We're Supposed to Hate Whom?

The Rev. Brad Sullivan
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. 

As a side note, in about 10 different translations I read for this passage, all but one used the word hate, rather than disregard. I think that says more about us than it does about Jesus, the fact that we seem to want to translate the word as hate, despite how that goes against Jesus’ teachings.

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. 

Eternal Life Is for After We Die, and other Ridiculous Things Preachers Say

The Rev. Brad Sullivan
Lord of the Streets, Houston

October 13, 2024
Proper 23, B
Amos 5:6-7,10-15
Psalm 90:12-17
Mark 10:17-31

“What must I do to inherit eternal life?” That’s what the man in today’s gospel story asked Jesus. Of course he buttered him up a bit first, calling him “good teacher.” Maybe he was just being polite, but he also seems a little bit smarmy to me, like he was trying to butter Jesus up a bit to prove that he really was worthy of eternal life, that he really would get the best of everything. It seems that this man’s only real interest was himself and getting into God’s good graces.

Notice that his initial question was totally selfish. “What must I do to inherit eternal life?” He wasn’t interested in helping bring about the Kingdom of God here on earth. He wasn’t interested in healing the wounds of the world. 

No, his only interest was himself. “How can I make sure things turn out as well as they possibly can for me…and only me?” He asked. “I’ve got enormous riches, I have no interest in helping others, and I want to make sure I have the best of everything after this life too.” Like I said, kinda smarmy. Selfish.

Of course, wanting to be worthy of God’s rewards and wanting to inherit goodness for himself, that probably went along with what he’d been taught. Keep God happy with you. Make sure to follow all the rules just right so you don’t make God angry. If others aren’t following God’s rules, make sure to stay away from them so you don’t get defiled by them. Look out for you and yours. Follow the laws, and God will reward you. Sound kinda familiar to some?

The trouble is, such a selfish way of life is completely misunderstanding scripture; misunderstanding the laws of God; and misunderstanding salvation, eternal life, and the kingdom of God.

Making sure things turn out well for me is not the way of the Kingdom of God. Making sure things turn out well for me is not inheriting eternal life. Making sure things turn out well for me is not, in fact, salvation.

Eternal life, the kingdom of God, and salvation itself are “Love God, and love people.” Anything that helps you do that is following the ways of God. Anything that helps you love God and love people is inheriting eternal life. See, eternal life is the life of God, and when we love God and love people, we are living the eternal life of God. If any want to inherit eternal life, love God and love people, and you’ll find that you are living the eternal life of God here and now.

For the man asking Jesus about what he needed to do to inherit eternal life, he seems to have been thinking about life later on, after life here on earth. He somehow had the life of God detached from this life. He seems to have had the ridiculous notion that life here on earth is just setting us up for something better or worse later on, as though the only point of this life is the next life. Does that also sound familiar to some? That’s insane. The point of this life is this life and how well we love God and love others in this life.

We were made to be people of love. We were made to be people who support one another and care for one another. We were made to care for the earth, this beautiful home God has given us.

You may have heard a song called, “Made to Worship,” with a chorus which begins with, “You and I were made to worship.” My response in hearing that chorus has always been, “No we weren’t,” because I thought the song was saying that we were made for the purpose of being in churches singing to God. That sounds to me like we were made to make God happy be stroking his ego. If I’m religious enough, God will be happy with me and will reward me. That’s insane. That’s not what we were made to do.

So, when I was preparing this sermon, I thought of the song “Made to Worship” as an example of religion gone crazy, and then I looked at the rest of the lyrics, and it’s actually talking about living the kingdom of God.  “You and I were made to worship; you and I are called to love; you and I are forgiven and free. You and I embrace surrender; you and I choose to believe, then you and I will see who we were meant to be.”

Loving others. Accepting and surrendering to God’s forgiveness and the freedom God gives, choosing to believe in God and in God’s ways, despite them not always making sense to us…by doing those things, the songs says, we will see who we were meant to be. We’ll see that we were meant to be people of love. Our worship is meant to help us understand that above all, God desires us to love one another, and then when we do, we find that love to be our true worship of God.

Now, when the man asked Jesus about inheriting eternal life, Jesus responded that the man’s wealth was getting in the way of him loving God and loving people.

“What are you talking about, Jesus, I can have as much wealth as I want. There ain’t no law against it.” True, there’s no specific law against having great wealth, but Jesus’ teaching asks us, “Does what you’re doing help you to love God and to love people, or does what you’re doing make loving God and loving people harder?”

For the man who asked Jesus about inheriting eternal life, his great wealth was making loving God and loving people harder for him. We know this because when Jesus suggested that he sell some of his stuff and give the proceeds to the poor, he walked away from Jesus. He loved his stuff more than he loved people in need. Love God and love people was eclipsed by, “But I really love my stuff.”

Jesus taught that even though there ain’t no law against having as much money as you want, the reason one would have all that wealth is to care for other people, to love God by loving people. Jesus told a parable of a wealthy landowner, who paid everyone who worked for him a full, living wage. Even folks who were only able to work for an hour got a full living wage.

The man in Jesus’ parable had more than enough, and he had love in his heart so that what he did with his stuff was to make sure others had enough as well, not just enough to barely scrape by, but truly enough. Using his wealth to make sure that even those who could only work an hour had a living wage, that was his worship. That was inheriting and living eternal life, not in some after-we’re-dead future, but right then and there, because his life wasn’t bound up in his money, his stuff, for his sake. His life was bound up in the love and care he had for others.

The man who asked Jesus about inheriting eternal life was primarily focused on himself, and any salvation this is primarily focused on things turning out well for me is ultimately not salvation but just more love of stuff. In such a false salvation the stuff we love is just ourselves, and a salvation centered on self is not eternal life; it’s just selfishness.

Jesus showed us in his life and ministry what salvation truly is, what eternal life truly is, and what the Kingdom of God truly is. “Love God and love people.” Whatever helps us love God and love people is true worship of God, and a life lived by loving God through loving people, that is eternal life.

Bath Bombs and Cookies: A Loving Response

The Rev. Brad Sullivan

Emmanuel Episcopal Church

October 25, 2020

Proper 25, A

1 Thessalonians 2:1-8

Matthew 22:34-46

Bath Bombs and Cookies:  A Loving Response

The way of our whole lives is love.  “’You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind.’ This is the greatest and first commandment,” Jesus said, “And a second is like it: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.”  Love is the guide through all of the laws and situations in our lives.  

Last week, I said that everything we do, we do to God.  Every kindness we give one another, every act of cruelty or disgust, every word we utter, and every action we take, all are done and given to God.  Little wonder Jesus says to act out of love.  Love is the summation of the law and the lens through which we view the law.  If we read the law and do not first and foremost read it out of love, then we’re reading it wrong.  Some of the law is hard to read through a lens of love, and you’ll notice that sometimes Jesus broke the law in order to follow the law of love.  

When Jesus didn’t stone to death a woman caught in adultery, he was breaking the law.  Stoning the woman to death, murdering her, was not just the actions of an angry mob.  Those were the actions of people who were following the letter of the law.  By not killing this woman, Jesus was breaking the law.  He was, however, following, the law of love, the law of compassion.  “Go and sin no more,” he said to the woman, after he convinced the crowd that they had all sinned and messed up in their lives too, and so they didn’t need to act as some holier than thou executioners, ignoring their own faults while killing a woman for hers.  Jesus saw this law as not fulfilling the law of love.  Jesus saw this woman and realized that her life had more value than the poor choices she’d sometimes made.  Go and live your life with that value and the possibility of what may be; go and live a life of love as one who is beloved of God.

Like the woman in that story, we’re all God’s children, eternally beloved of God and eternally worthy of each others’ love.  When we break our own modern laws and when we harm each other, we’re still worthy of each other’s love.  That includes the people we really don’t like and the people who have really and truly hurt us.  Jesus said to love our enemies, and he even broke laws in order to give compassion and love to others, even those who were criminals and notorious sinners.  

Act out of love toward all people, Jesus taught, for all that we do for or against others is done for or against God.  All that we do for or against others is also done for or against others, other people, people who matter eternally, people whose live and possibilities matter more than their misdeeds, people whose misdeeds may be cries of hurt or brokenness.  

I read a story last week of a mom whose young daughter is completely worn out by COVID life, school, stress, all of it.  The mother recounted how her daughter came home in tears because she was so exhausted physically, mentally, and emotionally.  She said this exhaustion sometimes come across as anger, and I’m guessing disrespect and poor behavior at home, but she said she understand that it is exhaustion.  So, on the day she recounted, she “listened for about ten minutes, held her [daughter] tight and scratched her back, and told her to meet [her] in [the] bathroom in five minutes.” 

Cue: Awesome Bath. Big clawfoot tub, gorgeous bubbles, delicious bath bomb, her favorite candle next to the tub, sweetened iced coffee in a pretty glass, [she] teed up Alexa to play her best music ("Fly Me to the Moon" by Frank Sinatra LOL) and put fresh cookies on a little table. I threw a towel in the dryer to get warm and cozy and dimmed the lights. [Her daughter] took one look at it all and grinned from ear to ear.   (https://www.facebook.com/jenhatmaker/)

Now that was a loving response.  She saw her daughter hurting.  Past the tears, anger, and probable shouting and disrespect, this mother saw her daughter in desperate need of some soothing, some love, and some being cared for.  Past some possible misdeeds, this mother saw a cry of hurt and brokenness, a loving response.  

This particular loving response, however, is not some a new law.  We’re not just going to start drawing baths for each other anytime someone is upset, rude, or disrespectful.  For one thing, not all of us are going to have fresh baked cookies and bath bombs on hand, every time we see someone stressed out and in need of some soothing, and for another thing there are a whole lot of us for whom the bubble Frank Sinatra cookie bath would not be a pleasant, soothing treat.  The bath was given because this mother saw a cry of hurt and brokenness, a loving response, not a law.  

Laws make response easier because a law is something of a formula.  This transgression equals this punishment.  This situation equals this treatment.  Stressed out person?  Have a bath.  Angry person?  Have a bath with lavender.  You were disrespectful?  Go to your room for 30 minutes and think about how to behave better.  Well, for some, that would be a great cool down period.  For others that would be a great building a strong resentment period.  

The formulas of the law can be helpful guides, jumping off points for how to handle difficult situations, but laws are not written or meant to apply to every situation perfectly.  What is going on within each other that we hurt one another, that we break our various laws?  That’s the question that the law often doesn’t ask.  Our laws say, “You did this, and so your punishment is this.”  

Further, we sometimes follow the strictures of the law because we just don’t know what the hell else to do.  As parents, as friends, as teachers, as employers or employees, as police, as lawyers, or even as lawmakers, we often don’t know what the hell to do, as a loving response, when people are behaving terribly and harmfully.  We don’t know how to respond in a loving way, so we do the best we can figure with the laws that we have.

There is an organization nationally and here in Houston call ReVision which works with youths who are in or recently out of the juvenile justice system.  These are kids who have broken laws and so they have gone to juvenile detention centers, been put on probation and the result is that these kids often end up remaining in the criminal justice system through adulthood.  The criminal justice system itself, try though it might, can’t do the work of loving response, and so these kids’ value and possibility as beloved children of God are lost to the law.  

So, ReVision works with these kids with paid staff and with unpaid ministers and volunteers to mentor these kids, to love these kids, to help guide these kids into their value and possibility as the beloved children of God that they are.  That is a loving response.  That is the law of love.

The law of love or a loving response says, “What cry of hurt or brokenness am I hearing within you that you did this harmful thing?  What response might actually bring healing to you and maybe even to me?”  “’You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind.’ This is the greatest and first commandment,” Jesus said, “And a second is like it: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’

The Most Powerful Force In the World

Brad Sullivan

Proper 25, Year A

October 29, 2017

Emmanuel, Houston

1 Thessalonians 2:1-8

Matthew 22:34-46

The Most Powerful Force In the World

Becca Stevens is an Episcopal priest and the founder and president of Thistle Farms which she stared 20 years ago with five women who needed healing, survivors of abuse, trafficking, and prostitution.  She started with five women in a house called Magdalene, and there these five women found the healing power of love as they lived together, cared for each other, and loved their way back to wholeness.  After four years, Becca and the women of Magdalene House realized they also needed women to become economically independent to fully get their lives back, and so they stared making candles, oils, and other healing products.  Thistle Farms began, and the women who were survivors of the worst that humanity has to offer began operating this business, Thistle Farms, learning about running a business, while being healed themselves, and while generating revenue so that more women survivors could come and live in one of the houses for the two year program and also be healed. 

In the twenty years that Thistle Farms has been healing women and sustaining itself through the healing products they make and sell, Becca Stevens has found that “Love is the most powerful force for change in the world.”

That sounds a bit like what Jesus taught, doesn’t it.  Love God, and love people.  That is the only religion Jesus is really interested in us having.  When Jesus said the greatest commandment is to love God and the close second is to love people, he was talking to the uber religious Pharisees.  They were like the extreme high church people of our day.  If there was a law, a rule, a rubric about their religious practice, they followed it absolutely to the t.  There was nothing particularly wrong about that except for what was in their hearts and the reasons why they were following the law absolutely to the t. 

See they were following all of their religious practice rules because they thought doing so made them righteous in God’s eyes.  They really wanted God to be pleased with them and they wanted to look good before God and others.  In other words, their extreme religious observance was mostly selfish and done with a misunderstanding of who God is and what God desires for us.  For a timely example, they’d basically turned God into Jobu. 

For those of you unfamiliar with Jobu, he was a small voodoo idol statue guy who made his cinematic debut in film Major League.  In the movie, the Cleveland Indians baseball team were dead last in Major League Baseball and they had a rather rag tag group of players, plenty of talent, but a little rough around the edges.  Pedro Cerano was their big heavy hitter and could hit a home run off of a fastball just about every time, but he couldn’t hit a curve ball.  So, he kept this little statue named Jobu in his locker, and he prayed to Jobu to help him hit the curve ball.  Not only that, he tried to please Jobu by leaving him offerings of cigars and rum, and as he told his teammates, “It’s very bad to drink Jobu’s rum; it’s very bad.”  Of course Jobu didn’t actually help him hit the curveball and in the end, he decided he would just hit the curveball himself.

The Pharisees had turned God into Jobu.  “Yea for us,” they thought, “We’re offering to God all of our proverbial cigars and rum; we’re following every religious practice, every single one, so that God will be pleased with us.”  They were even instructing others and even scaring them into trying to do the same so that God would not be angry with them.  In other words, “it’s very bad to drink Jobu’s rum.”  The Pharisees had forgotten that the point of the law, the point of all of their religious practices was not to please God, but rather to help heal their own hearts so that they might be better able to love others.

God doesn’t care about our religious practices.  As much as the law of Moses said that people had to sacrifice animals to atone for their sins, the prophets said over and over again, “Would you stop with that animal sacrifice stuff?  God doesn’t want it.  God doesn’t care.  He just wants you to treat each other well, to take care of each other, and to live lives of love.”  That’s like the new ultra-revised standard international version, but that was the message.  “I don’t care about this stuff.  I don’t care about these religious practices.  Just love each other.”

Love God, and love people.  If at any time, obeying a rule of the law forces you to act in a way that is not loving toward God or people, then break the law.  If at any time heeding the words of the prophets forces you to act in a way that is not loving toward God or people, then do not heed the words of the prophets.

So, if God really isn’t all that into religion, why do we have religion?  Why do we have these rituals and routines and ways of life?  Well, again I’ll turn to Becca Stevens with Thistle Farms.  The point of the ritual and the religion is to help us love God and love people.  In her book, Love Heals, Becca writes about the healing power of ritual.  She writes about her morning ritual including prayer which took years to work out what truly helped heal her heart each day.  She wrote that keeping this morning ritual got her ready for the day and helped heal her heart each day so that she could be more loving toward her family and everyone else she saw during the day.  She wrote that “[Keeping these rituals] might mean dinners are simpler, clothes don’t get folded as often, and you miss out on other activities, but for folks like me who can spin out and lose focus, morning rituals are grounding and essential.”  “We need some good old-time religious practices,” she wrote, “to infuse our lives so we can use the most powerful force - love - to heal our communities.”

Personally, I’ve found healing in old time religious practices, particularly in the last month or so by praying morning prayer each morning.  For years, my practice was to pray morning prayer by myself with a cup of coffee, and before having kids, this daily practice worked out pretty well, and there were a couple of years that I found healing every morning through these prayers.  Enter children, and I just couldn’t do it for a while. Still, that was my practice, morning prayer every morning, and I rarely followed that practice. 

Then there was Harvey and praying Compline each night via Facebook life, and those prayers and rituals and the community praying together.  One of our vestry members asked if we could do Morning Prayer as well, so the next morning I began praying Morning Prayer Monday through Saturday at about 6:00 each morning and inviting others to join via Facebook Live.  There has been a change in my life with this newly rediscovered ritual, especially because I’m getting to pray with others, even if they aren’t present at the time and they join in by watching later.  If that particular routine isn’t going to work for you, and it’s not going to be healing for everyone, then find another routine, some other old-time religious practice that does heal your heart.  Time to breathe, time to center in prayer, letting all that is pass by and simply be in the moment.  Look at the beauty of the earth, the trees, the sky, the beauty of the people around, giving thanks, feeling our connectedness, noticing the daily gift of the sunrise and sunset.  Breathe, be still, light a candle to cast out the darkness, pray through scripture and the words of Jesus.  Join with others in prayer.

Having routine and practices, religious rituals is a wonderful, healing way to live, not because God cares one whit if we pray morning prayer, but because these rituals help to heal our hearts, to reconnect us to the source of all life and love, the God who created all that is.  Then, with our hearts healed, we can live out that love toward others.  God cares about our healing and our love for one another quite a lot.  That’s why God would be pleased with our religious practices, that these rituals may heal us so that we will be better able to love.  

If we don’t follow religious practices, God’s not offended.  God is not Jobu upset that we didn’t offer him rum.  Rather, God offers us religious practices and rituals because God knows we’ll find healing by connecting to him each day, because God is love, and “love is the most powerful force for [healing and] change in the world.”

Come On, Jesus! You’re Supposed to Be the Prince of Peace!

Brad Sullivan

Proper 7, Year A

June 25, 2017

Emmanuel, Houston

Genesis 21:8-21

Romans 6:1b-11

Matthew 10:24-39

Come On, Jesus!  You’re Supposed to Be the Prince of Peace!

Several times last week, someone would ask me what the Gospel reading is for this Sunday, and every time I told them, their reaction was, “Oh, yuck, I hate that passage.”  Honestly, that was my reaction too.  “I have come to set a man against his father, and a daughter against her mother,

and a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law.”  Come on, Jesus, you’re supposed to be the Prince of Peace, not the Prince of Jerry Springer.

I could say that Jesus’ talking about family members being against each other harkens back to Micah 7:6 - “For the son treats the father with contempt, the daughter rises up against her mother, the daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law.”  Obviously that passage was in Jesus’ mind, but the context was that things had gotten so bad in Israel, that Micah was describing how things were, families were against each other, and children were treating their parents with contempt.  It would be a little disingenuous, therefore, to say, Jesus was just trying to remind people of scripture.  He didn’t say children were treating their parents badly.  He was saying that because of him, because of people believing in him and following his teachings, parents and children were going to turn against each other.  Those who didn’t follow him were going to turn against those who did.

This really isn’t all that surprising to those who have read the Gospel.  Jesus was a polarizing figure.  On the one hand he healed people and was a champion of the outcast and downtrodden.  He had a lot of wonderful teachings which we love to hear like “Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the Kingdom of Heaven.”  On the other hand, Jesus wasn’t just the easy listening station.  There was a lot of metal in him too, a good bit of raging against the machine of religious moral superiority coupled with economic and social injustice. 

Jesus did not mince words when denouncing religious leaders who demanded  religious perfection from others and yet did not care for the vulnerable and needy.  “Woe to you, Scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites, for you devour widow’s houses and for the sake of appearances, say long prayers.”  (Matthew 23:14)   Woe to you, Scribes and Pharisees, because y’all are supposed to be using the money given to you by faithful Jews to help the vulnerable.  You’re supposed to be helping widows and helping others who have a hard time getting by.  Instead, you’re demanding that they do their religious duty and pay up in order to beautify the Temple.  Do you really think God will be pleased with a pretty building when his people are suffering? 

If you really want to please God, Jesus taught, then love God and love people.  Love people.  Care for them.  Help them mightily in their hours of need.  Take up your cross daily, and follow me.  Sacrifice your own safety and security in order to help people who are vulnerable, needy, down and out, rejected, and downtrodden.  Love God and love people…and don’t even pretend that you love God if you don’t love people.  There’s no way we can love God through our religion, if we don’t love people through our daily lives and actions. 

Folks like the Scribes and Pharisees, who dotted the “I”s and crossed the “T”s of their religious duties, didn’t like hearing that they actually had to care about people.  They didn’t like hearing that they would actually have to sacrifice some of their own comfort and security in order to help those less fortunate and (according to their theology) less deserving people.  “I have what I have because I’m a good, God-fearing person, and I earned it,” they thought.  “Those others would be better off than they are if they feared God like I do and worked harder.” 

That was pretty well what folks thought of the poor and the down and out back then, and Jesus was having none of it.  “No guys, the kingdom of God belongs to them too, and the kingdom of God is actualized in this world when you who have enough and more than enough, do all in your power to make sure that those who don’t have enough are cared for as well.”  Folks didn’t like hearing that.  In fact, folks killed Jesus for saying things like that.

Jesus was a polarizing figure.  Folks who really engaged with Jesus either loved him or were pretty turned off and scandalized by him.  He claimed to be God.  He claimed to be the way and the truth and the life.  He upset people’s comfortable focus on themselves, and forced them to take a hard look at others and their needs, and he taught folks to take a hard look at their own lives and see how their lives might be harming others.  Truly taking Jesus seriously today, he is still a polarizing figure.  You can love him, you can be pretty turned off by him, or you can assume he really didn’t mean or say much of what he said. 

When we do take seriously living as he taught, believing in Jesus as the way, the truth, and the life, then some people are going to turn against us.  Heck, even grace is going to turn people against us.  Grace is great for those whom we feel deserve it, but what about when we follow in Jesus’ way and offer grace for those who don’t really deserve it?  That’s going to anger some people, and Jesus would have us do so anyway, rather than take the easy road and get on the bandwagon of self-righteousness and condemnation. 

“Take up your cross daily,” Jesus said, “and follow me.”  Let parts of you die, daily, in order to offer grace to others.  Let some of your needs die in order to help provide for the needs of others.  Be willing to accept the deaths of relationships that will come when people turn against you for truly taking Jesus seriously. 

A friend and colleague of Kristin’s was at a fundraiser and raffle to support a girls’ softball team in his community.  One of the raffle items was an AR-15, and this man really doesn’t like guns.  So, he spent thousands of dollars on raffle tickets, won the rifle, and had a friend help him turn it into gardening tools.  Swords into plowshares.  He took an instrument of death, and turned it into instruments of life, and he has received death threats for having done so.  He’s lost friends, received thousands of hateful messages, and he’d do it again, seeking life, rather than the possibility of death.

Jesus’ teaching that he has come to set family members against each other is still not my favorite passage to hear.  It’s not exactly the feel good film of the summer.  The reality of suffering ridicule, of straining and even losing relationships over taking Jesus seriously is, however, the way of Jesus.  What Jesus taught in our Gospel passage today is the way of him who is the truth and the life.  Do we dare take Jesus seriously?  Imagine the world if we do.  Imagine the changes in the world when we and other Christians acknowledge and share our faith in Jesus not through religious moral superiority while ignoring the problems of others, but rather through living and sharing our faith in Jesus by daily sacrificing greatly for the sake of others. That’s life following the way of Jesus, life in the Jesus movement. 

Thinking only about myself, hearing today’s passage leaves me not wanting to hear Jesus’ words.  Thinking about others, however, I want to hear more of today’s passage.  Thinking about others, I find hope and joy in today’s passage.  We get to be part of the Jesus movement in which we sacrifice some of our own safety and security for the sake of others, to provide safety and security to those who don’t have enough.  We get to accept grace for all those times when we don’t follow Jesus all that well, and we get to offer grace to those who don’t deserve it.  We get to offer grace even to those who would turn against us for taking Jesus seriously and following him as the way, the truth, and the life.  We get to be part of the Jesus movement, knowing that there will be consequences, and choosing for the love of others, to follow Jesus.