Yes
he did. Scripture doesn’t lie. Jesus said these things, and just as that large
crowd did over two thousand years ago, we have to contend with them. We have to
come to terms with these penetrating and disturbing assertions. In doing so, we
need to step back, and keep a few centrally important considerations in mind.
The first thing we need to attend to, above all things, is who is saying these
words. It is Jesus Christ. Who is Jesus Christ? Jesus Christ is the second
member of the Holy Trinity. Jesus Christ is God. It was God who first said
these words. In these words, God was not saying anything new. He had said them
all along. In these words, God
proclaims his Holy commanding Word. And God’s Holy commanding Word is the
primary Word which brought all reality into being. It is the Word proclaimed in
the First Commandment: I Am the Lord your
God. You Shall Have no other Gods. Notice in this Word there is no middle
ground, no compromise. God is God, and we should have no other. In other words
nothing should be elevated to the status of a god and be worshipped by us.
Jesus says this in other places in the gospels. When he speaks about money, it
tends to make sense to us, because none of us thinks that greed is good or
would deny the idolatry that can be a part of material wealth. But parents? But siblings? But children? Isn’t
this taking things a bit too far? No, it
isn’t. God is God, and God is entitled to demand absolute and total
loyalty. Anything else, can and should be hated, relatively speaking. You see,
today’s gospel lesson is all about the alignment of priorities.
You
see, there is a reason the commandments are ordered the way they are. Without
the First Commandment being the first, none of the others make sense. The
first, second, and third commandments relate to each and every human being’s
direct relationship to God. Following from these, the next seven commandments
discuss how we are to relate to God through
each other. But the primary fundamental foundation upon which all rests, is
absolute obedience to the first commandment. In today’s Gospel Lesson, Jesus
gives his audience a very specific understanding of what it means to follow the
first commandment. It is to follow him in total and unquestioned loyalty. It
means to follow what he says, and what he does. It means to carry the cross. To
carry the cross means to do as he did. It means to face rejection, to face
persecution, to face crucification. It means to give up everything for the
cause of God.
But
when we examine our hearts and
minds, we know the truth. Who has been able to do this? Who in history has been
able to follow Jesus utterly and totally?
None have. Yes, there have and continue to be tremendous examples of
radical obedience and mrtyrdom. But none have been able to follow Jesus exactly.
The reason for that is that human beings, Christians included, are sinners. And
sinners resist, that first commandment with every fibre of their being. Sinners
want to be god and make the decisions and call the shots, and elevate people
and things to the status of gods. This is why we find these statements of Jesus
so disturbing. The sinner
reflexively rejects God’s command in favor of his or her own ideas. So with the
words we read today, Jesus hits our knee with a rubber hammer, and our foot
shoots up. These words convict us. God’s Holy Word of Law convicts us.
We
are convicted by God’s command.
Yes this is true. But we are not abandoned. Consider carefully. Who speaks these words to us today? Who
is doing the convicting? Well, it is the very same Lord who is doing the saving.
It is the very same Lord who has undertaken the greatest rescue operation in
the history of reality. It is the very same Lord who gave up everything for
you—yes you. You see, without Jesus, humanity would be lost in sin. To be lost
in sin means to be separated from God, who is the source of life and
goodness. It means to walk around
with a distorted perspective of reality, and to not see things as they should
be seen, to misalign our priorities and proceed as if we were god. God has
given us tremendous gifts, especially including family. But sin has distorted,
and in some cases destroyed those relationships. It is only through the
forgiveness of God, which comes through Jesus Christ, that restoration is
possible. It is only through Jesus Christ that humans can relate to each other
as they were meant to. The resurrected and ascended Christ is alive and giving.
Christ is the Word made flesh, who has a special word to proclaim. It is the Gospel—the good news of
forgiveness and new life. But the
sinner needs to be
convicted, and people need to realize their utter dependency on God.
When that utter dependency is realized the good news shines through. And that
Good News is transformative. Jesus calls us to love one another as he has
loved. God intends families to be close and loving. But that can only happen
when God is at the centre—when God is priority one. Many people today have laid
the foundation for good family life. Many people start off in healthy
marriages. Many people start off well into parenthood. But then something
happens, the foundation which was built does not yield the promise of its
design. Many people today embark upon building projects they are incapable of
finishing because they are trying to do it without God. It is only Christ, the
Lord who transforms our hearts, who can guide us to where we ought to go. We
don’t have to do it on our own. We don’t have to. Our Lord is one who has done
it all for us, and will show us the way. Amen.
