Hard Words

23^rd Sunday in Ordinary Time

Cycle C

Hate is such a strong word.

It seems that sometimes Jesus puts a lot of hard requirements on discipleship. At first glance they seem unreasonable or even impossible to do. Today he uses some really tough language, almost issuing an ultimatum, on what it takes to be his disciple.

“If anyone comes to me without hating his father and mother,
wife and children, brothers and sisters,
and even his own life,
he cannot be my disciple”

What was your reaction when you heard Jesus say this this morning? Two people this week asked me what the readings were that I would be preaching on, and when I told them, both of them practically shouted out, “I don’t like that! I don’t agree with that! That’s not what a loving God would say!”

I think it’s the word Hate that is the problem. What is hatred? It took me a while to even wrap my mind around it, because I honestly cannot think of a single person I truly have hated in my life. When we hate someone we get this visceral feeling in our gut. The very thought or sight of that person makes our emotions rise. We say our blood boils, and we either want to remove ourselves from that person or even go so far as to hurt them. It causes us pain to even think of them or be in their presence.

Is that really the way we are supposed to feel about our mother and father, our family, those people closest to us? And what about hating our very selves? What about that commandment about loving our neighbor as ourselves? How can we do that if we hate ourselves?

Is this even possible for us poor humans? If you’re like me, for years, every time I would read or hear this passage and others like it, I sort of just dismissed them. “Oh, he’s just using hyperbole to make his point.” I would not really give it much thought. Of course he doesn’t mean I have to hate my family. That would be against the fourth commandment. How can I honor my father and mother and hate them at the same time? And he really doesn’t mean I have to sell everything and follow him. Does he? I mean, what if everybody did that? There would be no food or clothing or anything else produced and the economy and society would come to a screeching halt and we’d all freeze and starve. After a while there’d be nobody to buy what you sell or take what you give. And who would give to you? Absurd.

And doesn’t our loving God want good things for us? Why else would He give us His creation to use and the imagination and creativity to create such wonderful things to make people’s lives better. Why would God put us in the world if we aren’t supposed to use and enjoy it?

I think part of the problem is that in English we have only one word to describe hatred. We use the same word to say I hate a person as we do when we say we hate brussel sprouts. We have lots of synonyms for hate; we can loathe a vegetable or have distain or contempt for a person or a position, but those words are not as strong as hate. It’s the same as the word love. I love pizza and I love my spouse. The words we use do not describe the degree to which we love or hate, nor the context. We all use the words but don’t often stop and think what we really mean by them. And we throw them around so casually, don’t we?

There are some translations of this gospel passage that don’t use the word hatred but rather, “turn your back on your mother and father”. But I think the stronger word is probably correct, because it jolts us out of our complacency and focuses our attention better.

All strong emotions, especially love and hatred, tend to become the center of our thoughts and attention. They are two realities that go beyond being mere emotions. They can consume us, to the detriment of all other things. They can drive us to do extreme things, such as being overbearing or over protective, or resort to violence. Hatred is always destructive, but there are even some types of love that are not healthy, mainly because they are not truly love but a form of selfishness.

To hate something is to not be attached to it. All things of this world are temporary, even our earthly relationships. God is eternal, and we are created for eternity. We can only attain that by making God the center of our lives. Jesus was always urging his disciples to leave behind anything that would keep them from being fully engaged and involved with him. That is what a true disciple does. That is what the Kingdom of God is all about, recognizing the primacy of God in our very existence. Giving up control of our own will and subjecting our will to the will of the Father. Just like Jesus did.

Jesus wasn’t asking us to do anything he wasn’t willing to do himself. He had no attachments to worldly things. He said he had no place to lay his head, he relied totally on the hospitality of others, and he told his disciples to go out into the world not worrying about what to eat and drink, what to wear, or even to bring a second tunic or a pair of sandals on their journey.

Jesus wasn’t saying that these things are evil in and of themselves. He was saying the attachment to them can keep us from focusing on what, on who, is really important. Anything that could keep us from a single-minded focus on Jesus is to be avoided. And then there is our responsibility to others. How does our attachment and focus on selfish, worldly things, affect our duty to them as disciples?

Archbishop Wester said that his spiritual director once told him that if he has two of something, one of them belongs to the poor. And so he went into his closet and took an inventory. He had two sweaters and couldn’t remember when he last wore one, so it got donated. And how many pair of dress shoes does a bishop really need anyway? And then he started thinking about all the other ways he spent his money, the restaurants he went to, the car he drove, he house he lived in. Could he make different choices in his life that would allow him to spend his money more wisely for the benefit of others?

Does that mean that sweaters and shoes and houses and cars are bad? Of course not. But if our love of these things is based on vanity and selfishness, that is keeping us from God. Do any of your possessions consume your thoughts? Is there anything you think you absolutely cannot live without? Loving something to the extreme pushes love for other things out. It’s not about our possessions at all, it’s about the importance those possessions hold in our lives and in our thoughts, to the exclusion of what truly matters. Could you say that sometimes what you love causes you to hate something else? To love is to be inclusive, to hate is to exclude?

And I hate to say it, but there are some people in our lives who we love very much but who are keeping us from God. Are some of your relationships causing you to sin? Are some of your closest friends and relatives causing you to doubt your faith? Are they taking you down the wrong road? Are there some people who you do need to turn your back on and follow Jesus? Lots of hard words today. Lots of hard choices to make every day.

Jesus tells us once again today to pick up our cross and follow him.

In picking up his cross, Jesus gave up his own will and surrendered to the will of the Father. He in a sense hated his own life and left behind his mother and his family in order to live, and die, the way his Father wanted. We hear the phrase, “pick up your cross daily” and think that means we are to submit to the bad things that happen to us peacefully. We focus on the suffering of Jesus on the way of the cross and try to link our suffering to that of Jesus. We try to make sense out of and give value to our suffering by comparing it to Jesus’ suffering. But his way of the cross and ours is simply our own journey to God. We all have one. Jesus’ cross is more than just suffering. It is about submitting to the will of God.

It's really just a different take on the two greatest commandments. Love God and love your neighbor. Love God is first. If we love God first then we can really love our neighbor and ourselves. While love for non-God things is exclusionary, eventually pushing out God himself, loving God first allows us to love all the other important things better. Jesus isn’t saying to love God alone. He is saying to love God first, and if you do, loving all the other important things in your life will be easier and more real and fulfilling. Because God is love, and if we start there then all our loving relationships will be real and true and holy. It’s that “Seek first the Kingdom of God, and its holiness, and all other things will be given to you.” True love must have God at the center. All other love is born of that one true love and radiates out from it.

A paradox is that if, in this sense we hate our mother and father and family we will actually be loving them more, with a holy love that is an extension of God’s love for us. But Jesus is all about paradoxes, isn’t he? By dying he gave us everlasting life, by diminishing himself he was raised to highest glory, and by loving him with all our hearts, all our minds, and all our souls we will only then be able to fully love our neighbor as ourselves.