Unworthy

Scripture: Sixteenth Sunday after Pentecost (Lectionary 23), A.D. 2013 C

Sermon:

Grace, mercy and peace to you from God our Father and from our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.  AMEN.

Let this be perfectly clear: Jesus does not want us to hate our fathers and mothers. He does not want us to hate our wives and children, brothers and sisters, or even our possessions. Let’s get that out of the way right up front.

Today marks something of an unofficial holiday on the Church calendar: Rally Sunday, the kick-off of our congregation’s educational year. Sun-worshipping families return from long summers away, Sunday school and Confirmation enjoy a fresh new start, and Adult Education returns, all to deepen our continuing relationship with the Risen Christ in our midst. Our Israelite ancestors marked this time of year as Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish New Year, and our brothers and sisters in the Eastern Church celebrate a religious new year at the beginning of September to this very day. For most practical intents and purposes, Rally Sunday links us to this greater Judeo-Christian tradition.

But the heady optimism of a new year seems to stop short, doused with a cold dose of sobriety, when we turn to the Gospel texts appointed for today. “Whoever comes to Me and does not hate father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters, yes, even life itself, cannot be My disciple,” sayeth the Lord. “Whoever does not carry the cross and follow Me cannot be My disciple … So therefore, none of you can become My disciple if you do not give up all your possessions.” Well, nuts. So much for a happy return to regular worship! Guess we’ll see all you good folks back around Christmastime.

What is going on here, exactly? I mean, here we are, reading from the Gospel of St. Luke—Luke, who tends generally to present us with perhaps our nicest and gentlest portrayal of Jesus—and we’re hearing about hating family, renouncing possessions, and bearing the Cross of Christ. Uncomfortable stuff! Keep in mind that for as offensive as this sounds today, it would have been far more offensive to Jesus’ audience some 2,000 years ago. Family was not simply the basic unit of society; family was the entire society! Every person’s identity boiled down to family, clan, and tribe. Nations were defined almost exclusively by their eldest common ancestor. In a world where all bonds rested on filial loyalty, and all hope for the future upon offspring, despising one’s parents could be punishable by death.

To hate father and mother, wife and children, would be a license for perfidy and anarchy, not to mention a violation of God’s own Law—for the Fourth Commandment demands “Honor thy mother and father.” The Seventh Commandment, meanwhile, enshrines personal property as a divinely instated right, so heaven only knows how a good God-fearing man could outright hate all worldly possessions. Even monastics have to eat. This, then, would seem an instance in which a literal interpretation would be unwise.

Keep in mind, when we read this, just Who it is to Whom we’re listening. This is Jesus: Immanuel, God-With-Us, God in the flesh, come to suffer alongside us and die for our sake. He is Love given form. He has no track with hatred. When Jesus here speaks of “hate,” He is using an idiom, a rhetorical device. We know very well that Jesus likes to use hyperbole when making a point. Certainly He does not intend for His disciple to hate mother, wife, and children. No one has ever loved his mother more than Jesus loved His own! No one has ever loved his wife more than Jesus loves His bride, the Church! And no one has ever loved his son or daughter as much as Jesus loves our little ones, whom He publically blessed and held in His arms and to whom He promised the Kingdom of Heaven.

To “hate” here simply means that we cannot, as disciples of Jesus, love anyone, let alone anything, more than we love our Lord. We must love Jesus more than husband loves wife or wife her husband; more even than father and mother love their children. Jesus offers all that He is in exchange for all that we are. His is a complete claim, body and soul. If we fear, love, and trust God above all, then we are liberated to love and trust more freely than ever—and to fear nothing in the world, for if God is for us, who can be against us? Jesus is God become flesh.

At first this all-encompassing claim might seem painful, even cruel. How can we take away love from our families, from our children, and instead offer it up to God? But of course, that’s not how it works at all. Love has never been a zero sum game. If we love God more than our spouses, we find that we are freed to love our spouses more deeply than before. If we place the will of God above our children’s wills, we find our children growing happier, stronger, and more loving than ever.

People have tried to express this paradox in many ways over the centuries. “I could not love thee, dear, so much, loved I not honor more.” Or, put another way, “Aim for heaven and you’ll get earth thrown in; aim for earth and you’ll get neither.” But Jesus really did say it best: “Seek ye first the Kingdom of God, and all these shall be added unto you.” Christ came that we might have life and have it abundantly. And when Christ is the center of your life, life indeed becomes abundant.

The other thing to keep in mind is Jesus’ own context when He says these things. He is on His way to Jerusalem—on His way to the Cross and Crucifixion. This seems lost on the jubilant crowds who follow Him on His way. They expect glory and honor, not sacrifice and suffering. “Don’t you see what this will cost you?” Jesus asks of them. “Becoming My disciple means that everything else must fall second. It means that concerns of livelihood and possessions, even concerns for your family, will be put on the line. Can you bear the Cross that I bear? Can you drink the cup that has been given unto Me to drink? Because if you can’t, you’d best be on your way, for all that awaits us in Jerusalem is blood and tears and death.”

Yes, Jesus is surrounded by crowds almost everywhere He goes. Yet by the time we get to Golgotha, He pierced hangs alone. One almost wonders if He didn’t chase those crowds away for their own good.

“Can you love Me more than family? Can you love Me more than what you own? Can you love Me more than life itself?” These questions spear the heart of every Christian, because we know that our answer is no. There have been spiritual giants, saints with a capital “S,” who, by grace of God and fortitude of will, may have answered an honest yes. “Yes, Lord, we love you more than anyone, anything, and even life itself!” Thank God for heroes such as these. But where does that leave the rest of us? Where does that leave the great mass of wretched sinners like you and me, for whom the spirit may be willing but the flesh is ever weak?

Take heart, O little sinner. Take heart, O child of God. Of course you cannot bear the Cross of Jesus Christ. Who can, but He alone? Throughout the Hebrew Bible, the prophets of ancient days raised their curious double call: “Hearken to the Lord!” they cried. “Obey His Laws, His Commandments, and you will flourish!” Yet at the same time they knew that we would not, we could not, obey God as He deserves to be obeyed, to love Him as He truly ought to be loved. The Law of God demands that we be perfect, and for God we should be perfect. But we aren’t, are we? We fail, we fall. We cry for mercy. And, thanks be to God, mercy is granted—grace is granted—from the Cross, from the Font, from the Bread of Life at the holy Table of our God.

We are not worthy to be disciples of Jesus Christ. We don’t deserve to be counted amongst His sheep. How terrible and yet how true! But there is an even greater truth, and that is this: deserve’s got nothing to do with it. We are saved by grace through faith. We do not love God with our whole heart. We do not love our neighbor as ourselves. And yet we are loved. We are forgiven. And we are called to a new life, a resurrected life, freed from bondage to possessions and worldly fears, freed to love without reluctance or restraint—freed to be better wives and husbands, better mothers and fathers, better neighbors, better citizens, better children of the Most High God! Alleluia!

We are the crowds who are traveling with Him. We are the sinners who do not truly understand. His words may seem unduly harsh, but only because they are true, and only because they are for our own good. Christ did not come for the healthy. Christ did not die for the saint. Christ came and died and rose again for you. Not because you loved Him more than anything else, but because He loves you more than all the world.

Thanks be to Christ, our Father, Husband, Brother, God. In Jesus’ Name. AMEN.