The Confession of a Disciple

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

At face value, these are about the hardest words that ever rolled off Jesus’ lips. 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” or “turn the other cheek.”  

So what is this all about?  Jesus was a master at overturning the common sense and conventional wisdom of his day.  When Jesus preached and taught, he frequently made hamburger out of some of the most sacred cows of the first-century world.

 “Whoever does not hate… father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters… cannot be my disciple.”   Difficult words for sure, seemingly laying siege to the family!  But to make any sense of them we need to have a basic grasp of family dynamics in the 1st century world. 

In Jesus’ time, far more so than today, the family was the 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.

Family of origin and the wider community dominated when it came to determining who a person would be, what a person would do, and how and where a person would live their life.  It is simply not the case in our day of self-determination and family fragmentation and dispersion.    

The biblical word for “hate” has two meanings.  It can mean to “despise or abhor,” or it can mean to “love less than.”  When Jesus uses the word “hate” here he was not describing a gut emotional response of abhorrence toward 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 formative relationship – relationship with God.  What he told his disciples to “hate” (to love less than God) 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 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 - are secondary identities.  It is a hard pill to swallow – for them and us!

Notice he didn’t stop with the influence of family and community.  He included the dominating hold of possessions and material things as well as the instinct for self-preservation.

For me, it is not the word “hate” that is so bothersome, but that he calls upon his disciples to look to an even higher formative influence than even our most intimate relationships and sacred stuff.

I believe that a distinctly “Christian” sin that we all commit every single day is what I call, the sin of misplaced/divided loyalty.  I must confess I lead the pack.  I, like you, have many loyalties and sacred cows, all of which are formative in shaping my identity and determining who I am.  I am made up of a rainbow of loyalties: to family, to nation, to denomination, to political convictions, to possessions and material things, to certain people, to causes, to candidates, on and on it goes.  The sin I commit all too often, and I suspect you do too, is that I shape Jesus to fit my loyalties and convictions rather than allowing my loyalties and convictions to be shaped and molded and transformed by Jesus.  

Where I emphasize denomination, Jesus emphasizes Kingdom of God.
Where I emphasize love of nation, Jesus emphasizes love of the world.
Where I emphasize retaliation, Jesus turns the other cheek.
Where I see specks in eyes of others, Jesus calls attention to the log in my own eye.
Where I seek to destroy my enemy, Jesus prays for and forgives his enemies. 
Where I speak of self interest, Jesus dies for the eternal interests of others.
Where I favor the powerful, Jesus advocates for the powerless.
Where I yield to peer pressure, Jesus surrenders to love. 
Where I build a bigger barrier, Jesus builds a better bridge.
Where I build a bigger barn for personal security, I see that Jesus had nowhere to lay his head. 
Where I condescend the least and the last, Jesus affirms the least and the last.
Where I take up my cause, Jesus takes up his cross -
               - and invites me to take up his cross and make it my cause.       

Jesus went against common sense and conventional wisdom.  He preached a paradox by declaring that no earthy allegiance, not even family, can be the primary source of the disciples' strength.  He desires for every loyalty, even our most sacred to line up behind him.  We recoil!

One Christian puts it this way, “Discipleship is total commitment, requiring everything else in life to be integrated with our devotion to Christ.  There are no shortcuts and compromises. Jesus is not seeking disciples who are only committed when it’s convenient, easy, or within a certain comfort level.”

I was thinking this week, it is a wonder that anyone at all ever chose to follow Jesus.  He simply drives too hard a bargain – asks for the impossible – raises the bar to an unattainable height. I simply cannot give that for which he asks, my uncompromising loyalty ahead of everything else I hold sacred and to which I am committed.  I cannot do it!

Yet, a part of me so desperately and deeply longs to follow him because I know in my soul that this man is the only person who was ever fully human and truly alive as God intended for us to be, and following him leads to true life.  But I must confess that another part of me is so afraid, and another part of me is so selfish, and another part of me is so weak.  It there any hope, or is all despaired?

But you see that’s just it.  That confession is the first baby step on the road of discipleship, the acknowledgment of my own weakness; my split loyalties, my duplicity.  It is that confession that will keep me from getting lost in the self-righteous deception of mistaking my loyalties, my allegiances, and my agenda for Jesus’.  It is that confession that will time and again bring me back to the cross of sacrificial love that I am called to carry as the principle cause of the Kingdom of God.

I know that the best effort I will ever be able to muster will be half-baked, half-hearted, and half-way.  I know I will frequently stumble over my own self-indulgence, cave in to my fears, and become parochial with God’s love all along the way.  On this journey of discipleship I know I will need the grace and forgiveness of Jesus with every step and with every breath I take.  In the end, the road of discipleship is a road of paradox in that the cross we are called to take up is the cross by which we are forgiven.  The Lord whose cross I take up is the Lord who picks me up when I fall and fail and empowers me to go again; and again; and again; and again - sometimes carrying me on his back – sometimes pushing me from behind – sometimes dragging me along - always leading me in his purpose and by his grace so that a fractured world might come to know God’s saving and reconciling love even through a flawed and fickle disciple like me.  And how about you?  Amen.