Luke 14:25-33
In the gospel today Jesus says some pretty harsh things about the process of being a disciple. When you look at commentaries on this passage, most tell us that the word “hate” doesn’t really mean that; it only means that we should love our relatives and even our own life less than we love Jesus. But the word Jesus uses is really “hate”. And at the end of this passage, Jesus tells us we have to renounce all our possessions if we want to become his disciple.
When I talk with people my age or a little younger, the conversation often gets around to the amazing amount of stuff we have. As we approach that moment when our lives on earth will be over, we find ourselves secretly hoping that our spouse will survive us so that we won’t have to be the one to get rid of all our stuff. I know my children don’t want most of my stuff, because they are busy accumulating their own stuff. Not long ago I bought a second electric screwdriver so that I wouldn't have to get the one in the basement when I had a project in the garage. I think that will be the last time I add something to my stuff.
So I love my family and my friends, don’t hate them. Do I love Jesus more than I love them? How do I know? It's hard putting a value on my love. If I had to choose between two of my children, it would be hard, but even there the choice would not reflect on how much I loved one versus the other. And I’ve got lots of stuff. So maybe I am a long way from being a disciple of Jesus. And maybe you are as well.
We think of great saints who got rid of all their stuff, like Saint Francis took off his clothing and gave it all back to his father cutting all ties with stuff. And we think of aint Thomas More, who in his last letter to his daughter, explained why he could not sign the loyalty oath and thus spare his life, because to him his loyalty to Christ came before his loyalty to the king or to his own family. Could you or I do either of these things? I hope I’m never challenged, because a lot of Catholics, including clergy, signed the loyalty oath and thus spared their lives. So when we read this passage it troubles us, and we look forward to next week’s gospel when we are told how “God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him shall not perish, but have eternal life.” That’s a lot easier.
But the contrast between these gospels shows how we shouldn’t take passages out of context.
Take love, for example. Saint Paul commands “Husbands, love your wives, as Christ loved his Church and gave himself up for her”. Or Jesus' own words “Love one another as I have loved you”. Think about possessions. John tells us “ But whoever has the world’s goods, and sees his brother in need and closes his heart against him, how does the love of God abide in him?” And in the Old Testament, a sign that God really loved someone, like Abraham, was that they had a lot of the world’s goods. So is there a contradiction here?
As I was meditating on this gospel passage, I recalled Saint Augustine’s words:” In my unloveliness I plunged into the lovely things which you created. You were with me, but I was not with you. Created things kept me from you; yet if they had not been in you they would have not been at all” And in another place, " .Thou hast made us for thyself, O Lord, and our heart is restless until it finds its rest in thee”.
We human beings are programmed to accumulate “stuff”. We are programmed to love ourselves, our spouses, our children -- the members of our tribe. But in the process of becoming saints, we have to move from that basic position to one in which God only matters to us. Some of us can take the bold step of rejecting the world, rejecting possessions and people, like Saint Francis. Others, probably most of us, have to go through the good things, the good relationships we find in the world, and see them for what they really are -- the lovely things God has created for us to enjoy, sure but more important for us to find him in the middle of them.
Because in the end, and I’m drawing closer every day, I will have to let go of the good things and the good people to whom I am attached, and will I be able to let go and take up my cross and come after Jesus?
I am fortunate in that I get to make that last journey with many people. As a cancer physician and as a deacon I’ve accompanied people who were forced by nature, by circumstance, to give up everything and everyone. A few seem to have made the transition well, and others, less so. But we all will be called to make it. So look for God in your relationships, look for God in the good things he’s given you -- because he’s there, and when you find him it won’t be difficult to give everything up for him when you have to.
