PASSAGE FOR THE DAY:
Luke 14 (click the link)
KEY VERSES:
25 Large crowds were traveling with Jesus, and turning to them he said: 26 “If anyone comes to me and does not hate father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters—yes, even their own life—such a person cannot be my disciple. 27 And whoever does not carry their cross and follow me cannot be my disciple.
28 “Suppose one of you wants to build a tower. Won’t you first sit down and estimate the cost to see if you have enough money to complete it? 29 For if you lay the foundation and are not able to finish it, everyone who sees it will ridicule you, 30 saying, ‘This person began to build and wasn’t able to finish.’
31 “Or suppose a king is about to go to war against another king. Won’t he first sit down and consider whether he is able with ten thousand men to oppose the one coming against him with twenty thousand? 32 If he is not able, he will send a delegation while the other is still a long way off and will ask for terms of peace. 33 In the same way, those of you who do not give up everything you have cannot be my disciples.” (Luke 14:25-33, NIV)
REFLECTIONS:
This is another one of those times when you want to put your hands over your ears as Jesus says some of the harshest things you've heard from him yet. Really, you think, if this was all he said, nobody would ever follow him! Hating your family, giving up your possessions, carrying your own instrument of torture and death—what on earth is he talking about?
Most Christians in today's world, and I suspect a good many of Jesus' own hearers, try to avoid or ignore this kind of stuff. As Greg has recently pointed out, we tend to go towards picking out a Bible within the Bible—we read and meditate on the things we like, while ignoring the things we don't like. Most likely, this would be one of those passages that we don't like.
But ignoring this kind of stuff would be a huge mistake!
Let's think about what Jesus was really up against.
He was announcing God's new way of running things. He was telling God's people that everything up to now had been preparation, but he was starting the real thing. And the hardest task for someone doing that is to persuade people to give up the preparatory stages they've become so comfortable with.
What were those preparatory stages? For Jesus' people, ancient Israel, there were two stages in particular: family and land. Israel was identified as Abraham's family, a single ethnic unit. (True, some people came in from outside, like Rahab and Ruth in the Old Testament; but they were still basically a people defined by family identity.) And they were also identified as the people who lived in a special land—that beautiful but highly contested small country in the Middle East. Again, by the time of Jesus more Jews lived away from the land than in it, but they all knew that was their real home. That was their ancestral possession, and woe betide anyone who compromised with it.
Family and possessions—the two things Jesus now says you have to give up. God's people are being redefined, and these identity markers won't matter anymore. Cling onto them, and you'll be like people keeping the curtains closed when the sun has risen. That was night-time; this is daytime.
Jesus' challenge, then, comes to all of us at the point where we are tempted to settle down and be comfortable with the way things are. "No," he says, "that would be like someone wanting to build a tower, or fight a battle, without thinking out what's involved." You need to think through, to pray through, what it's going to mean to be a follower, a learner, a disciple, an apprentice of Jesus. You don't want to be left high and dry when God's kingdom goes forward and you turn out to have settled for something less.
POINT OF PONDER:
Ignatius of Loyola, the founder of the Jesuit order, used to pray this prayer:
Lord, teach me to be generous,
Teach me to serve you as you deserve:
To give and not to count the cost,
To fight and not to heed the wounds,
To toil and not to seek for rest,
To labor and to ask for no reward,
Save that of knowing that I do your will.
Do you find that an easy prayer to pray?
Talk to God about how that prayer makes you feel and what it
makes you think.
WHO AM I?
I am Tres Sansom, and I have to admit that this is probably one
of the most difficult of all Jesus' teachings for me. Particularly, the part
about "hating" one's family. Family is extremely important to me. One
of the ways I express my love and worship of God is by loving and serving and
fellowshipping with my family. On one hand, it seems incredibly harsh and even
un-Christ-like to "hate" anyone, particularly the people I love the
most. But, if I truly consider Jesus to be not only the wisest man who ever
lived, but also Anointed One of God who lived and taught and died and rose
again so that I might have abundant life, then I must not only listen to his
words but let them guide and influence my thinking and priorities and life. Now,
surely, Jesus doesn't want me to hate anyone. Instead, what he means is that my
love for him must be so great and all-encompassing—such a driving-force of my life—that,
by comparison, my affection for my family looks like "hate." Much of
this discussion comes down to priorities. I have to ask myself: What are my priorities? If I'm honest, I
have to say that many times my family takes precedence over Jesus. Sin has such
a strong hold on me that I have a natural tendency to drift away from Jesus.
It's much easier and more comfortable to simply love my family. But, abundant
life is found not in loving one's family, but in loving and serving and
following the Author of Life. So, no matter how harsh they may sound, I am
thankful for these challenging words of Jesus. They "shock" me into
reflecting on my priorities, confessing my lazy and sinful tendencies, and
crying out for mercy to help me love my Savior with the passionate,
all-consuming love that he deserves. The following series of photos shows me with Kate and my
parents, my in-laws, my siblings, my wife and soon-to-be-adopted kids.
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