Proper 18, Year C | Luke 14:25-33
St. Andrew’s Episcopal Church
September 4, 2022
the Rev. Jonathan Hanneman
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Jesus has a habit of saying and doing some strange things—things we often prefer to soften or explain away. Many of us struggle with the implications when he says, “…the gate is narrow and the road is hard that leads to life, and there are few who find it.”[1] Loving our enemies is almost never our first choice, so we frequently find ourselves redefining what exactly he might mean by “love.” The concept of eating Jesus’ flesh and drinking his blood is unpalatable at best, so we’ve (rightly) turned to metaphorical or metaphysical applications of his command. However, today’s Gospel reading might just contain the most concentrated and uncomfortable collection of his demands in the entire Bible. After all, no one wants to give away their possessions any more than they want to carry their own cross. And hate? “Hate is not a family value.” “Hate” is not something we like to associate with our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.
It would be nice to explain away these three hard sayings, and we in the Church have certainly made a strong effort in that direction over the past two thousand years. We point to hyperbole, saying that Jesus was using extreme language to jolt his listeners into making at least a little change. We substitute carrying the cross with enduring inconvenience, proclaiming our own martyrdom whenever we perform a task we don’t enjoy or spend time with someone we don’t particularly like. We point to situational specificity, explaining how these words certainly may have applied to the people present and listening at the time but not really to us—at least not in the same way.
Even our translation this morning has softened Jesus’ tone, leaving out one particular word in all three sentences. The disciple must “hate their own father and mother…even their own life….carry their own cross” and “give away all their own possessions.” Jesus is not offering a general suggestion here. He hasn’t assigned a group project where we can let someone else do all the work. He’s pinning each of us down—individually—and demanding a response. So despite any cognitive dissonance, our discomfort about these words really shouldn’t just go away, because sometime Jesus simply says—and means—hard things.
Although it sounds the harshest in English, hating your family is probably the most straightforward of these demands to take once it’s placed into its cultural context. Jesus grew up in Galilee, which hosted a diverse population drawn there by major international trade routes. We know he spoke Greek, established as the regional trade language for hundreds of years, but at home and among friends he most likely used Aramaic. And Aramaic, like many Ancient Near Eastern languages, didn’t necessarily enjoy the same subtleties as English. We use a spectrum of terms like adore, enjoy, tolerate, dislike, detest, and abhor, but Aramaic speakers didn’t have that level of distinction within their vocabulary. Their choices were either “love” or “hate,” with any variations transmitted through body language or tone of voice, which written records simply don’t offer us.
In situations like this, it can be helpful to physically play out the scene. If you see me up here turned toward Phil, what’s my relationship to Nancy? Likewise, if I turn and focus my attention on Nancy, what has physically happened in my behavior toward Phil? What might he assume was going on if he didn’t understand my reasoning? I have, quite literally, turned my back on him. Onlookers might say I’ve rejected him or even decide that I “hate” him.
Applying that motion to Jesus’ words, we find that what he’s likely saying is that when we turn to follow him, when we choose to walk the path toward God, we are going to end up leaving things behind. People—even family members—might presume we’ve abandoned them. That might not be our intention—our focus isn’t necessarily directed toward the overall appearance—but that action of turning and following will have serious consequences, both physically and relationally.
“Carrying your own cross,” then, is a good example of how far this following might extend—and why it might look like you haven’t just given up on your family but even turned against your own life and interests. For us, the cross is a largely generic symbol representing God’s love. But people in Jesus’ era didn’t have any sort of feel-good or religious connotation. A cross brought to mind a very specific image: death via state-sponsored terrorism. If you were to “take up your cross,” you were actively participating in your own execution—it was something you were forced to do, not something you just picked up on a whim. Carrying your cross left you stumbling beneath the weight of the very thing that would soon kill you as you dragged it to the place you would be humiliated and slowly tortured to death in sight of everyone who ever knew you. To carry your cross was very much to “hate” your own life, to take a hand in your own destruction.
Yet despite the severity of being told to carry our own crosses, “giving up all your possessions” tends to be one of the most consistently challenging commands in the entirety of Jesus’ teachings. Some people, like St. Francis, have taken the injunction at face value, handing out what they owned to the point of leaving town naked. Others, finding its depth too difficult to fully approach, have applied it in the most practical ways they can. The thought of giving everything away is almost incomprehensible. The idea alone pushes us past the edge of any common sense. Saying goodbye to all your possessions would be one of the most blatant ways to turn against your own family, your own life, and your own interests.
But even with that, we aren’t really looking at the full scope of what Jesus is proposing here. That’s because the word behind “possessions” isn’t limited to physical objects. It extends well beyond our toys and tools and technology to include any and all of the advantages we as individuals might possess.
In Jesus’ day, when the “things” needed for a decent life were far less common than they are in our own, a wealthy person giving away their possessions could be a radical, community-altering event. The hungry might eat well for a time. Poor people might no longer walk around in rags or go unsheltered. More entrepreneurial-minded beneficiaries might even figure out how to earn a living off someone’s unused goods.[2] However, in a society where “things” are commonplace, where most possessions are easily available and expensive new wonders rapidly devolve into commodities, simply giving away “stuff” doesn’t necessarily reflect the level of transformation Jesus is demanding of his followers. Distributing what we have to those in need is good, but that’s not where our ability to alter society in God’s image really lies today. For us, Jesus probably wouldn’t have focused on our giving away our possessions as much as on using or spending our privilege for the sake of others.
Most of us have certain areas in life where we’ve received an unintended or unsolicited advantage, a place where some form of privilege has provided us a boost that our neighbors may not yet enjoy. Privilege in itself is not a moral thing. There’s no reason for fear, shame, or anger when faced with the concept. Recognizing how we’ve benefited from forces beyond our control shouldn’t cause us to harden our hearts but to turn to God in humble gratitude. Any morality surrounding privilege only comes into play through how we use whatever privilege we might possess.
Last week Henry emphasized the importance of not elevating ourselves above our neighbors. He talked about intentionally limiting our consumption and taking greater care regarding our individual and corporate environmental impact in order to spare the lives of millions of the world’s poorest people. God’s Kingdom isn’t a hoard of excess for some but a realm of enough for all. Relieving others’ burdens and taking responsibility for our own role in the climate crisis is, in truth, an act of Christian love. Jesus is calling those of us privileged enough to consider significant changes in our lifestyles not just to think but to do, despite the strain the expense or discipline of implementing changes may cost.
But not just anyone can afford to install solar panels, switch to geothermal heat pumps, xeriscape their yard, or even drive less. Even the ability to think about those things is something of a function of privilege. But following Jesus and realizing the Reign of the Heavens doesn’t have to demand superhuman effort. God isn’t interested in making you do the things you can’t. They simply want us to do the good we can in the ways we can. So maybe you do have a bunch of stuff you can share with other people. Maybe you have more food than you can use or extra time on your calendar, so feed the hungry with Second Sunday Suppers, join our El Cauldito team, or volunteer with one of our ministries or with other organizations seeking to serve our community. God Kingdom constantly surrounds us, revealing itself in everything from an act of kindness all the way up to advocating for the fair treatment of society’s outcasts.
Sometimes Jesus’ words are indeed hard for us to take, but sometimes that’s because we need to make hard decisions and implement hard changes. Jesus is indeed calling us to carry our own crosses, but he’s hoping for much more than simply giving away things we don’t really want or use in the first place. He wants us to spend not only our money but our influence, power, and authority on others, serving them to the point that people think we’re acting against our own interests, because God’s Kingdom of love is worth the sacrifice of self.
[1] Matthew 7:14
[2] Those are still decent reasons for sharing what we already have.