Fr Matthew Reese

“Now great multitudes accompanied him; and [Jesus] turned and said to them, ‘If any one comes to me and does not hate his own father and mother and wife and children and brothers and sisters, yes, and even his own life, he cannot be my disciple. Whoever does not bear his own cross and come after me, cannot be my disciple.’” —Luke 14:25-27

Dear Friends,

Not easy words from Luke this morning…

Whole sermon series have been preached on this passage; book chapters dedicated to it. We might talk about how the use of “hate” in this passage is an exaggerated rhetorical gesture, common to much oratory of the Ancient Near East… these are parables, so we must look for the literary tropes and conventions of parable.

Another line of thinking goes, “everywhere else in the Bible we are exhorted to honor our mothers and our fathers—it’s the Sixth Commandment!” So surely the extremity of this passage must be read in the light of that theme, so dominant throughout Scripture. So great must our commitment to Christ be, that we must be ready to lay aside even those relationships that God esteems the most.

Another reading inverts the passage. We must know that in following Christ, others whom we love, even those we love the most, may come to hate us because of it. Surely many Christians, especially in the early days of the Church, felt this all too painfully.

Surely many feel this today.

Estrangement is no new phenomenon, but there is some evidence it’s getting worse. The hashtag #NoContactFamily has taken TikTok by storm, and estrangement has been the subject of studies and write-ups in Psychology Today, The New Yorker, and Vogue.

Estrangement is an intensely complex and personal phenomenon, sometimes a needful method of self-protection. Some wounds are for God to forgive, but perhaps not for us to. But how many people cannot really remember why they’re estranged? (Remembering Fr Robert’s Sunday sermon.) How much estrangement is simply thoughtless disengagement?

The extremity of Jesus’s language reminds us of the cost of discipleship, but also the great sacredness of our relationships.

It is hard to make amends. It is harder to know when amends are not possible. But in the great architecture of Scripture, Jesus is telling us that the only thing truly worth sacrificing it all for, is the Kingdom itself.

This Thanksgiving and Christmas, we may not yet be able to pick up the phone to an estranged loved one. But let us surely offer a prayer.

Yours in Christ,

—Fr Matthew