Dear
Friend, grace and peace be unto you from God our Father, and our Lord
and Savior, Jesus, the Christ. Amen.
Barbara
Bennett of Vancouver, Washington, wanted to sell an old Brothers' brand
sewing machine. So she took out an ad in her local paper's
classified section. But when the ad appeared, it read simply
“Brother for sale.” Worse yet, the ad appeared in the “Items
under $50” section.
There
were actually a couple of calls inquiring about the ad. One wanted
to haggle over the price. The other caller hung up when he or she
learned that there was not a real, live brother being offered on the
market.
Barbara
Bennett's ad reminds us of today's lesson. Jesus said,
"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…" What in the world can Jesus mean by this
- hate your father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters?
Sure,
we get a little upset with them from time to time. Maybe like
President and Laura Bush after their daughter’s speech Tuesday night
at the Republican Convention. We all get frustrated with those we
love. But hate them? No way.
The key
here in understanding is that Jesus often spoke in hyperbole.
Meaning He would exaggerate for effect, not meaning what He said to be
taken literally. He wanted to impact the lives of his listeners.
In this particular case, he wanted them to understand the radical nature
of the commitment He was asking them to make. That is clear from
the rest of the lesson. "Whoever does
not carry the cross and follow me cannot be my disciple… So
therefore, none of you can become my disciple if you do not give up all
your possessions." What was that? There he
goes again. Give up all my possessions? My laptop?
My widescreen TV? My new car…? My stock investments…?
You name it.
Jesus
doesn't, literally, want you to sell all your possessions or to get rid
of your family. Some of you may be in a mood to get rid of your
family, but that impulse did not come from God.
In the
early eighties, a Michigan State University study reported that one
third of four-and five-year-olds would give up their relationship with
their dad for television. That's terrible. But when you
consider that the average employed American watches forty hours of
television a week, you have to wonder if some mothers and fathers don't
love the tube more than they love their children.
After
one couple returned home from a Family Life Marriage Conference, the
husband immediately walked into the family room and unplugged the TV.
With the cord dangling and wide-eyed kids in tow, he lifted the set and
carried it to the garage. In the empty place where the television
had once stood, he hung a picture of the family. Their
five-year-old son sat down on the floor, staring at the portrait.
Then he looked up at his dad and asked, "Does
this mean we're going to become a family?"
The
last thing Jesus wants us to do is get rid of our families. But
Jesus does want us to ask this question: where does my ultimate loyalty
lie? And there are times when there can be a decided conflict
between love for family, or love for possessions, and love for God.
There
are still families in the world today where, if a son or a daughter were
to become a Christian, the parents would disown this son or daughter and
have no further contact with them. It would be as if they had
died. You and I have it easy. Our parents, most of them,
were delighted, some overjoyed, when we began to take Jesus seriously,
but that is not universally true. Some people have had to say
goodbye to family and friends forever when they decided to follow Jesus.
You and I might ask if our commitment to Jesus is that strong?
Some of us, maybe most of us, will admit that it is not. We love
the church, we support the budget, but do not ask us to decide between
loyalty to those we love and our love for God. Fortunately that is
not a choice that most of us will ever have to make, but the very
harshness of Jesus' words makes us pause and reflect on the question.
Fortunately,
the question about possessions is much easier to deal with. Most
of us recognize that our possessions are not even ours anyway.
They are only on loan to us. Everything ultimately belongs to God.
And thus we return ten percent of our income back to God. It's not
a big deal. But not everyone tithes in the church. But
hopefully everyone is moving in that direction. It's a question of
priorities. It's a question of loyalty.
There's
one thing that we must learn from Jesus today and that is: If you
ever have to make a choice, your first loyalty must be to God.
Everything
in this world belongs to God. Our possessions. Our bodies.
Our hopes and dreams. Even those we love. Everything belongs
to God. Here is where the rubber meets the road for us. It's
easy for us to be people of God. Maybe too easy. We are like
Job before he was afflicted. Remember the story. God says
about Job: "Behold a righteous man."
And Satan says, "Of course, he is righteous.
Look at all you've done for him." And in this
thought-provoking drama, God allows Satan to take away from Job
everything that Job prizes - his wealth, his health and even those he
loves. There he sits, the saddest man on earth, covered with
boils, penniless, his children all dead. Never has a man suffered
more than Job. But how does Job respond to this devastation?
Remember? His wife tells him to curse God and die. But here
is how Job responds. When word comes to Job that his children have
died in a great wind that devastated their house, we read these words: "Then
Job arose, tore his robe, shaved his head, and fell on the ground and
worshiped. He said, 'Naked I came from my mother's womb, and naked
shall I return there; the Lord gave, and the Lord has taken away;
blessed be the name of the Lord.'"
Later,
when everything he has prized is gone, including his health, Job says, "O
that my words were written down! O that they were inscribed in a
book! O that with an iron pen and with lead they were engraved on
a rock forever! For I know that my Redeemer lives, and that at the
last he will stand upon the earth; and after my skin has been thus
destroyed, then in my flesh I shall see God, whom I shall see on my
side, and my eyes shall behold, and not another."
Did Job
hate his family? No. Did he hate his possessions? No.
Did he hate his own body? No. But he did love God more.
Love
for Jesus causes us to be more loyal to our families, not less.
However, if there is ever a time when we must make a choice, let us be
able to say of God, with Job, “Though He slay
me, yet will I trust Him!” (Job 13:15)
It is a question of loyalty.
It is a question of faith. Is God and His Son, Jesus, first in
your life or someone or something else? I hope you can say with
Job, “Though He slay me, yet will I trust
Him!.”
Amen.
