Dear Parish Family,
In the Mediterranean culture of Jesus’ day, the relationship between teacher and student was very different from our experience today. A teacher takes on disciples to impart to them everything the teacher knows about a subject. This ensures that the master’s command of the subject is passed to the next generation. The graduating students will recall, teach, and live what they have learned at the feet of the scholar. We could look at the band of disciples around Jesus as the school of Jesus. So everyone in the crowd witnesses His miracles and teachings, Jesus issues a strong challenge to those who want to be His disciples.
He will demand a level of commitment that most will find difficult to maintain. Jesus states clearly that, “If any one 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.” By this point in his public ministry association with Jesus would lead to persecution, which should not have been a surprise to anyone who remembered the Sermon on the Mount. Jesus has promised that those who follow him would be “blessed,” but in a way that they could not have imagined. His followers would be blessed when others “insult you and persecute you and utter every kind of evil against you [falsely] because of me.” This is a high cost. To follow Jesus would require a radical commitment of love. And in addition to carrying their own cross, potential disciples would also have to hate their fathers and mothers, sisters and brothers, and their own lives in order to follow Jesus. How is this possible? Why would Jesus make such a demand from any potential disciples?
Does this sound like the teaching of the Messiah? It does if you correctly understand how the words “love” and “hate” function in the Middle East. You love something, someone, your family when you are “attached” to them in relational support. Conversely, to hate someone simply means to detach yourself from dependence upon that relationship. Jesus is saying that to be his disciple your loyalty and dependence upon your family of origin has to cease. This is the “cross” disciples must bear. You cannot serve two masters. Peter and the other apostles have left homes, families, and their way of life to follow Jesus. They are detaching themselves from their old way of living in Galilee and have attached themselves to Jesus, going to places where they would never go or associate with people whom they hated as their culture demanded. The loyalty demanded by Jesus remained absolute and they had to love whom He loved: the Samaritans, the Tax collectors and sinners.
Not everyone would make the grade. Jesus suggests that potential disciples take a moment to count the cost. Don’t start building the tower or defending the castle unless you know your effort will end with success. Avoid the shame associated with failure. This week we face a real challenge. How do we respond to the call to “renounce” all we have so that we can be a disciple of Jesus? Someone once pointed out that you and I may be the only Bible some people ever read. Do we truly mirror the Lord in every aspect of our daily lives?