The reading from Luke 14 underlines my repeated invitation to see if or how we can connect something written two thousand years ago with life in 2007. The verses we just heard are the lectionary Gospel reading for today, which means hundreds of thousands of people are hearing them on this weekend. My gut reaction to them is negative: Not very user-friendly! But they are in the lectionary because we have to deal with the whole sweep of Jesus' teaching, not just the parts we like or feel comfortable with.
For me it is important to hear these verses from the New Testament in full awareness of people in this and other congregations who have been wounded by insensitive interpretations of such texts. It's easy to dismiss these words of Jesus, or Luke's version of them, because they evoke associations with guilt-producing religion many of us left behind a long time ago.
You and I need to remember that the central truth of the Christian faith is good news—gospel: The reality underlying all existence is essentially loving, radically loving, inclusively loving. I deal with this reading from Luke in that context. I offer you my take on it, and as always, I invite you to take what you like and leave the rest. In fact, after some time at the coffee hour, I'll go to my office on the third floor and talk about this sermon with anyone who would like to do that.
You and I are aware of people who quote the Bible to support their "conservative agenda." I wonder how they handle the last sentence of this morning's reading:
"So therefore, none of you can become my disciple if you do not give up all your possessions." In the recent obituary for James Kennedy, pastor of the Coral Ridge (mega) Church in Fort Lauderdale, there was something about how he and the congregation prospered but nothing about how they all gave away their possessions.
The whole reading defies a literal interpretation. It's important to read the part about "hating" one's family and "hating" one's own life as a clear example of Middle Eastern hyperbole, something useful in reading the Koran as well as the Bible. It's not helpful to read Middle Eastern writing with a Western mentality, or to read soul-oriented writing with a scientific mindset.
Scholars of New Testament Greek tell us that the word translated as "hate" does not carry the emotional freight of the English word. It means "to detach from" rather than "to detest." One scholar puts it this way:
What Jesus is calling for is that those who follow him understand that loyalty to him can and will create tensions within the self and between oneself and those one loves, and in such a conflict of loyalties, he [Jesus] requires primary allegiance.
What is the point of all this? What does this lectionary text teach us on a summer Sunday morning in September of 2007, two days before the sixth anniversary of 9-11? I think it reminds us that much of life is about priorities, and spiritual health requires clarity about where our loyalties lie. I had a conversation this past week with a man who is exploring professional options. He was looking at one opportunity when someone told him that the person who had the job before often stayed in the office until eleven o'clock at night. A question of priorities. This morning's New York Times real estate section focuses on people with "big money" buying two or three apartments and combining them so that they can have suburban-type space in the city, save commuting time, and not feel guilty about missing time with the children because of working long hours to make big money. A question of priorities.
To accept the designation Christian for oneself has always meant a willingness to identify with Jesus of Nazareth at a deep level, to have a sense of what he taught, how he lived, how he died, and how he continues to be present spiritually for those who take his name. For me that means an invitation to freedom, not a sentence to repression. It means deliverance from the need to conform, from defining success on anyone else's terms but one's own. It means making decisions according to the simple but profound principle of loving God, loving other people, and loving oneself in a healthy way.
What we should be spending time on in our life together as a faith community is working out the implications of such a simple but profound principle for us who live in New York in 2007. It's important to say that no one has to believe today's verses from Luke's Gospel to be part of this church's life and work. Anyone is welcome to participate in our worship and programs. Two thousand years ago there were people who traveled with Jesus of Nazareth out of interest and out of sympathy with his concern for the poor and marginalized people of his time.
What Jesus said to those people in our text was that they needed to decide if they wanted to become his disciples. Discipleship meant and still means taking a stand, declaring an identity that has implications for all of life. Does that mean modern disciples of Jesus wear their faith on their sleeves using religious language at every opportunity? No. Does it mean believing only Christians are going to heaven? No. Does it mean feeling ashamed because people we care about think we're uncool for going to church? No. Does it mean feeling guilty because we don't get the discipleship thing completely right all the time? Of course not. We're going for progress, not perfection.
For me having an identity as a Christian means I have accepted God's complete acceptance of me as I am. It means acknowledging to myself and at least one other person that I am a human being, not a human doing, that I make mistakes. It means my allegiance to Christ affects the way I vote, the way I spend money, the way I allocate time, and the way I interact with people, especially with difficult people.
It means I try to make gratitude the dominant tone of my life. It means I am grateful for life, for love, and for knowing when to end a sermon.
Thanks be to God.