Sermon for 18 Proper Year C – Sunday, September 7, 2025
Jeremiah 18:1-11; Psalm 139:1-6, 13-18; Philemon 1-21; Luke 14:25-33
Hate. Hate is a strong word. I remember my 6th grade teacher, who “hated” the world hate more than anyone else I knew at my tender young age of eleven. In fact, whenever one of us used that word, hate, she made a point to spit out her prepared statement, “you can’t hate something unless you can also love it, and you can’t love something unless it can return the favor. Therefore you can’t love or hate an inanimate object. You may dislike something intensely, but you can neither love nor hate an inanimate object.” Thank you Miss. Farhart.
Jesus uses the “hate” word today, and he uses it in the “proper” sense as defined by Miss. Farhart. Hearing Jesus use the “h” word is disturbing – the King of Love speaking of the importance of hate is like the Prince of Peace talking about the importance of war – coming not to bring peace but rather to bring the sword. And it’s especially disturbing to hear the King of Love tell us that we must hate some of the most important people to us in our lives in order to follow him. 6“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.”
Shocking. Jesus seems to be calling on us to reject what to some today is the core unit of our very existence – the “traditional family” model. Wife or husband and children, brothers and sisters, even our own life. Jesus today calls on us to “hate” our family in order to follow him. That message is no less shocking today than it was 2,000 years ago.
However, Hate, as Jesus uses the word today, is not about overcoming injustice or about rendering punishment. Hate, as Jesus uses the word today, is not the opposite of love. Hate, as Jesus uses the word today, is about priorities in relationships; placing a lower priority on one relationship in order to honor a different relationship. Hate, as Jesus uses the word today, is about rejecting a societal or cultural obligation in order to honor a spiritual obligation. Hate, as Jesus uses the word today, is about rejecting your obligation to your heritage, to your birth family, to the nuclear family, as we call it today, in order to honor your obligation to the non-traditional family that God has created for you. Hate, as Jesus uses the word today, is about neutering the power of your obligation to your traditional family and to your possessions and even to your own life in order to free you from those obligations. Obeying Jesus’ command to carry our cross is about putting our relationship with God first, putting our relationship with God above every other relationship we have in this world, especially about putting our relationship with God above our relationships with our family, above our relationship with our wealth and our possessions, above our relationship with our creature comforts, and above our relationship with our very lives.
In this part of the Gospel of Luke Jesus has begun his journey to Jerusalem, his journey to the cross. Jesus wants disciples following him that will have what it takes to go the distance. Jesus needs disciples following him that will finish what he has started. Jesus desires disciples following him that will carry their own crosses out into the world long after his cross is empty.
What Jesus calls us to today is a deathly serious occupation of service to Him above service to anything or anyone else. To Jesus creating a group of capable disciples is like selecting and training a construction crew to build a building. A building must be strong, well planned out, executed with skill and hard labor to make it become a reality. That building you are erecting must be strong enough to stand in the face of adversity, strong enough to stand in the face of everything from gravity to torrential downpours to hurricane winds. Only training and careful planning and dedication and discipline will result in a building that will stand the test of time.
To Jesus creating a group of capable disciples is like selecting and training a an army to fight a war. That Army you are raising must be strong; well selected, well trained, led by one who is experienced, especially if the army you build is facing a foe that outnumbers you. Your army must be strong enough to face any foe in any environment in any weather; to face everything from foot soldiers to cavalry to chariots. Only training and careful planning and dedication and discipline will result in an army that can withstand the assault of a numerically superior foe.
Today Jesus is working to grow his army of dedicated disciples, to grow his army of faithful disciples, and to warn those who are not fully committed that they will be rejected if they are not deathly serious about being faithful to their call to follow Him. Jesus is not interested in disciples who just “fill the seats”, as we would say it. Jesus is not interested in growing his group of disciples just for the sake of growth. Let me say that one more time because it’s so critically important in the midst of worries about declining membership and declining attendance and declining income in our churches. Jesus is not interested in growing his group of disciples just for the sake of growth itself. We should be no different in our faith; in the way we worship, in honoring the things Jesus commands of us, and especially in carrying our cross daily – we are not doing God’s good work just to fill the seats. God is seeking the faithful, not the just the available. God would rather have a church filled with 40 faithful disciples that 1,000 pew warmers. God is not giving out participation awards to those who sit and watch. God is giving out crosses to those who will serve in whatever way they can, in whatever way they are able as they make the journey with him.
The prophet Jeremiah goes one step further in declaring that, in our life as a disciple, we can either be part of the solution or we can be part of the problem, there is no middle ground. With Jeremiah’s metaphor of the potter’s wheel, God declares to us that despite our deformed and broken nature, He alone can rework us into something good. “6Can I not do with you, O house of Israel, just as this potter has done? says the Lord. Just like the clay in the potter’s hand, so are you in my hand, O house of Israel. 7At one moment I may declare concerning a nation or a kingdom, that I will pluck up and break down and destroy it, 8but if that nation, concerning which I have spoken, turns from its evil, I will change my mind about the disaster that I intended to bring on it. 9And at another moment I may declare concerning a nation or a kingdom that I will build and plant it, 10but if it does evil in my sight, not listening to my voice, then I will change my mind about the good that I had intended to do to it.” God makes his message clear – either we will be part of the problem or we will be part of the solution. And if we strive to be part of the solution, no matter how flawed or human we are, God will love us and form us into his rag-tag army, his ultimate force for good.
The Good News today is that Jesus has come to set us free from bondage to obligation and commitment to people and to things that will distract us from our relationship with God. Jesus comes to us and releases us from those obligations that are of our society and of our culture but not of God.
The Good News today is that Jesus gives us permission to put our relationship with God FIRST, because when we put God first, God promises that He will shape us from distorted creatures of hate and of darkness into beings of love and of light, and as beings of Love and of Light we will bring light and love to those who do not yet know light and love.
The Good News today is that God is not calling us to be his Holy seat fillers. Jesus is not interested in growing his group of disciples just for the sake of growth itself. God is interested in calling a group of obedient disciples because the harvest is plentiful but the number of those who can and will help bring in the harvest are few. God has gifted each of us with good and useful gifts to joyfully bring the Good News of Jesus Christ to a tired and weary world. God is calling you and me and every Christian to let go of our unhealthy attachments to relationships that are not of God. God is calling us to help with the harvest with everything our souls can muster.