I suspect my clergy colleague knew that today’s gospel was a controversial one when she asked if I would like to preach today; but I am always up to a challenge and to that end I want to make you aware that I believe very firmly that it is my job to help us understand and learn what was intended by the authors of scripture, not gloss over things that we find challenging by clinging to the idea that Jesus loves us because when we oversimplify our faith we are oversimplifying God, which is easier than wrestling with complicated and multifaceted ideas. So, when scripture says things, we don’t like I see it as an opportunity to learn more about God and our relationship with them.
To that end this morning, we are faced with a passage where Jesus, the source of compassion and love for billions of people, says we have to hate our families and friends to be his disciples. Which feels completely inconsistent with everything else we know about his ministry; yet there it is. We could gloss over this passage and insist that Luke is off base here, but if we pause for a moment and think about the New Testament as a whole, we might realize that this is not the only time Jesus says something controversial, and more importantly what he is saying is not in fact inconsistent with the rest of the teachings.
Jesus’s ministry was centered on the idea that for us to truly experience a relationship with God, and frankly each other, we must break current cultural norms. The culture of the 1st century and every century in human existence for that matter, was one of survival. People woke up, worked hard, and went to bed. Of course, the work was different depending on who you were, most worked hard for someone else and hoped that they would be able to eat somewhat regularly; some told others what to do and never worried about whether they would be eating. We maintain the same cycle today, we get up, we work hard, and we go to bed. The difference is that in the modern west we’ve simply made it appear that life is easier by masking our problems with technology. We still worry about food and shelter we simply worry about it differently.
Regardless of the century the call to be counter cultural remains the same and Jesus’s admonition to hate our families and friends in order to be his disciple remains the same, so let’s take a moment and explore what Jesus likely means by this.
The first issue we need to address is that of language. Words can change meaning over time or more accurately our understanding of them changes. In the 1st century the word hate, when used in a context that involves God did not imply that you despised something or someone. Generally, it meant that you loved something less than other things, I think the closest we have in English would be that we like something, as opposed to loving it. So, with this context Jesus is not telling us to literally hate our loved ones, he is reminding us that we need to love God first, but what does that mean?
It means we use our understanding of God as taught to us by Jesus to frame our entire existence. It means that when interacting with our fellow humans, we choose to see the good in all regardless of their behavior toward us or others. It means that we resist the temptation to condemn other people because we don’t like their ideas, their attitudes or even their face. Are there times when we want to turn and run because “that person” is coming, of course; but loving our neighbor as we love ourselves requires that we love the annoying people and yes, the hateful people just as much as we love our partners, our children, and our friends. The reason this is so important is because it is through these interactions and relationships that we primarily experience the love of God and if that wasn’t true then we wouldn’t be here right now.
It is hard for us to put God first because we want to be first. It is hard to accept that our love of God must come before our love of people, which is really what Jesus is saying here. Claiming to be a follower of Jesus and then focusing our energy on our own understanding of the world is not God centered living. Coming to church every week is not God centered living; reading scripture every day is not God centered living. All of these things can play a role in a God centered life, but a truly God centered life requires that we internalize the teachings of Jesus so deeply that we instinctively default our thoughts and actions to God. So that when the annoying person comes along, we don’t just roll our eyes, we see the beauty of their personality and accept and love them ensuring that they feel heard, seen, appreciated, and respected, full stop. You might say that I am arguing in favor of tolerance, but I don’t like that word. God does not ask that we put up with people, God asks, no they command us to love. Love is intimate, it requires closeness and understanding, it requires risk. And we don’t like risk. Risk is dangerous, it’s scary and it messes with our comforts, but taking a risk is exactly what this is all about.
The message of the Gospel is radical, life changing, counter cultural love. Love of God, love of neighbor, love of self. It’s not about doing nice things for other people, it is about changing our entire view of the world which is why Jesus said that we need to hate or love our family less if we truly want to be his disciple because loving other people more than God is just the status quo. Most people do the right thing where others are concerned, but that doesn’t make them disciples of Christ because being a good person is only one tiny portion of what a life of faith is all about and what Jesus is telling us today is that it isn’t even the most important part of that life. Love of God comes first and from that loving relationship the rest will follow. Amen.
Learning by Fire! 