is something so much bigger than that, so much bigger than our personal stake in a world that’s in need of saving. So, before we get started it’s best to have the end in mind. Are we prepared to lose our lives and our loves, are we prepared to say “no,” to demands based on blood, based on lineage, based on all the people we would claim for ourselves? Are we prepared to say, “no,” to that so that we can enter into the much bigger thing that God is up to?
Ultimately, the hate that Jesus names, isn’t about screaming hurtful things or waving awful signs. It’s about the turn each of us is invited to make when we turn toward Jesus. It’s about seeing a picture that is so much more than our tiny corner illustrated by an ego that is pretty pleased with itself. It’s about seeing the end that God has in store and moving away from all of our possessive attachments that stand in the way of that end. It is an end in which everyone gets not what they deserve, but what they need. It’s an end in which who we are is defined less by who belongs to us- my father, my mother, my wife and children, sisters and brother, even my own life- and who we are is defined instead by the one to whom we belong, right along with everybody else. It is an end in which we give up all those things that we would possess and hold onto just the way they are so that we and this whole world would be held by the one who promises to make all of it new.