I don’t hate any members of my family. I don’t hate my life. Unlike Saint Francis, I haven’t renounced all my possessions. So where does that leave me?
According to today’s gospel, not in a good place. I can’t be a disciple of Jesus. (Luke 14:25-33)
But I’m sorry, that just doesn’t make any sense!
Can we make any sense of this? Should I just mutter “some things too great for me (Ps 131), don’t mess with it” and move on? But what Jesus says is so striking, so clear, it’s hard to argue “oh that’s too complicated, I can’t expect to understand that”. If that’s too complicated, then what can I rely on?
Let’s take up the challenge. Where to start? The simple clarity of “you have to hate your family” doesn’t provide any wiggle room. How can that possibly mean anything other than what it clearly says? So let’s put it to one side. And the “renounce all your possessions” bit as well. What’s left? Well a lot of stuff about building towers and going to war. That doesn’t seem to make much sense either, but we can ignore that bit surely? But…
Those pieces are linked firmly together. Jesus says “in the same way” – in the same way as a commander in war assesses the odds before going into battle, you have to renounce everything. “The same way”! What same way? There is no connection between these things. This argument doesn’t join up.
What are we trying to join up? Wars and building towers with hating our family? This makes even less sense than when we started. It must be time to back off. “Things too great for me”…
Before we concede defeat let’s simplify. Let’s just focus on the wars and the tower building. Jesus presents them as two illustrations of the same thing. In what way are they the same – they are both examples of planning. And more specifically planning in a situation where you should be taking account of something obvious. Don’t start what you know you can’t finish – we all know that, or we should.
So Jesus is talking about planning. That’s not so obscure. But it still has nothing to do with hating and renouncing. Well it clearly did to him – that’s what he says: just like these examples of planning for the obvious, or what should be obvious, you need to hate and renounce …
What planning are we doing? What planning is, or should, everyone be doing? Jesus is talking to “huge crowds”. This isn’t some challenge for a special minority of saintly types, this challenge is thrown out to everyone.
The one challenge we all face is that we will die. That’s something we would prefer not to think about. We can’t plan for that anyway. We don’t know when, or how, it is going to happen so how could we plan for it. No, we should focus on the present, or at least the immediate future, focus on doing good now and let the rest take care of itself.
Argh. Now Jesus has found a place to poke us. Not good enough he says. If you are silly enough to get into starting something without thinking it through and knowing you can carry it to a successful conclusion, then you deserve to have people make fun of you. So shouldn’t you plan for your death. As anyone will tell you – you can’t take it with you. All those possessions, even your most treasured relationships, at that point they mean nothing, they have no value.
So plan for that. Accept that reality. You will never win that battle. Back off now. Disconnect from those possessions, from those relationships. Jesus isn’t telling us to throw them away, to trample on them. For sure you can use them in the meantime, you can enjoy them, but if you aren’t thinking ahead to the point where they are gone then… well that’s pretty dumb. If you’re so attached to them that you’re going to leave this world crying out for your mother or your car then you are in a bad way.
You are not defined or held captive by your possessions, by your relationships with people around you, even by your own life. You are defined, your value, your capability, your strength, comes from one thing only – the fact that God loves you. You will die, God loves you. It’s ok. Plan for that future. Face it clearly. It’s ok. God loves you.