Lord of the Streets, Houston
September 7, 2025
Proper 18, C
Deuteronomy 30:15-20
Psalm 1
Luke 14:25-33
What are the two greatest commandments? Love God. Love your neighbor as yourself. That’s what Jesus taught. Any other rule we have in our way of life as disciples of Jesus depends upon love God and love your neighbor. In our way of life as the church, everything we do is to be tested, evaluated by, love God and love your neighbor.
If something we start to believe or something we start to do fails the love God and love your neighbor test, then it’s probably not something we should believe or do.
Then we get today’s lesson from Luke 14, where Jesus said that we are supposed to “hate father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters, yes, and even life itself.” We’re supposed to hate all of those people and even life itself, Jesus said, or else we can’t be his disciple.
That sounds unfortunate. Somehow, we need to figure out how Jesus’ teaching to hate our family and even life itself can possibly pass the love God and love your neighbor test.
So first, let’s try the hyper-literal method. Jesus said to love God, love your neighbor, and even love your enemies. Well, our families aren’t God, aren’t our neighbors, and mostly aren’t our enemies, so I suppose we do get to hate our families, right? Yea, Jesus! Even better, Jesus told his disciples to bless those who hate them, so if we hate our families, they will bless us? Doubtful. Besides, Jesus also said to give up all your possessions. So, going hyper-literal, if we want to be Jesus’ disciples, we all have to live naked without a penny to our names, despised by everyone who once loved us because we decided we had to hate them in order to be Jesus’ disciple. I’m guessing at that point, we might very well hate our own lives.
Obviously, that’s not what Jesus meant. So much for the hyper-literal method of biblical interpretation. (No one tell the your hyper-literal friends that doesn’t work.)
What if we actually look a little more deeply into Jesus’ words? Whoever comes to Jesus and does not hate their loved ones, he said, cannot be his disciple. At least that’s what it says in English, in this particular translation. The word was translated as “hate,” however, can also mean “disregard.” Whoever comes to me and does not disregard their loved ones and even life itself cannot be my disciple. In other words, be able to let your loved ones go, if need be, to follow Jesus’ ways. Be able to let your life go, if need be, to follow Jesus’ ways. That makes a lot more sense with what Jesus taught than, hate your family.
Let’s look at what Jesus meant by disregard your family and even life itself. In Luke 8, we hear about Jesus teaching a large crowd of people. His mother and brothers came to see him, and when folks suggested he stop teaching so he could meet with his family, he said that his family are all those who hear the word of God and do it. Jesus did not show any hatred toward his mother and his brothers. He did show some indifference to them. He disregarded them in order to show his love for those he was teaching. They too were his family.
Jesus didn’t hate his family, but he disregarded them, he set them aside, when he needed to in order to live God’s kingdom in that moment. He was not forever saying goodbye to them, and he was not disowning them. He was just acknowledging that right then, other people needed him more than his family did, and if his family got upset about that, he was willing to let them. No anger. No hatred. Just setting them aside for a little while, rather than letting them be an excuse to stop his ministry. So no, Jesus didn’t hate his family.
Jesus didn’t hate his life either. Shortly before being crucified, just before being arrested, Jesus was in the Garden of Gethsemane begging God not to have to be crucified. He was really hoping to skip that part, his painful and premature death by the state, because he really liked his life.
Nevertheless, he was willing to disregard his life if it meant following God’s will and God’s ways.
Jesus had been led to preach, and teach, and heal people, and in all of that, his preaching, teaching, and healing, he angered the religious and political leaders of the day. Remember all that stuff God said about not exploiting the poor? Yeah, God meant that. Remember all that stuff God said about religious practices not really have a heart of love for the people society disregards? Yeah, God meant that too.
Jesus had run afoul of the religious and political elite, and at the same time, many of the people who followed him wanted him to be a great military ruler. They misunderstood and thought Jesus was going to lead an armed revolt against Rome, killing and driving them all out.
So, at the time of Jesus’ arrest, it was either take up the mantle of military ruler and lead a rebellion to kill to all the Romans, or let himself be killed. Jesus chose to let himself be killed. Peter tried to stop it, grabbing a sword to try to kill Jesus’ accusers, and Jesus said, nope, thanks so much, Pete, but we’re gonna let this death thing happen. I’m going to disregard my life rather than kill and lead a rebellion, disregarding tens of thousands of lives in order to save mine.
Jesus loved his life, and he disregarded it in order to save others. Jesus loved his family, and disregarded them when he needed to in order to live God’s will and God’s ways.
So, Jesus tells us, if we want to be his disciples, we need to be willing to disregard our loved ones and even our lives for the sake of following God’s will and God’s ways. If someone harms a member of my family, my gut instinct is to find that person and get terrible revenge against that person, beating them senseless, but that’s not the teaching of Jesus.
I’d definitely try to hold that person accountable for what they did. If I needed to get the authorities involved. That could be about keeping others safe too, but going out and seeking revenge, blood for blood, eye for eye, that is not following the teaching of Jesus. So, if I’m going to live as his disciple, I wouldn’t go seek revenge on my own against that person, and my family might just feel like I was disregarding them, letting them down. Why do you hate us so much that you won’t get revenge?
Because I believe in the ways of Jesus. I believe that seeking revenge only brings about more revenge from the others person. Fighting and killing as revenge for fighting and killing never ends. If we need to disregard our family’s desires for revenge in order to break a cycle of violence and follow Jesus’ teaching, then so be it.
Being Jesus’ disciple has a cost to it. Sometimes it’s disregarding the desires of those we love. Sometimes it’s disregarding our own desires, because trusting in Jesus’ teaching and Jesus’ ways, we come to believe that there will be greater healing and greater love in the world if we sometimes disregard our own desires. We come to believe that there will be greater healing and greater love in the world if we sometimes disregard our loved ones’ desires.
That’s a cost. What we get for that cost is greater peace, with work, over time. Disregarding our own desires and our loved one’s desire in order to follow Jesus’ teaching is a cost, and what we get for that cost is to be servants of peace, offering peace and healing to those around us.
Living as Jesus’ disciples comes at a cost. Not always getting what we want, not always giving our loved ones what they want to. Consider, however, that we’re not always going to get what we want anyway, and we’re definitely going to let our loved ones down anyway. The cost of living as Jesus’ disciple can be high, but you know what? We’re usually going to end up paying some kind of cost in this life anyway. Paying the cost as Jesus’ disciples, we get peace. We get love. We get healing, and we get to share that peace, love, and healing with the world.
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