"If anyone comes to me without hating father, mother, wife, children, brothers, sisters, yes, and His own life too, He cannot be my disciple"
Gospel of Luke
This Gospel reading from Luke can cause a lot of confusion on its first reading because of the strong language that Jesus is using. Why does Jesus say we must hate our families, even ourselves?
The expression "to hate" as used in this scripture text really means "to prefer less". Some of the meaning probably became distorted in its translation from the original Hebrew and Greek texts to English.
To be a disciple of Christ, one must have a relationship with Him. I've recently read a publication called "The Ultimate Relationship" published by the Catholic Christian Outreach in which three levels of relationship with Christ are explained in images.
The first image represents someone who does not have any relationship with Christ. For this person, Jesus is outside their sphere of interest. So their focus is entirely on the many other things and people that are a part of their lives, but Christ is not among them.
The second image represents someone who acknowledges Jesus as part of their life, but is not completely committed to Him or His teachings. The other things in life are still of greater importance, whether it be people, activities or things. Jesus is just one aspect among many.
The third image represents someone with a Christ-centered relationship. Christ is primary and central, influencing all the decisions and actions of every aspect of their life. This is the person that Jesus is describing as His disciple in today's Gospel.
The important thing to know from this is that in being a disciple of Christ, we lose nothing, absolutely nothing of what makes us free, beautiful, and great. In fact, it is when we are in this right relationship with Christ that we put ourselves in a much more wholesome relationship with all created things, including our father, mother, wife, children, brothers, sisters, and yes, even our own lives. We lose nothing. We gain everything.
You only have to look at our culture and see the chaos and confusion that exists in dysfunctional relationships and inordinate attachments. Much of this is caused by society's disconnect with God's plan for creation, and its inordinate attachment to other things, people and activities.
The two little parables given by Jesus following the above Gospel reading about the person building a tower without knowing the cost, and the king marching off to war against another stronger king , are illustrations of our need to carefully measure the cost of discipleship with Christ. Otherwise, we may begin, but will not be able to finish. And the cost of discipleship is that we must renounce all of our other attachments as the central focus of our lives. We must "prefer them less", and "prefer Christ more". We must become that third image where Christ becomes the center and source from where all our decisions and actions flow. When we do, we discover our true "inner most self" that lives in harmony with God's plan for creation, and a "new life" that allows us to live in harmony with others.
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