Homily - 23rd Sunday - Year C - The Cost of Discipleship - Luke 14:25-33

The Gospel is about the good news.  Luke’s gospel is especially good news because of his preferential option for the poor and for those who had a hard time in society and especially women.  But although the gospel is good news it also contains a warning in today's reading about the cost of discipleship.  But this warning can be a little bit hard to hear today because of the strong language that's used in Jesus's speech.  He says “Anyone who does not hate their family is not worthy of me!”  For most of us this is not good news at all and we really need to discuss this today and reflect on it a little bit.

The word “Hate” here is a problem.  For most of us, the word “hate” is filled with strong emotion, anger, violence, fear, revenge.  But the problem in the Gospel is with the language and the way that it's been translated.  We start today with Jesus speaking to his disciples in Aramaic, a culture which used parables, deep hints, calls to heaven, and many wild exaggerations as part of their daily speech.  This spoken word was then written down into Greek, a language of cool-headed philosophers.  Finally the original Greek text has been translated into English, who pride ourselves as been rational and practical.  We all know what happens to the meaning of something when the message gets passed from person-to-person-to-person and so we need to understand that this can happen here as well. 

If you look at Matthews translation of exactly the same discussion and the way he writes it down, he says that Jesus said, “Whoever loves their family more than me is not worthy of me”, - very different - so why did Luke used the word “hate” in this case. 

Well, Luke was a doctor, very well-educated, and able to write Greek himself whereas Matthew probably had someone translating it and writing down for him as he spoke the story.  The Greek language was the language of philosophers and the language of the intellectuals of the time, it is a very sophisticated language with many different words for different shades of meaning.  I'm sure you’ve all heard before that they Greek language has four different words for “love” when we only have one in English, and the same is true for the word “hate”.  Luke uses the Greek word “Miseo”, which is a word which is devoid of the anger and violence that the word hate brings up for most of us.  The Greek word “miseo” is used to mean “to set aside or to be apart from” and what Jesus was saying in Luke’s translation is that we need to perhaps have the courage to be set aside from or separated from our family, if they stand in the way of our following Him.

Actually, it’s not unreasonable that we misunderstand if you think about the way you we use the word “hate” in so many different ways.  We may say, “I hate bananas” and what we really mean is the taste doesn't appeal to me.  We may say, “I hate school!” especially on this weekend of Labor Day and what we really mean is, “I don't want to go there, I wish the summer wasn't over!”  We may say that we hate an idea or a concept and what we really meaning is that we disagree with it. 

And so we need to understand that when Luke used the word “hate” here he wasn't referring to the kind of angry violent criminal hate that we see so often in the world around us and that has been so sadly acted out in Russia this week and has happened in Israel and United States and all over the world with terrorism and with those who feel that their “hate” is justified.  Jesus has never supported that kind of hate.  We weren’t there to hear Jesus speak and hear his tone of voice and see the _expression on his face so all we have is this cold word written down before us to capture what he really meant.  I hope this helps you see that Jesus is still the God of love, even if he has tried to wake us up with his stern warning.

So when Jesus says to us that we must be separate and perhaps set aside from our families he is referring to the cost of discipleship.  He is talking about the times when, as we've heard before, parents try to discourage their children from becoming priests or sisters because they want grandchildren or they want the family name to continue and so they stand in the way of their children and what God is calling them to do. 

This kind of family attachment we are called to step aside from. 

We may also see the times when parents try to protect their children from the correction that is due to them, and try to defend them from those who caught them doing wrong under some misguided sense of family loyalty instead of realizing that we need to learn to do what is right in order to grow and to follow Jesus properly.

The cost of discipleship may cause us to step aside from our friends as well, if they want us to do something that we know is wrong.  This is especially hard for young people who may be enticed into activities that they know they shouldn’t be participating in, from smoking and swearing at one end to drug's and sex on the other, by false friends.  Friends who they should “hate”, that is they should step aside from and separate themselves from if they want to be a disciple.

And so as I said at the beginning in Jesus message today, it is not about hate but it's about what it may cost us to be disciples.  I'm reminded of the story of the woman who walked into the fancy Yorkville Boutique and saw a dress on the rack and asked the saleslady, “How much is this dress?”

The saleslady looked down her nose at her and said, “if you have to ask, dear, you can't afford it!”

Well I say to you, we can't ask how much it costs and we can't afford not to pay it either - when Jesus calls we simply have to give until it's time for us to stop giving without counting the cost. So we need to know before we start to follow him, that this is what it may come to. 

Each of us has to ask ourselves, “What are the limits that we have set to what we're ready to give to be a disciple of Jesus?” and then ask ourselves, “Are we ready for the challenge?”

Are we ready to be honest in our dealings at work he even when we know we wouldn't be caught if we did something dishonest.  Are we ready to walk away from the behavior of our friends even though it means they may reject us.  Are we ready to stand up and defend those who are being picked on by our friends or picked on by society even know it may mean that we are the next victims of the bullies or the hate-mongers.

What is the cost we're prepared to pay in our daily lives, could we consider giving up one evening a week of television and not watching our favorite shows, so that we can go out amongst the community and help.  Perhaps at a hospital or old people's home and perhaps by joining the Legion of Mary and visiting those in our own parish, or one of the other many worthwhile parish organizations that can only exist with your help.

There was an old commercial on the television for Framm Oil Filters that said, “You can pay me now or you can pay me later!” and it was talking about repairs to cars and how if we put them off it will inevitably cost a lot more later.  But right now, this gospel calls us to realize that there is a cost of discipleship, and its due now, not later, it may be a serious cost - even causing us the alienation of our family, those we love, our friends, our way of life, or even our life itself. 

We live in a comfortable, quiet, well-ordered society here, where we aren't facing terrorists in our schools and so it’s hard for us to know what we would do if we were faced with the choice between staying true to our faith or saving our life, whether we would have the courage to die for the word of God or to defend someone else who was innocent at the cost of our lives if that is what God called us to do!

All we can do today is pray that we would have the courage to do what we have to do.  And we can begin right now by coming forward to the Eucharist, by receiving Jesus in our hearts and asking him to always be with us when these decisions must be made so that we will know what is the right thing to do.  Jesus wants us all to be family and he wants us all to be brothers and sisters worldwide who love each other and he wants us to have true family love which supports one another in our discipleship and which helps us all reach our salvation together.  If he is with us he will help us to pay the price to achieve this.

When we have looked in our hearts and understood the price we're willing to pay and we are given the strength to pay it then we can look forward to the promise the Jesus has made that whatever price we pay, it will be a small investment towards the reward we receive in eternal life, and that my friends really is good news.

- Deacon Steve