Email a reflection
Christ Church Uniting
Disciples and Presbyterians
1300 Kailua Rd.
Kailua, HI 96734
262-6911
Family Values
My attention is drawn in Luke’s chapter fourteen to verse 26 and the words in which Jesus says to the crowds following him--
"Whoever comes to me and does not hate father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters, yes, and even life itself, cannot be my disciple.
Do We Keep the Text?
Even before searching out what meaning these words might have for us, I am asking, “Did Jesus really say this?”
John has nothing like it in his gospel. Among the synoptics, Mark doesn’t have this saying. Matthew has a parallel. In place of verb “hate” Matthew’s version has “love less.” “Unless you love your mother and father less than you love me….”
There are two parallels to this Jesus saying in the Gospel of Thomas.
The Gospel of Thomas, believed to have been written mid-second century is a collection of Jesus saying (many quite possibly original). It is often used to understand New Testament gospel texts.
Considered one of the most sensational
archaeological discoveries of the twentieth century, the gospel was part of the
so-called “Nag Hammadi Library” found by peasants digging for fertilizer the
In Thomas, we find “Whoever does not hate father and mother cannot be my disciple.” (Saying 55 and 101.)
What did Jesus really say? To judge between alternate readings, other things being equal, biblical scholars lean toward the more difficult text as being an earlier one. They reason that, absent clear motivation to do so, it’s unlikely church scribes would make readings more difficult or embarrassing.
“Unless you hate you mother and father, your wife and your children, you cannot be my disciples.” It’s a difficult and embarrassing text. I agree with the scholars who are saying, “Keep it. It’s an early version.”
If Jesus made such a pronouncement, what might it mean? Clearly, its not going to rate high on the list of either contemporary or biblical era “family values.”
At the very least, the words invite a new perspective upon the sets of relationships that we call family in our world today.
Our Family Relations
Most of us cherish our family relations. And, that being said, we all know of circumstances in which family relationships can be positively harrowing.
Family is the place where some of the most heinous abuse can occur: between husband and wife, by parent of a child, between brothers and sisters. Family secrets can shrivel the souls of family members.
On a more mundane note, the requirements of family can sometimes trump the needs and opportunity for self discovery and expression of particular individuals. I remember the woman who wanted to be a doctor but who had to wait tables to put her older, less gifted, brother through medical school.
Still, most of us, I think, treasure at least the hope, if not always the day to day reality, of family.
Family and Identity
In first century
The way in which women were transferred between families illustrates the way in which identify was conferred externally.
The cultural expectation was that women were always “embedded” in a male (dominated group.) Marriage involved dis-embedding the female from “her father’s house” and re-embedding her in her husband’s house. This is reflected is our nearly lost wedding custom of asking the father “who gives this woman to this man?” Who gives!
Individuals, male or female, of Jesus’ day had no real existence apart from their family ties, especially to their parents. Widows and orphans, for example, without family, had no real social existence.
Jesus and Family
Jesus’ teaching including several challenges directed at so-called family values, then as well as now. Jesus own family thought he was over the edge and sought to rein him in. Jesus redefined family: "Who is my family? My mother and my brothers are those who hear the word of God and do it." (Luke 8:21).
The Jesus movement was counter cultural in several important senses. It offered a new identity. “In Christ we are a new being.” The Jesus movement did this by offering a new family, what sociologists call a fictive (we might say virtual) kinship group (i.e. family.) This is still reflected in the idea of a Christian name, something that one receives at baptism (which is among other things the ritual of entering the church/family).
Just as it was said about marriage that the women “left” her father/family and joined her new man/family, so too Jesus is saying that joining his movement entails “leaving” not just your nets and boats but your old identities (read families and relations) and entering the family of God.
But Why the Word “Hate”?
In Jesus’ culture, emotion words have external action components as important, if not more important, than interior aspects. As a Semitic expression, “hate” means "to turn away from, to detach oneself from, and to disaffiliate." Just as love is an action, a deed, in Jesus’ day, so too, hate is about a kind of doing in relationship, more so than about a kind of feeling.
This is not the only time that Jesus uses hyperbolic language to make a point. In this case, the point has to do with what it takes to dis-embed from the old and re-embed in the new. The call to hate or despise your relations/relationships as a condition of Jesus discipleship only works as meaningful hyperbole when coupled with the realization that it has to do with dis-embedding from the old family in order to re-embed in the new one.
The new family is one which has God as father. (Remember, I’m talking about a patriarchal cultural here.) That means that we have all men as brothers, all women as sisters, all children as our children (remember how we make promises concerning children at the time of baptism?), all elders are our mothers and fathers.
A Call to Reimagine Family
“To be Jesus disciple, one must hate father and mother.” It’s about leaving and entering rather than feelings. It reflects the opportunity and call to put all relationships, existing and prospective, in a new perspective. They are revalued, changed forever.
It would be possible to misunderstand the meaning of the word hate here. It’s so easy to misconstrue words of grace.
I recall a time in
One Sunday, I wrote a responsive call to worship using the Isaiah passage in which we read, “Ho, everyone who thirsts. Come ye to the waters. Come, drink without price. Why pay for that which does not satisfy” or words to that effect.
The next day a lanky motorcycle driving long distance truck driving young married church member invited me for coffee. “I’m so grateful,” he said, “for that call to worship yesterday, ‘why spend your energies for that which does not satisfy,’ and, by the way, I’m divorcing Gail.”
If we use Jesus words to abandon our relations, fail to care for our children or elderly parents, we missed and/or misconstrued his meaning.
Jesus’ words are a call to reimagine and re-engage our family relations, to put them in a larger perspective.
Need an example? Do you have three children? Divide the inheritance four ways---one forth for each of your three children and one fourth as a gift to humankind---your extended family, Christianly understood.
O.K., you take it from here.
M. “Buddy” Summers,
Pastor
Christ Church Uniting Disciples and Presbyterians
Kailua, HI
(06/06/04
Return to Sermons Page