Here's the gospel passage I preached on this weekend, followed by video of my homily and then, the text of my homily.
"Great crowds were traveling with Jesus, and he turned and addressed them, “If any one 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. Whoever does not carry his own cross and come after me cannot be my disciple."Which of you wishing to construct a tower does not first sit down and calculate the cost to see if there is enough for its completion? Otherwise, after laying the foundation and finding himself unable to finish the work the onlookers should laugh at him and say, ‘This one began to build but did not have the resources to finish.’ Or what king marching into battle would not first sit down and decide whether with ten thousand troops he can successfully oppose another king advancing upon him with twenty thousand troops? But if not, while he is still far away, he will send a delegation to ask for peace terms. In the same way, everyone of you who does not renounce all his possessions cannot be my disciple." - Luke 14:25-33
Growing up in my family, “hate” was a four-letter word. Of course, it's a four-letter word in every household - but in the Fleming household, you simply did not use that word. We weren't even allowed to say, "I hate broccoli."
And here's Jesus saying that if I want to follow him, I have to hate my mother and father, my spouse, my children, my brothers, my sisters, my very self and everything my own - if I want to follow him.
Just as I learned as a child that hate is a strong word, Jesus is making a strong point here about the cost of discipleship - and its impact on our relationships, especially those closest to us.
What Jesus is teaching here is something for which the religious language of his time had no adequate vocabulary. Here, and many times in the Old Testament as well, the sense that wants to be conveyed is not so much hatred, but preference.
• What and whom do we prefer?
• What and whom do we put first?
• What and whom do we prioritize?
So in that sense, we might think of Jesus saying,
“If you want to follow me, you must prefer me to your mother and father. You must prefer me to your spouse and your children. You must prefer me to your brothers and sisters. You must prefer me to your very self and to anything you own or possess or desire.”
Rephrasing like that takes this sting out of the word "hate" - but substituting prefer may leave us feeling just as uncomfortable as did the H word.
What's Jesus trying to teach us here? It's all about discovering what is my heart's greatest treasure… Jesus is pretty clear about this: he desires, he instructs, he commands, that we treasure, that we prefer nothing - to him.
But what does that mean to prefer God to the people I love the most the very people for whom I'm responsible. Aren't we meant to find God through the people in our lives, and respecting through those who are entrusted to our care? Of course we are! But we need to be careful not to let those very people (or ourselves or our possessions) become our gods.
St. Augustine faced this same difficulty in his life. He left us these words about his struggle. He wrote:
"Late have I loved you, Lord,
O beauty, ever ancient, ever new, late have I loved you.
You were within me
but I was in the world outside myself.
I searched for you outside myself and indeed,
I fell upon the lovely things of your creation.
But the beautiful things of this world
kept me far from you.
And yet, if they had not been in you,
they would have had no being, no beauty at all.
You were with me, but I was not with you…
Do we understand what Augustine is telling us? He's saying:
The beautiful people and things in creation, Lord, your gifts to me, even though they never would have existed had you not made them - those same things distracted me, kept me from you, because I forgot that you gave them to me as pathways for finding you. All those gifts were the way to you. They were never ends in themselves. And forgetting that they were yours, Lord - I made them mine…
The temptation is to fail to recognize that the good things of life, the good things of the world, are gifts from God, meant to lead us beyond themselves, to God. When the goods of life become ends in themselves, they become - idols.
No, the Lord does not ask us to hate or get rid of family and friends, ourselves, our possessions - but rather that we prefer him to all of these, so that we can see in them God's gifts to us - and care for them as treasured pathways to God.
It's not unusual in our culture for many of us to give ourselves so entirely to those we love that we forget or lose sight of God in the process.
If I as a priest am so busy ministering to God's people that I make no time for prayer, for God - then I'm too busy.
If our families are busy, if as a parent think I'm too busy caring for my family that I have no time for God, not even time to get to church - then I'm too busy.
If I want to prefer God to all, then, like the tower builder in the Gospel story. I have to see what I need to let go of, who and what I must care for - and structure my life accordingly, so that I can build what God asks me to build in my life.
That's one reason why faithfulness to Sunday prayer and the Lord's table is so important. This time together to hear God's Word reminds us of what God asks of us, and the Sacrament we celebrate at this altar reminds us that God is at the source of everything.
And I'm aware that I'm preaching to people who are here. Praise God for your presence. But let's pray that you and I, I as priest, you as family folks, you as older folks, retired folks, single folks, widowed folks - pray that we prefer the love of the Lord to anything else in our life.
Even now, in the Eucharist we celebrate and receive, God prefers us to himself: in the bread, Jesus is broken again as he was in the cross. And in the cup, Jesus is poured out for us again, as was his blood on the cross.
May we who are nourished by so great a love - prefer nothing to the one who loves us.
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