On Jesus' call to hate your family
One of the classes I'm taking this term is on biblical spirituality, or applying the Bible in faith contexts as opposed to analyzing it historically and critically. We have to write weekly small reflections on Scripture passages, which I'll be posting here. This week we were supposed to pick one that's been personally relevant to us.
Luke 14:25-33
Jesus’ call to renounce all our “possessions” and earthly attachments helps us develop a mindset that will protect us from despair when life’s losses inevitably come. This message is more familiar and comfortable to Christians than the anti-family rancor this text also seems to communicate. This year, as I started to build a life independent of my family, I began to perceive a meaning in this text that is actually helpful to my own spirituality. Jesus’ elaboration shows that he wants his followers not to rely more than is wise on their family connections: even if your family is as strong as ten thousand troops, your spiritual life may demand that you seek peace, going another way from what your family situation alone would suggest. Furthermore, both of Jesus’ examples suggest that it is still okay to love your family and to act in their best interest. The king seeks a peace treaty because he doesn’t want his troops to die, and the builder wants to see the tower completed. But the troops don’t dictate the terms of engagement in battle, and in life as a disciple of Jesus, even the people dearest to you are only one component of what will lead to the hoped-for outcome. Ultimately, Jesus tells his disciples in this paragraph not that we shouldn’t love our family, but how we should love them. It’s important that he calls us to “take up our cross” immediately after warning us that we need to be prepared to lose everything most dear to us. We need to keep our family’s role in our life proportionate so that we can listen to the call of Christ, but part of that call is to attend to our responsibilities with love and wisdom.
posted by Theologienne @ 1:05 PM
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A grabby headline, indeed. A comfort to read your insight on the text which always unnerved me a little. Family is both blessing and curse, yes? "Take up your cross and follow me" must be in part metaphorical; it never made sense to me that Jesus would intend for his followers to leave their families to starve. Jesus raised a daughter from the dead, and Lazarus, so he respected parents care ... : ^ )
Funny, I would have thought "take up the cross" to be amongst the most problematic elements of the Jesus quotes.
Of course, Luke was written a good 80 years after Jesus' supposed life and death. So Luke did know that Jesus was crucified, or that Mark and Matthew stated such.
But why would Jesus reveal to a whole multitude that following him was to follow a dead man, and that they should be prepared to the same?
The audience of Luke is important here. The readers (or more likely, the hearers) of Luke were not Jews. They were pagans, hearing this Gospel 70-85 years after Jesus' death.
Essentially, what this passage says is not some Buddhist call of relinquishment of family ties. It does not say, "Don't care." It says "hate".
Pagan converts were likely to be ostracized. Luke gives the OK to love that shunning--Hate your family, because they don't know what they are talking about. And then Luke backdates it to Jesus' ministry, for which he was certainly not a witness.
It speaks volumes that those sorts of words don't come out of Jesus' mouths in the Gospels written by Jews--Matthew and Mark.
Your interpretation is nice. But not at all based on the facts.
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