HAVING TO "HATE" OUR FAMILY?
Whoever doesn't hate father, mother, spouse, children, sister, brother, cannot be my disciple. (Luke 14:26) Is our Lord saying we must hate our families in order to follow Him? That's a question we almost can't bear to ask ourselves. Surely the Gospel writer must have gotten it wrong! Right?
But if that's so, then so did Matthew. There Jesus says, "Whoever loves father or mother more than Me is not worthy of Me; and whoever loves son or daughter more than Me is not worthy of Me." (Matthew 10:37) And again Matthew says, "Do not thank that I have come to bring peace to the earth; but a sword ... And one's enemies will be members of one's own household." (Matthew 10:35-36)
There's no way around it! Jesus said these terrible words. We would like, instead, to hear words of comfort from our Savior. But we also need to hear His uncomfortable words.
There are lots of things that divide our families. Disagreements about money and various lifestyles break people apart. There isn't anyone who doesn't have some dispute like that lurking in their family somewhere. There's so much that divides families -- who needs Jesus adding to the pain?
And this is certainly painful stuff! Family hurt is about as painful as it gets. No one know how to hurt each other the way that family members do. Emotion and pain run deep in our families. Acknowledging that is the place to begin to understand these strange words from our Lord.
Rejection, hurt, dispute, trouble in the family touches anyone of us at such a level it becomes all consuming. Family is such a major thing in our life experience that it becomes enmeshed in the way we see ourselves -- the ways we see life. It's the way reality is for us.
This is something we all know: rejection and desertion by a parent can mark us for life. Intense jealousies between siblings can put a bad mark on a person so that every relationship turns to hate. And the hate produced has a fierceness found nowhere else. Jesus says there's another way, but we can't or won't hear Him. We don't believe that lives have a way out of such family situations.
So, what do we do? Well, Jesus says that we need to get real! That's the point of the heavy hate language. Jesus uses the device of exaggeration to make us hear Him. He says, "If you don't hate your brother, your sister, your children, your grandchildren, then you can't be My disciple." It's not that we're being required to cultivate hate towards our loved ones. No! We're being told that in the light of following Jesus everything else is less important.
This is the good news - the gospel! Nothing, and no one, can compete with the demands of following Jesus. That means what defines us first and foremost is our relationship to Jesus -- NOT our relationships with our family members. Our sister, our brother, our spouse, our children, our grandchildren -- all these relationships are of a second order. Whatever problems, troubles, torments that stem from family relationships are not all, and end all, of who we are as persons.
Jesus knows about the power of families in our lives. He grew up in a good Jewish family and experienced all the family relationships for Himself. He knows well how easy it is to get so consumed by our family experience that we forget who we are apart from those family experiences.
Yes! I am a son, a grandson, a nephew, a husband, a stepfather, an uncle and grandfather. All of those roles have deeply shaped who I am. But I am not defined by those roles. I am first of all a child of God! That's my primary identity. All other identities grow out of that one relationship with my heavenly Father - a child of God. True peace and absolute security are found in that identity: a child of God.
When I know that with my head and my heart, then all that life brings me - bad as well as good - is put in a different place. No longer do other things determine who I am, or what I may do, or how I feel about living. All of that is less important in the light of God, who loves me unconditionally, absolutely, and forever. NOTHING can take that away from me. That is who I am! God's faithfulness to me changes everything.
When we know Whose we are, then we can have confidence in who we are. Whatever our human relationships, we belong to God first and foremost. That's who we are!
You're blessed when you are content with just who you are -- no more, no less. That's the moment you find yourselves glad owners of everything that can be bought. (Matthew 5:5, MSG)
