DISCIPLESHIP

“Whoever comes to me and does not hate… father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters… cannot be my disciple.”  - Luke 14:26

These are among the hardest words that Jesus ever spoke.  It certainly is not the passage of choice for most preachers.  For sure Jesus doesn’t sound like the Jesus of family values.  For sure he doesn’t sound like the Jesus who said, “Love your neighbor as yourself” or “Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you.” 

So what is this all about?

With every new diet craze that sweeps our country, a tremendous transformation takes place, but not necessarily in the body shapes that struggle towards trimness.  The transformation takes place on the grocery shelves of our supermarkets.

First, it was banning sugar – and suddenly sugar-free, artificially sweetened sodas, cookies, and chocolates filled the grocery shelves.

Then fats became public enemy number one and suddenly fat-free chips, ice cream, and butter-substitutes made greasy fingers obsolete.

Now, as no one needs to be told, it's a low-carb/no-carb world. It’s Dr. Robert Atkin’s gift to the world.   Supermarkets are now stocked with low-carb muffin mixes, candy bars, and the pork-rind display. The low-carb section is taking up more and more space in many grocery stores. We are now obsessed with counting carbs, keeping anything white, starchy, and comforting from our tables and tongues, our lips and hips. It's estimated that nearly 25 million US Americans are on a low-carb diet during any given period. 

One man, Robert Atkin’s, changed the way we think about diet-food, and even the food pyramid itself.  What can we say but who doesn’t like the idea of prime-rib as diet food?  Or bacon and eggs as diet food?  After years of denying ourselves bacon, butter, cheese and eggs, who wouldn't be thrilled to find them reclassified as diet foods?

Green and lean is out. Red and grease is in.

The low-carb craze was ridiculed by the medical establishment in the 70's because it seemed so absolutely contrary to common sense.  It seemed illogical and it went against the conventional flow of wisdom.   How could you lose fat by eating fat? It’s paradoxical!   It takes backbone and back-talk to rise against some common-sense conventionalities to advocate the uncommon and uncharted.

Jesus was a master at overturning the common sense and conventional wisdom of his day. He often turned things around and went against the flow of the accepted and conventional wisdom of the day.  When Jesus preached and taught about discipleship, he always seemed to make hamburger out of some of the most sacred cows of the first-century world.

In today's gospel text, the beast Jesus slays seems particularly and especially sacred -- the  family.

“Whoever does not hate… father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters… cannot be my disciple.” 

We recoil when we hear it, but if you think we recoil then you only have inkling of how the hearers of his day recoiled.  The first thing we need to understand, to make any sense of all out of this at all, is the concept of family in the 1st century world.  There is a huge difference between the family of that time and culture and the family of our time and culture.

In the first century, far more so than today, the family was a person’s most fundamental source of self-identity. Your clan, your tribe, your village, your community, your people made you what you were and determined where and how your life would be lived.
     - Did you get to pick where you would live? No, your family did.
     - Did you get to choose what you would do for a living? No, your family did.
     - Did you get to choose whom you would marry? No, your family did.

Your family of origin and the wider community totally determined who you would be, what you would do, and how and where you would live your life. 

It is simply not the case in our day and time.

Our families are separated by and scattered over huge distances.
Our families are estranged through self-absorption or disinterest.
Our families are shredded and patch-worked by divorces, infidelities, addictions or incarcerations.

When Jesus uses the word “hate” here he was not describing a gut emotional response to our closest loved ones.  Rather Jesus was calling upon his disciples to reject the total domination that family had over shaping a person, and to be open to an even more important relationship that can shape us – relationship with God.  What he told his disciples to “hate” was the dominating  hold over the heart and the head that the family and community had over a person in those days.  Jesus’ harsh words shocked and shook up that crowd of would-be-disciples.  Those listening to Jesus could not conceive of being shaped and guided by anything but their family and the community.  What Jesus is saying is that these earthly connections that make us who we are, shape us and mold us -- a father, a mother, a husband, a wife, a brother, a sister, a son, a daughter -- are only secondary identities.  They are not unimportant, they are never to be trivialized, but they are secondary.

Notice he didn’t stop with the influence of family and community.  In verse 33 he includes possessions – material things.  And in verse 26 even your very life!

For me and I suspect for you, It is not that Jesus used the word “hate” that is so bothersome, because he did not mean it in the gut emotional sense of hatred.  But what is so bothersome is that he calls upon his disciples to look to an even higher authority and power to shaped by than even our most intimate relationships.

What we are, first and foremost, are children of God.  What we are first and foremost are servants of the Most High God, disciples of the kingdom, faithful followers of the One who is the Way, the Truth, the Life.

Jesus knew the road disciples must follow was neither easy nor safe. A distracted disciple whose loyalty was fractured between family and faith could never hope to bear the burden of the cross each one of us must carry.

“Take up your cross and follow me,” he told them.

Jesus knew that just as he would be rejected, abused, and killed by the world, his disciples would also face extreme hostility and hatred, tough times and difficult roads. But if disciples could make secondary the earthly ties that bound them to human allegiances and loyalties first and foremost, then they could focus their faith and draw their strength from God's power, God's love, God's kingdom.

Jesus went against common sense and against conventional wisdom.  He preached a paradox by declaring the family's strength and love couldn't be the sole source of the disciples' strength. Our primary identity isn't even in our earthly families,  but in Christ. Only by letting go of family, letting go even of one's own life and picking up the cross -- could disciples hope to save their lives, save their families, save the world.

How many times and ways over the years have people told me they could not serve, not worship, not learn and grow in faith because they didn’t have time, or had too many other commitments including things like a million and one child activities and family commitments.  Those commitments held a higher priority and were more important.  The time we spend, the things we do, the love we give to our loved ones is incredibly important, but I believe Jesus would tell us not the most important.  There is another relationship that is more primary even than those; another relationship that needs to be cultivated, nurtured and nourished - and much of time for most disciples it gets neglected and mostly unattended. 

When a disciple puts relationship and service to God first, it means that everything else lines up behind it – even our most sacred stuff.  We are getting ready to learn the Ten Commandments in Confirmation.  What is the first one?  “You shall have no other God’s before me.” 

The paradox of the whole thing is when we put God #1 we usually receive all our other stuff back in a whole new way including spouses, children, loved ones, friends, family, community – even possessions.  All these others things begin to fall into their appropriate place and priority in our lives. 

Discipleship is not for the feeble or fearful.  Jesus has little interest in disciples who are committed only when it’s convenient for me or when God can be fit into my busy schedule.  Discipleship is a call to follow the Lord Jesus Christ on new and even unexplored roads in service and worship to God.   Discipleship is hard and we need to live on a kind of spiritual Atkins diet, a Low-Carb Christianity, to keep us fit for the rigors of such a road. There's no room for a soft, squishy, comfort food Christianity. In a disciple's diet, only high protein, meaty fare will see us through.

Do you claim to be a disciple of Jesus this morning? If you are, have you counted the cost? Have you considered your cross as you travel the discipleship path? Is your primary identity shaped by this culture, peer pressure and the significant others in your life? Or is your primary identity found in your love and loyalty to Jesus the Christ?

That’s what this gets down to. That’s what this is about!

A:  Remembering God’s marvelous work, and living in hope, let us pray for the church, the world, and all people according to their needs.

A brief silence

A:  God of life, let your church be like a tree planted by streams of water, bearing the fruit of the gospel for the sake of the world.  Lord, in your mercy,
Hear our prayer.

A:  God of life, we pray for those who work in various ways for peace, justice and alleviation of suffering in this world that they could soon see the fruit of their labor.  We pray for missionaries of the gospel; those who minister to victims of violence and injustice; those serving in the military, especially  in Iraq and Afghanistan;   Lord, in your mercy,
Hear our prayer.

A:  God of life, we pray for our brothers and sisters in Endoombo and Iringa, Tanzania that their faith would be like a beacon on a hill for all to see; for their good health and physical and spiritual nourishment.  Lord, in your mercy,
Hear our prayer.

A:  God of life, we pray for all those who on this week-end suffer unemployment or underemployment.  We pray that their ordeal would soon end in fair and meaningful employment.  Lord, in your mercy,
Hear our prayer.

A:  God of life, we pray for any and all who face peril and danger this day; for those ho have absorbed grievous losses: the residents of Florida enduring the fury of nature; for those in the Sudan enduring the fury of violence and war; for those in Beslan, Russia enduring the horrors of terrorism.  Lord, in your mercy,
Hear our prayer.

A:  God of Life, make your empowering presence known to those who are sick and suffer in body and spirit this day.  We especially pray for Ruth, Steve, and Karen
            P: for those in our extended family:  Bernice, Joshua, Georgia, Steve, Jeremy, Michael, Jeremiah, Cheridan and Betty.
            A: for those living with cancer:  Clarence, Reinhard, Barry, Steven, Shirley, Jo, Sterling, Mary, Phillip, Adele and Janet.
            P: We pray for those who grieve this day that the risen Christ would bring comfort and hope:  for Carol Smith and her family and the family of Peggy and her family and friends, including Lois Schmidt.  Lord, in your mercy,
Hear our prayer.

A:  God of life, give to our congregation the courage to carry our cross and stir us to follow Christ’s radical call to discipleship.  Lord, in your mercy,
Hear our prayer.

P:  God of faithfulness, encircled in your loving-kindness, we lift to you all in need.  Hear our prayers on behalf of others and sustain us as we await the coming of your Son, Jesus Christ our Lord, in whose name we pray.  Amen.