Why does Jesus say that we must ‘hate’ those we love, and our own life, in order to follow him? Why does he say this to ‘the crowds’? What does this teach us about following Jesus—and about the nature of grace?
James and Ian discuss the passage, its importance for our understanding, and issues in preaching on this passage.
In the gospel reading for Trinity 12 in Year C, Luke 14.25–33, we complete our navigation through this section of Jesus’ intermingled teaching and action until we hit the landfall of the ‘parables of the lost’ next week in Luke 15. The double focus on the crowds and discipleship, the drawing together of teaching found in different places in the other gospels, and the lack of specific location all continue as hallmarks of Luke’s record of Jesus in this section.
The first saying here, about ‘hating’ one’s kinship group, is found in Matt 10.37–39, following on in that gospel from the saying about bringing division and a sword that we heard earlier in this one in Luke 12.51–53. In both Luke and Matthew, it is immediately followed by the saying about taking up one’s cross, which echoes the pivotal saying in Mark 8.34 = Matt 16.24 = Luke 9.23. The middle pair of sayings, about the person building a tower and the king going to war and first assessing the cost of the respective projects, is found in Luke alone—which is interesting, since when I first read it, it seemed so familiar I was sure it was in the other Synoptics as well. It isn’t. The final saying in this section, which belongs to it but is cut off by the arbitrary snip of the lectionary scissors, is found in Matt 5.13 connected to the sayings about the disciples being the ‘light of the world’ and ‘salt of the earth’. Since the lectionary is ‘advisory’, then when reading this together you should really continue to the end of the chapter, and consider all these sayings together.
Full text of the issues can be found in the previous post here.
Thank you, Ian. Appreciated.