What
about hating our mothers and fathers, sisters and brothers, husbands and wives
and children?
And
even our own life?
Where
does that fit in the structure of Christian love?
The
Hebrew word for “hatred,” has no clear English equivalent.
The
word “hate” does not necessarily mean disdain or reject.
It
has more to do with an “order or priority.”
Nothing
can take priority over commitment to God.
Jesus
puts it all in bold type.
He
lists, first, what is most precious to people--parents, spouses, children, life
itself.
Can
they be barriers to following Christ?
He
answers yes.
Most
of us have known people who had to reject family in order to pursue a vocation.
Imagine
what families went through when young men or women, in the old days of strict
cloister, entered religious life knowing that they would never see their loved
ones again.
What
about those who served in leper colonies and could never leave?
In
the 19th century immigrations to the United States, children left their native
lands, like Ireland, Germany, or Poland, knowing they would never see their
parents or siblings again.
The
gospel passage is all about commitment.
And
all commitment involves some kind of cross.
Parents
who are deeply committed to their children make sacrifices every day,
especially those who are poor.
The
single mother works two jobs to support her children.
She
gives up social relationships for lack of time and money.
She
carries her cross every day.
As
someone once said, “Commitment doesn’t sit it out or sit it through.”
Even
among young Americans in college, going to church might mean standing up to
ridicule.
I
have a lawyer friend who was talking, in her law office, about a sermon she had
heard the previous Sunday.
Everyone
around her reacted as if she had dropped out of some weird planet and said,
with disdainful, repulsed looks on their faces, “You go to church?”
When
12th-century King Henry II appointed his roguish and playboy friend, Thomas à
Becket, as Archbishop of Canterbury because he felt that such an appointment
would guarantee his control over the church, Becket prayed in his chapel “Oh,
God, I am yours now. Give me the grace to stay that way.”
He
was later murdered by the king’s henchmen.
“Oh,
God, I am yours now. Give me the grace to stay that way.”
All
of us belong totally to God.
But
it’s difficult to live like we do.
So
that’s not a bad prayer for anyone whose eyes are fixed on Jesus.
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