Love or Hate? (Luke 14:25-33)

We can all have things in our lives that we love. Sometimes, our love for those things can be so strong that we can reject, dismiss or even hate other things. For example, we might love chocolate so much that we never eat lollies, or the other way around. We might love our football team so much that we completely reject a rival team. We might have such a great love for a car manufacturer that we would never consider buying or even driving another make (remember the days of Holden versus Ford?). Or we might love a wine from a certain region, grape variety or producer so much that we would never even think about drinking anything else.

Jesus’ words from this week’s gospel reading, Luke 14:25-33, might sound uncharacteristic of him and even contradictory to other things that he taught. We all know that Jesus said the greatest commandment is to love God and love others (Matthew 22:34-40; Mark 12:28-34; Luke 10:25-28). However, in these verses Luke tells us that Jesus said,

‘If you want to be my disciple, you must hate everyone else by comparison – your father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters – yes, even your own life. Otherwise, you cannot be my disciple.’
(Luke 14:26 NLT)

Most Bible scholars agree that Jesus is using a form of speech known as hyperbole, which is an extreme exaggeration used to emphasize a point. Some examples of hyperbole are saying, ‘I’m so hungry I could eat a horse’, something ‘weighs a ton’, ‘I’m freezing’ on a cold day, or a person’s smile is ‘a mile wide’. We don’t take these sayings literally, but the exaggeration helps us to understand how extreme the situation is. By saying that his followers will ‘hate’ their parents or children, Jesus is calling us to love him so much that our relationships with everyone else, even the closest members of our family, aren’t as important to us as he is.

At the time Luke wrote his gospel, this was a very real choice a lot of Christians were facing. To become a follower of Jesus could mean that they would be rejected by their families, written out of the family inheritance, or excluded from their social circles. In our own time in certain parts of the world, and even in Australia, if a person who has grown up in a different religion wants to become Christian, they can face being rejected from their family and disowned by their culture. Jesus is telling people that if they faced this sort of choice, they might need to decide who they love more: Jesus or their family. In our time and place, these words can challenge us to think about who we love more: Jesus or the people around us? Will we live in ways that other people want us to, or in the way that Jesus teaches us? Do we love Jesus enough to trust the acceptance and approval he gives us through his grace-filled love, or will we spend our lives trying to make the people around us happy and look for their acceptance or approval over his?

In most of the situations we face, following Jesus and trusting him over following what those closest to us might want or doing what the people around us are doing can be a really tough choice to make. We love our families and the thought of going against them or possibly losing them all together can be difficult to contemplate. Thankfully, this won’t be a choice most of us will have to make. However, Jesus still calls us to love him more than the people and things of this world. He doesn’t tell us we must or should. Instead, he loves us completely and asks us to return his love. We see the extent of Jesus’ love for us when he gave up his life for us. Jesus’ call to love him more than our own lives isn’t just something he tells us to do. It’s what he did for us. Jesus loved us more than his own life when he went to the cross and sacrificed everything for us. When Jesus had the choice of loving his own life and running away from the cross, or loving us and dying in our place, Jesus chose us over his own life. When we listen to Jesus’ words about loving him so much that we’d be willing to give up our families for him, and take that seriously enough to acknowledge that we probably couldn’t, Jesus’ love for us in giving his life up for us becomes so much greater. Trusting that Jesus did for us what we probably couldn’t do when he loved us more than his own life can give us a deeper appreciation of his love for us and helps our love for him grow deeper and stronger.

We can be thankful that we don’t have to choose between Jesus and our families, and that we can love God by loving our families. Jesus’ words about ‘hating’ our families, however, still challenge us to think about whom we love more – Jesus or our relationships in this world. Just like loving chocolate, a football team, a car manufacturer, a wine or other things doesn’t stop us from enjoying other alternatives, thank God that we can still love the people in our lives the way God loves us in Jesus. As the one who loved us more than his own life, faith in Jesus means that he will always be our greatest love.

More to think about or discuss:

• What is something you dearly love in your life? How does that love shape the way you relate to or connect with other similar things?
• If you were in the situation where you had to choose between Jesus and your family, what do you think you would you do? What does that tell you about Jesus’ love for you in giving his life up for you?
• What are some ways in which you can love Jesus by living for him instead of living for the people around you? How might you be able to love Jesus by living for the people in your life?