Remember that time Jesus said to hate your parents?

Do you remember that time Jesus said to hate your parents? Luke 14: 25-27 reads:

25 Now large crowds were travelling with him; and he turned and said to them, 26‘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. 27Whoever does not carry the cross and follow me cannot be my disciple.

Sometimes folks don’t believe that Jesus said this in the Gospels. It seems harsh at best and a violation of the “honor your father and mother” commandment at worst. How could Jesus ask any potential disciple to hate his parents, spouse, family and self?

I am unsure that Jesus is talking about one should hate a specific person so much as Jesus is asking the disciple to hate a system. The ruling family system of Jesus’ day was one called “paterfamilias”. In this system, the oldest living male was the absolute ruler over the family. He could legally exercise autocratic authority over his household. Jesus is demanding that would be disciples hate the “father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters, yes, and even life” that affirmed, supported and promoted the paterfamilias system.

Hating a system of abuse, control and enslavement is very much a Jesus thing.

However, notice that Jesus goes on. He says in the next verses:

28For which of you, intending to build a tower, does not first sit down and estimate the cost, to see whether he has enough to complete it? 29Otherwise, when he has laid a foundation and is not able to finish, all who see it will begin to ridicule him, 30saying, “This fellow began to build and was not able to finish.” 31Or what king, going out to wage war against another king, will not sit down first and consider whether he is able with ten thousand to oppose the one who comes against him with twenty thousand? 32If he cannot, then, while the other is still far away, he sends a delegation and asks for the terms of peace.

In these two little parables, Jesus suggests that the mature disciple does not just “hate” a broken system. A mature disciple considers alternative ways of being before they embark on hating the broken system. You can hate what your parents make you for dinner, but unless you are willing to offer alternatives and help cook, then hating the meal is nothing but a tantrum.

And the only thing tantrums are capable of doing are destroying. I think the United States has bore witness to when the tantrums on the extremes act out: denial of reality, conformity culture, rejection of undesired outcomes, silencing of critique and the elevation of nihilism.

Hate the unhealthy, autocratic and enslaving systems. It is easy to tear those systems down. If we want to help usher in the Kingdom of God we have to see the conversion of hearts not just the application of rules. We cannot just decree a new reality with force without also converting the hearts of others. It is insufficient to tear down a tower without considering what will be built in it’s place. It is harmful to declare war on another unless you are able to convert the other to your cause.

The United Methodist Church has a splinter church called the Global Methodist Church that is doing a fine job at tearing down the UMC. At the same time, the GMC is doing a fine job at showing others what they want to build in place of the UMC. The UMC has to get clear on the reality that many people believe the UMC is broken, unhealthy or toxic and they want to tear it all down. And until the leaders in the UMC (myself included) are able to paint a picture of a new reality for the future of the UMC, there will be more stones cast our way.

We have got to be more direct with our ability to articulate how God’s vision for the UMC is not only faithful but vibrant and healthy. We cannot continue to have the generic messages that God loves you or that you are forgiven. These are important messages, but they cannot be the only messages. We have to be able to address what the Bible says vs. what the fundamentalists of different churches say the Bible says. We have to show in word and deed how critical Jesus Christ and the Holy Spirit are to the world and individual lives.

We have to offer alternatives and an imagined reality.

Being Angry Is Too Much Fun

“Of the Seven Deadly Sins, anger is possibly the most fun. To lick your wounds, to smack your lips over grievances long past, to roll over your tongue the prospect of bitter confrontations still to come, to savor to the last toothsome morsel both the pain you are given and the pain you are giving back--in many ways it is a feast fit for a king. The chief drawback is that what you are wolfing down is yourself. The skeleton at the feast is you.”

These poetic words from Frederick Buechner speak deeply to our time.

To my UMC siblings: Christ knew that we are prone to cannibalize ourselves or our neighbor and so let us call to mind that Christ offers the atoning substitution of himself. To be sure we are called to feast at the banquet table. And we are called to feast to be filled. Christ offers himself so that we do not consume others or ourselves.

Be aware of the angry prophets of grievance who set a table and invite you to a feast promising that they, or their version of Church, will be the place you will satiated.

Jesus as the Means

In the first month, the entire Israelite community entered the Zin desert and the people stayed at Kadesh. Miriam died and was buried there. Now there was no water for the community, and they assembled against Moses and Aaron. Then the people confronted Moses and said to him, “If only we too had died when our brothers perished in the Lord’s presence! Why have you brought the Lord’s assembly into this desert to kill us and our animals here? Why have you led us up from Egypt to bring us to this evil place without grain, figs, vines, or pomegranates? And there’s no water to drink!”

Moses and Aaron went away from the assembly to the entrance of the meeting tent and they fell on their faces. Then the Lord’s glory appeared to them. The Lord spoke to Moses: “You and Aaron your brother, take the staff and assemble the community. In their presence, tell the rock to provide water. You will produce water from the rock for them and allow the community and their animals to drink.”

Moses took the staff from the Lord’s presence, as the Lord had commanded him. Moses and Aaron gathered the assembly before the rock. He said to them, “Listen, you rebels! Should we produce water from the rock for you?” Then Moses raised his hand and struck the rock with his staff twice. Out flooded water so that the community and their animals could drink.

The Lord said to Moses and Aaron, “Because you didn’t trust me to show my holiness before the Israelites, you will not bring this assembly into the land that I am giving them.” These were the waters of Meribah, where the Israelites confronted the Lord with controversy and he showed his holiness to them. - Numbers 20:1-13

You read that correctly. Moses cannot enter the Promised Land because he hit a rock two times rather than just speaking to the rock. Which of course seems crazy. Moses did a lot of things that seemed a bit more “out of line” than hitting a rock in order to provide water. The time he murdered a man (Exodus 2:12). There was that time he smashed the ten commandments (Exodus 32:19). The time he ordered the killing of 3,000 fellow Israelites (Exodus 32:27-29). We do not call these actions “the sin of Moses”, that title is reserved for when he hit a rock to provide water for the people. 

It is easy (and lazy if you ask me) to chalk this story up to some moral or ethical imperative for leaders. Something like, “leaders are held to a higher standard” or “Moses should have had faith” are found all over the internet. And maybe those are true, but these suggest that previous actions of Moses were less important than this one act. 

It is interesting to me that those who told this story of Moses were willing to justify the violence of Moses as though he had a sort of divine permission. Those who told this story suggest that the most important thing is “following orders” - even if they are violent to another sister or brother. We live in a time where we are prone to think that the ends justify the means, but perhaps it is worth considering that God cares about the means just as much (or even more so) than the ends they produce. Maybe Moses could not enter the Promised Land not because the rock was struck, but because Moses fell prey to the idea that the ends justify the means - even violent means. Maybe God forbids Moses from entering the Promised Land because God desires that we pay attention to the means (the way) we use to bring about healing in the world? 

This may be why Jesus says that he is “the Way” and not “the end”. The Way (the means) matters.

The Ten Commandments - Bottoms Up

Human beings seem to love lists. I would guess that 30-35% of sports talk radio is some form of “list talk”. Questions like “top 5 soccer players” or “who would you have in your starting line up” or “worst quarterback of all time” all are versions of “list talk”.

Like most lists, there is a bias toward #1. It is usually at the top of the list as you work your way up from #10. The “top spot” is reserved for the penultimate of the list talk conversation and the top of the list is also a short hand embodiment of the whole list. It is as though lists “build up” to who is #1 like a triangle with #1 being the peak.

This is bias is important in that it impacts how we read and understand the 10 commandments of Exodus 20.

The bias toward #1 might give the impression that the first commandment (You shall not have any other gods before me), is the most important. And there is nothing wrong with that assumption, frankly that is a really good commandment. However, the power of that commandment is lost when we read it as #1 and the others are slightly “less important” - especially the farther down the list you get.

However, if we read the 10 commandments not as a list of descending commandments, but as a list that builds up to something then we come to a keen insight.

If you read the 10 commandments as building up to the last commandment (you shall not covet) then you may come to see that it is #10 that is the most important commandment - not the least.

If we were a people who did not covet , if we did not desire the desires of others, if we were only desiring the desires of God, then all the other commandments would not be necessary. We have false gods because we covet the power of that god. We do not honor the sabbath because we covet the approval of the market to make money. We would not kill or participate in adulatory if we did not covet our neighbors things or loved ones.

The next time you read the 10 Commandments, consider reading them from ten to one and see how that impacts how you understand them. And then, let us not violate the commandment to covet.