Now large crowds were accompanying Jesus, and turning to them he said, “If anyone comes to me and does not hate his own father and mother, and wife and children, and brothers and sisters, and even his own life, he cannot be my disciple. Whoever does not carry his own cross and follow me cannot be my disciple. (Luke 14:25-27)
This passage will wake you up in the morning. And unsettle your soul. That’s the point. Jesus is trying to unsettle our souls and wake us up from apathy.
These words of Jesus are hard. They are given to the “large crowds” who were following after Him, eager to see miracles, enjoying the popularity surrounding His ministry. Jesus knew that their hearts were not right. They were enjoying the show but were not counting the cost of being a disciple. Jesus needed to jolt them back to reality. Following Him is not a game; it is a serious decision that often has serious consequences. Jesus was not on the road to increasing wealth, health, and prosperity; He was on the road to Calvary.
The most shocking of Jesus’ words is His statement that unless we “hate” our parents, wife, children, siblings, and own life, we cannot follow Him. Whoa. In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus did not even give us permission to hate our enemies (Matt 5:44) so how can He tell us to hate our own family in this passage?
In biblical passages that compare relationships, “hate” often has the meaning of “to love less” or “to choose another over”:
- In Genesis 29, it is said that Jacob “loved” Rachel but “hated” Leah. The term indicates that Jacob preferred Rachel over Leah. He loved Rachel. He chose to give her his heart. He did not have the same love for Leah.
- Malachi 1:2 says that God loved Jacob but hated Esau. God chose Jacob as the line in which Messiah would come. He did not choose Esau. Thus God chose Jacob over Esau and preferred his lineage over Esau’s.
- In Matthew 6:24, Jesus tells us that we cannot both love God and material things at the same time. We will inevitably choose one over the other. Whatever we choose first is what we truly love, the other is what we “hate.”
So the message of Jesus is clear. Following Jesus must take priority over our family relationships….not in the sense of responsibility…1 Timothy 5:8 says that to neglect one’s family is to be worse than an unbeliever…but in the sense of dependence and relationship. Family is often our source of security, our priority, our sense of value. We must be willing to lose these things, if necessary, in order to follow Jesus. Nothing can take priority over Him…otherwise we are just following the “popular Jesus” not the real One.
I have known many cases in which a person’s decision to follow Jesus creates family tension and even separation. This is the cost of discipleship. In many countries around the world, when a person decides to follow Jesus, he/she immediately is persecuted, shunned, or declared dead by his/her family. This is the cost of discipleship.
The road is not easy. The world is not designed to help the disciple along the way. We go against the flow of society. We are often misunderstood, mischaracterized, and mistreated. But to follow Jesus we must make a conscious decision each day to love Him first, to put Him first, to obey Him first. Then we pray for strength and courage when others, particularly our families, try to pull us off the path.
A good article on this passage can be found at http://www.bible.org/page.php?page_id=1117