On top of that, this message was delivered twice - to people in two different facilities for older people. The Stewart Health Center at Springmoor Retirement Village hosted me on Sunday, September 8 and the kind people at Atria Southpoint Walk welcomed me on Tuesday, September 10. There are a lot of things I could have said differently, and many other directions this message could have gone. But here is the text from which I spoke.
The texts for this week are:
Deuteronomy 30:15-20
Psalm 1
Philemon 1-21
Luke 14:25-33
I have an odd request today… will you take a moment and think about a time that you hated someone?
You don’t have to say it out loud and I promise I won’t ask who! But can you remember that moment? What was it like? Did it surprise you? Or upset you?
Or was it just a little big satisfying in the way that anger and revenge can be? That way where it feels good right in the moment, but then later you feel kind of bitter and dirty and you wished you did not feel that way?
I have a youngish friend who is struggling to get along with her brother. She gets so angry, and says things like “Why do I even bother? I’m not even going to TRY to have a relationship with him anymore!” Then she will fume and fuss and talk about how terrible her brother is.
As I listen to her I think of time when I confessed, in a great deal of pain and anguish, that I once hated someone with that fire and passion and pain and anguish. It was a relief when the friend who was listening to me at that time reassured me that sometimes hate is not the opposite of love.
She said that hating someone did not preclude loving them. In fact, the fury and rage that I (and also that my youngish friend) felt arose BECAUSE of love! If we had been indifferent to those we said we hate, if we did not care at all, if we did not love them so much, we would never have wanted to bother spending all the energy it took to feel those moments of hatred.
Because hate, you see, is often not the opposite of love. In those situations – situations of close personal relationship - the hater cares a LOT. In those situations, indifference is the opposite of love.
That connection between love and hate seems really important as we hear this text today. Jesus, whose very being was grace, and peace, and goodness, and kindness, and LOVE is telling great crowds of followers to hate their families and themselves.
Now, that is a little upsetting to read on the face of it, isn’t it? Hate seems like such an un-Jesus thing! Especially the rage and frustration and distance that hate often brings (even if it is based on love in some way.)
Beyond that, Jesus doesn’t say “hate the guy who cuts you off on the highway” or “hate the person who bullied you in the schoolyard.” Jesus says to hate your
* Father
* Mother
* Wife
* Children
* Brothers
* Sisters
* AND YOUR OWN LIFE!
And indeed, Jesus said the hatred is NECESSARY to be a disciple of Jesus! Along with giving up all of your possessions. Wow. That’s really a lot.
This past week I got to spend time with my father in Dallas. He’s 88 and doesn’t move too fast. When he does move he gets tired quickly, and he spends almost as much time napping as he spends doing other things. My heart breaks when I think of the day I will no longer be able to see him. The love I feel for him is a part of my very being. There has never been a time in my life that I did not know and love my Daddy.
But here I am, being a pastor, a professional Jesus-follower. Does that mean I have to HATE my Daddy? I can’t even manage to be irritated with him, much less hate him! SURELY I don’t have to be mad at this man who has been my greatest supporter, my most consistent and long-term advisor, the one who taught me how to be the person I am today?
And WHAT ABOUT that Commandment that we love our parents? What about that? What are we to do with this contradiction? Do I hate Daddy or love and honor him?
Well, first we can return to the reassurance that my friend offered: hating does not have to preclude loving, not if it happens in the context of relationship. We aren’t talking about the blind hate for people we have never met that dominates our political situation today. This hatred that Jesus talks about is towards the people we also love the most – our families. Ourselves. Even our things.
OF COURSE Jesus wants us to love our parent and spouses, children and siblings. OF COURSE we are to love ourselves! Of course we are to be good stewards of money and property!
But if this hating business is not NOT-LOVING then what is it? If indifference is the opposite of love, then what is the opposite of hate?
Because if we can figure that out then maybe we can figure out what hating IS by knowing what it is NOT.
* We know it has something to do with our closest, longest-lasting, family relationships.
* We know it has something to do with how we perceive ourselves.
* We know that it is something required to FOLLOW Jesus.
We also know from just about everything else in Scripture that we are to care for those around us – BUT NOT MORE THAN GOD.
In fact, we care best for others when we put God first.
We make the best choices in all of our relationships when our relationship with God comes first.
We learn who we are when we see ourselves in relation to God, and in seeing ourselves honestly we can let go of our own self-importance and see those around us as important enough to offer compassion and love.
But when we put our families before God and God’s calling on our lives, we lose that perspective.
When we see ourselves in the context of family (or self, or stuff) first, we miss out on the truth of God.
In families we fit into hierarchies but in putting God first, that hierarchy is flattened into just two levels:
1. God
2. The rest of us.
Earlier in this chapter in Luke we read stories that have the common theme of God coming first:
Jesus heals on the Sabbath, despite the religious hierarchy’s consternation about it.
Jesus tells a story and admonishes the crowds to sit in the lower spot to avoid the humiliation of being asked to leave a better seat.
Story after story in which human rules and hierarchies are called into question and God’s infinite love is spread freely, generously, and openly.
Not just to the insiders, but to anybody who happens to be around. Even those outside the hierarchy.
And that, I believe, is what Jesus means when he tells us that following him means hating our families:
It is a hatred that is relative.
It is a hatred that leaves out human hierarchies and increases love in the way that God leads us.
“Hatred” of the sort illustrated by Jesus when, instead of putting his mother first by coming down from the cross to care for her, Jesus enlisted his friend John to take Mary in. In “hating” his mother, Jesus did a very loving thing and made sure she would have a place to live, a family to care for her.
And in staying on the cross to die – and then be Resurrected! – Jesus fulfilled his divine destiny and loved God (and himself – also God) the most. In that Resurrection everyone, including Jesus’ mother, could then live a fully redeemed life.
So here I stand, once again bringing you the very best news of all:
CHRIST IS RISEN!
JESUS LIVES!
And a God who would love with such a perfect love is worth following. In turning to Jesus, loving with the freedom and graciousness that Jesus has made possible, we can love our parents and children, spouses and siblings, and even ourselves.
So today, and in all the days to come, love God so much that you can love your family in ways far better than you could by putting them in a position above God.
Follow God as if the kingdom is here and now.
Because if following Jesus means leaving our families so that God can hold and care for them, then God’s kind of hate is the best love of all.
AMEN.
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