A Reflection for the Twenty-third Sunday in Ordinary Time
“If anyone comes to me without hating his father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters, and even his own life, he cannot be my disciple.” (Lk 14:26)
Sometimes my reaction to Jesus is, “Whoa! What are you talking about?”
That sums up my initial response to the readings this Sunday. Did he forget the commandment about honoring our fathers and our mothers? And now I’m supposed to hate them?
Sorry, I can’t do it. I love my father. Ever since I can remember, my father talked to me about God. He helped me believe God was always present and that I could talk to God anytime. And I love my mother. So often, she comforted me in hard times. She signed me up for religious education classes and brought me to church week after week when I was a kid.
“Come on, Lord. Hate them? They’re the reason I love you!”
Over the years, I’ve read commentaries and heard homilies that boil these verses down to “Don’t love your family or life more than you love God.” But that take leaves me unsatisfied. “Hate” is a strong word.
My life can only have one center. And I simply cannot stand for anything or anyone other than God to occupy it.
I believe Jesus is saying that we must love him in a way that is radically different from the way that we love anyone or anything else. It’s not that we love all these people, and our Triune God is our favorite—as if we’re talking about flavors of ice cream.
I think of it this way: We are born into a community. Even in our mother’s womb, we are in relationship with her. In a different way, we are also in relationship with our father, and are part of the human family. Yet we were in relationship with God even before we were conceived. As the Lord tells Jeremiah, “Before I formed you in the womb, I knew you.”
How long has our eternal God known and loved us? How long will the Lord who was, who is and who is to come know us?
It gets a bit tricky for those of us who exist in space and time to talk about. Words fall short. But I believe Jesus is saying our love for God must be “prior” or “first,” yet not in such a way that what I love “second” is anywhere close.
Further, Jesus is addressing our ever-present temptation to turn human beings into gods. Better to hate my father or mother or brother or sister or children or wife than allow them to come before God in my heart. Likewise, better to hate my deacon or priest or bishop or pope than allow them to come before God. My love for any human being—including myself—cannot come before my love for God.
I cannot make idols of my relatives or my religious leaders. If I am to fully love others as God is calling me to do, that love must flow from placing Jesus at the center of my life. After all, my life can only have one center. And I simply cannot stand for anything or anyone other than God to occupy it.
