Sermon for September 7, 2025
Pentecost 13 C
Luke 14:25-33; Deuteronomy 30:15-20
Rev. Karl-John N. Stone
I heard about a pastor who, after reading a difficult teaching of Jesus, would say to his congregation “If you can’t say ‘Amen’, let me hear you say ‘Ouch.’” Well, after hearing today’s gospel, I think many of us would say “ouch”. And so the first thing I need to say about today’s gospel is that Jesus does not want us to hate our family members or our lives. If that is what he was truly telling us to do, it would contradict everything else he said and did and taught, including that part about “you cannot love God if you do not love your neighbor”.
It goes to show, we always need to read and interpret scripture by looking at the “big picture”. In this case, looking at the big picture means we don’t have to look very far, because the very next chapter (Luke 15) tells the famous story of the Prodigal Son. And the behaviors of that Prodigal Son demonstrate just how far from God a person can get, and just how miserable a person can make himself, by “hating” his family. It is only the extravagant love of the prodigal son’s father that restores him to life once again.
So what’s the deal? Why would Jesus say: “whoever comes to me and does not hate father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters, and yes, even life itself, cannot be my disciple”? The word “hate” in this case is not a commandment or an instruction; it’s an exaggerated figure of speech, a bit of hyperbole that he’s using, to make a comparison. The word “hate” is used a few times like that in the Bible, to set up a comparison. One example comes from Genesis 29, the very first book of the bible, where it describes Jacob’s relationships with Leah and Rachel by saying “Jacob loved Rachel more than Leah”, and then in the next verse “the Lord saw that Leah was hated…” It’s making a comparison to highlight that Rachel was Jacob’s true love, even though his father-in-law tricked him into marrying Leah first.
When we look at it this way, as a comparison, we can see that Jesus is calling us to put God first in our lives. That doesn’t mean that “father and mother, spouse and children, brothers and sisters, and even life itself” are not blessings that God gives us. These are all good gifts and blessings that come from God’s hand. But that’s the point—they come from God’s hand. They are not supposed to become false gods in their own right. So, Jesus is telling us, to be on the journey of following him—to become his disciples—means that we need to keep growing in trusting Jesus as our true God; and trusting Jesus even above all the other good blessings God gives us such as parents, spouse, children, siblings, and life itself.
Basically, it’s another way of stating the First Commandment: “I am the Lord your God; you shall have no other gods.” Martin Luther in his Large Catechism asks the question: What does it mean to have a god? And Luther responds to his own question by answering “wherever you cling to with your heart and entrust your being is really your God.” Then Luther took his definition and looked around at the church and society of 16th century Germany and made a list of all the things he observed that he and others were often tempted to “entrust their being” to, and therefore turn into false gods. Things like money, property, learning, intelligence, power, special advantages, or family connections. None of these, in themselves, are bad things. But they are all things that are easy for us to start trusting more than we put our trust in God.
Now you might be saying to yourself, “I believe in God. I put my faith in Jesus. So does this stuff really apply to me?” How can you tell if you might be setting up something—even a good thing—as a false god? Well, if you notice that you’ve been measuring your worth, or the meaningfulness of life, or people’s value as human beings according to the amount of goods you’ve stored away, or how much money you’ve saved up, or the kind of property you’re able to afford, or the extent of learning you’ve achieved, or the sharpness of your intelligence, or the power you’re able to exert, or the special advantages that open doors for you that would be closed to most other people, or the family connections that perhaps make life easier for you that other people don’t have access to—these kinds of things are a good prompt to ask yourself: Do I entrust my being to God’s blessings more than I entrust my being to God himself?
Luther looked around in his day 500 years ago and saw all of these blessings becoming false gods, even among people who believed in God and put their faith in Jesus. Is it so different today? “None of you can become my disciple” Jesus says, “if you do not give up all your possessions.” He’s not talking about taking a vow of poverty. He’s asking you to consider: are you possessed by your possessions? Have you turned a gift from God’s hand into a false god?
So then, how can we become the disciples Jesus calls us to be? First thing to realize is that it’s a lifelong endeavor; it began when you were baptized and will not be completed until you’ve become fully united with God in heaven, and in the meantime you’ll have many ups and downs.
Second thing is to pay attention to the messages God sends us—and that includes the messages God sends through our emotions. If (for example) you hear something like Jesus saying in Luke 14:26 “whoever does not hate their family and even life itself cannot be my disciple” and that conjures an emotional response in you—you should listen to that emotion, and ask God to help you understand what he’s trying to tell you. When we interpret the Scriptures we need to learn how to go beneath the surface, and the same is true for living our lives as people. God wants us to be fully human, created in his image; God wants you to be the complete person God intended you to be. So with God’s help, we need to explore what’s beneath the surface of our lives—that’s how we learn what is necessary to hold on to, and what is necessary to let go of, as we grow into becoming disciples who follow Jesus.
And finally, we can only become disciples of Jesus because of the journey Jesus has already taken on our behalf. When he sat down to “estimate the cost” of humanity’s redemption from sin and death, he knew that it meant he’d have to go the cross. But by his death he has destroyed death, and by his rising he has open the way to eternal life. It is only by God’s love and grace, given to each one of us in the crucified and risen Jesus Christ, that the Holy Spirit finally makes it possible for us to be disciples. Amen.