Preached at Christ Church, Worton; Holy Cross, Seend; and Christ Church, Bulkington
Philemon 1–21; Luke 14. 25-33
“Whoever comes to me and does not hate father and mother, wife and children … cannot be my disciple.”
So, should you really hate your Mum because Jesus told you to?
As a priest, one sometimes gets invited into intimate and difficult bits of people’s lives. Most of that work isn’t appropriate to talk about in front of others, even in private, but you’ll not be surprised to learn that not every family is a happy one. Sure, every family has unhappy aspects and difficult dynamics, yours and mine and everyone else’s, but some are much more difficult than others. Despite that, it’s exceptionally rare to find people who actually hate their mothers, and when one does, it’s quite an unsettling experience. And as for people who hate their children, well that’s what we have social services for!
Christ Preaching to the Multitudes by Follower of Tintoretto, late 16th Century.
In fact, the Ten Commandments tell us to honour our Father and Mother. So what is Jesus playing at here? Is this just a bit of hyperbole, saying things that are completely over the top to grab our attention? We should never forget the Gospels are full of examples of Jesus cracking jokes, teasing people, and being sarcastic.
So is what this reading is about, then? When Jesus says you need to give up everything to follow Him, is it actually all exaggerated and sarcastic, so He doesn’t really mean you have to give up absolutely everything, but maybe quite a lot of stuff? Maybe you need to be ready to hate your mother but only if she’s standing between you and following Jesus, or something like that?
I’ve heard that sort of sermon preached on this passage and…? I mean, OK, I suppose… It just feels a bit flat to tell you that Jesus’ message here is to give up lots of things to follow Him but not actually everything because He was just exaggerating to keep the crowd interested. Frankly, that interpretation leaves me wondering why Jesus of Nazareth, one of history’s great public communicators, had such a bad day at the office. It’s like watching Lionel Messi miss a penalty or something.
So let’s pick at the passage a little more. The reading tells us that Jesus was speaking a to large crowd which was travelling with Him; and we know St Luke sets this story on Jesus’ final journey to Jerusalem—not in Galilee where Jesus’ public ministry started, not in the city where it reached its climax, but on the journey in between. The last journey to Jerusalem takes up a much larger part of Luke’s Gospel than it does of the other gospels, in fact it takes up about three-eighths of it. In contrast, it’s only one-eighth of Matthew’s Gospel. It is clearly important to Luke to present following Christ as being like going on a journey.
Although we know this was Christ’s last journey to Jerusalem, and it’s going to end up with Him being crucified, the crowd following Him don’t know any of that. Bear in mind, this is described as a large crowd, following Jesus around the towns and villages the Holy Land as He teaches and heals. A lot of them think they’re following a holy warrior king to the capital where He’s going to overthrow the corrupt puppet government, kick out the Roman occupiers who are the real power in the land, and re-establish a Jewish golden age in a sovereign, independent, state that will be the envy of the world. They think they’re following the coming king and they’re going to be among the people who help Him take over, which might be a clever way of setting themselves up after the transfer of power they think is coming. So Christ is sending them a message that, actually, following Him is going to hurt; it’s going to cost them; it’s not going to give them a lucrative tax collector’s post in Jesus’ New Kingdom of Judah or anything like that. He’s warning them that it might even cost them their lives, before they even know that it is going to cost Him His life. He’s pouring cold water on their delusions, perhaps for their own good.
Then we get to the bit about building a tower, and a King going to war, and how nobody with any wit sets out on a long and complicated venture without being sure they have the resources to finish it—so far, so sensible. But then Jesus segues directly – directly – from that into saying that nobody can be His disciple unless they give up all their possessions. Here’s what I think is going on. In normal activity, it is sensible to plan, to husband your resources carefully so you can finish what you start. But when following Jesus you can’t plan, because you don’t know much it’s going to cost, and it might cost everything. And I have also heard that preached as the real message of this passage, a pep talk from the preacher to the congregation—“Are you ready to give Jesus everything?” But how many of us here today have given up all our possessions to follow Jesus? Zero, I’d guess, including me.
Give up all your possessions… Onesimus was the possession of another person, called Philemon. Onesimus was Philemon’s slave. Thankfully, we regard slavery as abhorrent today. But for most of human history, slavery was practiced in most places. In the Roman Empire, modern scholars estimate that between a tenth and a fifth of the population were slaves, and there was essentially no abolitionist sentiment. Slavery was taken as a given by almost everyone. Paul tells Philemon to welcome Onesimus, once seemingly incompetent, back into his household as a Christian brother, now useful and born again in Christ. But Paul doesn’t tell Philemon to free Onesimus. In the end, Christians would be instrumental in the abolition of slavery across the world. But that would take another nineteen hundred years.
What this passage says to me is that the Gospel isn’t for perfect people living in a perfect world. It’s for flawed people living in a messed up world, negotiating their lives through societies that are often unjust and arbitrary and hardened to needless cruelties – like the one Jesus lived in, and like ours.
God doesn’t love people for being perfect. God loves you because you’re His child. He made you. He knows you better than you know yourself. And He loves you more than you could love your own mother or father, more than you could love your own children. I know I say this a lot. But it’s a point that needs made time and time again.
Of course, we should offer God our possessions, even our lives. I try to. But I have to say, when I make those offers, I hope they aren’t taken up, any more than Abraham’s offer of Isaac was. We can’t possibly live up to the standards of perfect self-offering set out by Christ in this morning’s Gospel, and actually we shouldn’t want to—they’re rather inhuman. If we aren’t capable of that degree of self-offering, it should change how we judge others—and that’s what I think the hyperbole and exaggeration from Jesus are about. They’re to confront us with the reality that we aren’t perfect and aren’t in a position to condemn others who aren’t perfect. It’s Jesus Christ’s job, when He comes again in glory, to judge the living and the dead—not ours.
Our job is to be faithful human beings, loving one another as we journey together to Christ, who is our redeemer as much as our judge, carrying our Crosses as we go. It’s not about hating your mother, but about understanding why you should try to forgive everyone as your brother.
And now to God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit, be ascribed all might, majesty, dominion, and power, as is most justly His due, now and forevermore. Amen.
Top image—the wilderness between Jerusalem and Jericho, 16 November 2022, © Gerry Lynch
Thank you so much. This is a very difficult passage to take on board and you have made sense of it. I was disappointed as I thought we weren’t getting a sermon this week. It was lovely to have it today.
It is a difficult passage but those are often the interesting ones to preach on!