A sermon on Luke 14:25-33

Oh, the irony of today’s reading on Father’s Day.  We know Jesus taught that we are to love our neighbour and he said we should even love our enemies but today we hear "hate your family and even life itself".  So much for those Christian family values.

Your kids might be or have been too well behaved but if hating your parents gets you on good terms with Jesus my teenage kids are acing it.

Jokes aside it is fair to say that Jesus is using a literary devise for emphasis. He is using hyperbole or exaggeration. He did hang out with a bunch of fisherman after all. –We know how good they are at telling people it, was, this, big!

We should not take what Jesus said literally.  At least not with our understanding of the word "hate". 

We need to remember that the bible was written a long time ago and language meaning changes over time.  What’s more it was not written in English.  Whenever we translate we risk missing the meaning. 

To help us with what Jesus and our Gospel writer might have meant we can look at the parallel in Matthew (10:37):

“Whoever loves father or mother more than me is not worthy of me; and whoever loves son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me.”

Matthew, drawing on the same Jesus tradition as Luke, has interpreted Luke’s more stark language of “hate” to refer to primary allegiance. Matthew is saying our primary allegiance must be to Jesus rather than to family.

To support this idea we can look at how “hate” is used in Hebrew.  In Genesis 29:30-31, for example, we hear that Jacob loved Rachel more than Leah and that Leah was “hated” by Jacob. A similar use of the Hebrew word for “hate” occurs in Deuteronomy 21:15-17 which says that if a man has 2 wives and loves one but hates the other then even if the 1st born son is from the hated one he must still give him a double portion of the inheritance

The issue is one of preference or 1st allegiance.  Jesus is not calling his followers to hate their families in terms of emotional response.  He is not advocating intense hostility towards family and life but promoting the steadfast refusal to allow something less valuable to displace something more valuable. 

He is calling for undivided loyalty to himself above family loyalties.  A call to embrace a singular commitment and allegiance to him.  It requires a single-mindedness that the crowd may not yet have understood.

While the call is for single-mindedness it most certainly is not a call to narrow-mindedness. The way of Jesus, the way of God, requires an openness to another way of living.  Open to the seemingly crazy.  Open to what is scary.  An openness to embrace and care for the marginalised.  An openness to share resources.  An openness to live with an open hand rather than a clenched fist.

It is like the bushwalker who ventures to close to the cliff face and falls over the edge. On the way down he grasps a shrub growing out of the cliff or the edge of the rockface and hangs perilously halfway down the cliff.

In desperation and with no other choice he cries out for help: ‘Is there anyone up there?’

After several loud cries, he hears a voice: ‘Yes, I am here.’

‘Who are you? Can you help me? What should I do?’

‘I am God and I believe I can help you. Just let go.’

Silence. Then: ‘Is there anyone else up there?’

Letting go is the hardest thing.  There is a cost, and it is a choice.

God is a God of liberation and freedom. God is not a puppeteer controlling everything. God, out of love, gives us freedom; gives us choice.  We have the freedom to choice wisely or not.

In the words of Deuteronomy 30:19

“I have set before you life and death, blessings and curses. Choose life so that you and your descendants may live”

Choose life. It is a radical call in a world that tries to numb pain and fear  with endless distractions; entertainment, material possessions, digital devices, drugs.  So often we think we are choosing life when really, we are choosing comfort.

Life is full of choices.  Often we make our choices passively.  We go with the flow,  follow the path of least resistance.  We stick with the status quo. Often we are not even aware of the choices we are making because we are so swept up in the way things are, the way things have always been done.

We have been convinced by the lies of the world tell us that wealth, power and privilege will save us. But the ways of our world are complicit in death. The ways of the world favour some.  The ways of the world give a lot to a few and very little to many.  The ways of the world are complicit in death, deal out death.

For example, in the USA the choice of personal freedoms and the right to bear arms comes at the expense of 508 mass shootings so far this year.  These shootings have killing 545 people and injured 2089.  How well have we chosen life so that we and our descendants may live?

Another example that affects us all is the fact that the powers that be in  the world is ok with the disruption and destruction of the environment on which we are dependent for life and survival.  We are beginning to see the impact of our actions, the extreme weather, the fires that blaze and the damaging floods.   What kind of world are we leaving behind for our children and our children’s children? How well have we chosen life so that we and our descendants may live?

Jesus calls us to choose life.  To make a conscious choice to choose that which frees, that which liberates. Even if that comes at a personal cost. Even if that means change.  Even if that means being unpopular.  Even if that means letting go. Letting go of the things that hold us and to which we cling, the delusions, the sentimentality, our security systems, our wealth or power or status or privilege can feel like choosing death. 

Certainly, to others it may look like that.  If we get serious about walking in Jesus way, there is a good chance we will be accused of betraying all that is held dear by our society.

Truth, wisdom, freedom and love can have devastating impacts on systems that seek to control and maintain a status quo of power – whether nations, communities, organisations or families. Jesus warned that these things which make up the very basis of our lives, our nation, the communities we are a part of the organisations we are involved in and our families, these things that make up our identity can be a stumbling block to life in God’s way.

If we idealised and idolised family, culture, wealth, status, power or anything, those things then have a hold on us and become restrictive and oppressive. The possessions we think we own, in reality come to possess and oppress us when we cling to them and depend upon them for our happiness or sense of identity.

Jesus is calling us to single-mindedly follow in his way, in God’s way.  The call is to an open mindedness – to the spiraling of God’s love out to all.  It is a call to "hate" family, and to love humanity.  A call to prioritize humanity even over family.

We as a church have needed to learn that the church is not another tribe, our tribe. Jesus is not calling us out of our birth family to join his tribal family. To prioritise another group over and above "others".  The church has been at its worst when it has done this. Jesus is calling us out of our family, and perhaps even our church in some cases, to take on a bigger view of inclusion – to see all humanity and all creation as family.  To see as St Francis of Assis puts it Brother Sun, and Sister Moon, Brothers Wind and Air, and Sister Water, Brother Fire and sister Mother Earth.  When we embrace all creation as family then we become more fully human.