One of the priests in our diocese posted on social media a timely quotation from theologian William Willimon yesterday as a warning to preachers. It read: “No preacher ought to make Jesus more user-friendly than he ought to be.”
What does Jesus mean, that we who want to follow him need to hate what we love in this life, to turn away from all claims on our hearts, even those made by our children, parents, and spouses? Is that the right translation?
But the most scholarly consensus is that the Greek word roughly equivalent to hatred is what the oral tradition around Jesus’ mission kept alive. And that means that this is really uncomfortable. The use of that sort of word wouldn’t have been arbitrary – these sayings were remembered and retold in their intensity. It is a hard saying, thrown out at a crowd that would have been shocked in their own way. It would have been memorable.
By this point in the narrative in the Gospel of Luke, Jesus and the twelve are becoming more and more acutely aware of the danger that this path is taking them into. To live for the gospel demands commitment and love beyond what we can measure.
We might not be able to imagine what it might be, but there will be times for every person trying to follow Jesus where the cost of choosing love, the cost of doing justice and reconciliation, the cost of trying to be a healing presence rather than turning away, are going to force us into tough choices, and there are going to be many times in which we make a lesser choice, a compromise, a rationalization. It’s a daily occurrence for me.
In fact, that’s the reality in which we live, it’s part of the reality of systemic and personal sin: that we’re never going to get it quite right. Even when we are trying very hard to do the right things, to make the right parish decisions about our stewardship of property and money, for example, even at the point of feeling that we’re doing the right thing, this sort of hard saying confronts us with the fact that we’re never perfect, we’re always called to pursue God’s perfect love and justice in the knowledge that, seen from the perspective of God’s reign and God’s eyes, we are always bound to be unable to do it ourselves, and that we are always bound to rely on grace. The harsh words of Jesus sometimes uncover the grace underneath.
One of the things that strikes me in all of this is how Jesus regards the crowd, how Jesus sees them, sees right through them, even. Jesus isn’t using hyperbole and strong language just for fun here – one of the things that we know about Jesus is his highly attuned sensitivity to others, his compassion for the crowds, even for the ‘rabble’. He knows them.
One doesn’t risk using hyperbole and strong language without knowing your audience’s need to hear them. And so we can assume that they needed to hear these words, perhaps to correct easy notions of what following Jesus would be about. Some may have come for assurances of personal salvation for themselves; some may have come to have their political and social hopes for the overthrow of the Roman occupation to be fulfilled; some may have wanted to touch a healing power; still others may just have wanted to come close to someone who’s now somewhat famous, even if notorious.
These words would have slapped them in the face, and confronted their expectations and desires. It’s not about you and getting what you want, one might hear. It’s about a whole lot more and a bigger story. A dangerous story. From the perspective of one in that crowd, Jesus’s words might have felt like the eye of God burning into their souls. Wow, I can almost imagine a piercing eye of judgement bearing down on me as I look at this passage from the perspective of the crowd and in weighing the relatively paltry costs of my own discipleship to date. I’d really rather not have my soul known with such sharp eyes, eyes that can see what it is that I truly love, seek pleasure in, fritter my time away with, devote myself to, and desire. I don’t think I really want to be seen with eyes so honest and clear. I’d rather not be stripped so bare.
When it comes down to it, I’d rather very much like to have all my clothes on, thank you very much. Clothes of my choosing. I am the one, after all, who knows myself. And who better than me to present me to you? And so I choose my bearing and a way of smiling or timber of voice to project my most authentic sense of self – in my own eyes – to colleagues and friends and neighbours as I want to be known.
All of the harsh and difficult sayings of Jesus have this effect: they confront us with how much more Jesus knows about the true costs of discipleship, and they confront us with the fact that God knows us more than we know ourselves. That God knows me beyond even what I think I know about myself, and that God is always calling me into that beyond, that beyond that is outside of my control, the beyond that is what it is to be truly known by and held in the love of God, the beyond that is in fact my true self. And that true self is not the product of any performance I might make of who I think I am. That true self is only really found when I sink myself into what it is to be a creature of a loving God.
As I was cooking dinner one day this week I heard an interview on CBC with some folks who’d organized a back-to-school event in one of the poorest neighbourhoods in Toronto. A popular musician of many Juno awards and so forth, Maestro Fresh Wes, was the brains and celebrity behind the event, the theme of which was taken from one of his hit songs, Stick to your Vision. Kids of primary and middle school age were invited to a day-long event that focussed on this theme, with the importance of hard work and dedication and keeping on keeping on when faced with the challenges of solving problems. I’m sure there were hotdogs and balloons galore and lots of chaos too and the storytelling in the interview was glowing with how inspirational it was for the kids, to get them excited about working in school to achieve their goals and visions.
Wow, I thought, this is cool. And, by the way, I really love that song and it’s in my head and bones right now. Such a great and positive message and efforts to help to raise kids’ sense of themselves as valued and valuable and worthy of this attention by an important celebrity (who might have been an idol to most of their parents) – what better to amp kids up for a new school year. Way to go!
And then the CBC radio host, Jill Deacon, interviewed a father and his ten-year-old boy who’d been at the event. Great messaging! Hard work will get you well in life! Stick to your vision!
By this point, I was already running the critical questions commentary in my head, whilst slapping myself on the wrist for going there. What ‘vision’ are they talking about? How do you help kids develop a vision? Is there any substance to how they’re telling kids to focus and to work, and on what? It all sounded so good, but I so wanted to hear about these good goals and values that were being talked about, to learn more.
The interview went like this: Jill asked: “What did you learn today?” The child answered, “That I need to stick to my vision and work hard and then I’ll be able to achieve what I most really want in life.” Jill asked: “So can you tell me about your vision? What you want to accomplish and how you’ll do it?” The child replied: “well, I learned that I really need to stick with it and keep at it and work hard and I’m so glad I’ve already got 300 and my vision is to work for more and more, and I’m hoping for like a few thousand.” I actually can’t remember the number he gave because I had no idea what he was talking about. Apparently Jill Deacon didn’t quite get it either so she asked again, “and so what is the vision, the project, as it sounds like you’ve got something underway?” Answer: “I’m up to 300 followers and I want X number of thousands more.” Jill explained for the many of us who still wouldn’t have had a clue: “ah, so this is a performance video you did and you’re working to get more ‘likes’ and people who will follow you?” Yep.
What was it about this that disturbed me so much? I’ve been pondering this for a few days now. I think that the thing that bothered me the most was that I could relate to the desire to be seen. To have my carefully curated performance and presentation of myself be accepted and for people to click their ‘likes’ and ‘following’ of me in social media. I can relate. And I find that this societal-cultural obsession with performance and acceptance is not only pressurising but it’s ultimately vacuous, without real substance. And what is it to support this sort of dynamic as a major goal for which we’d encourage kids to stick to their vision?
I’m probably making too much of it. But the fact is that we are in a cultural context that makes it increasingly difficult for many who are captivated by and captured by social media and celebrity culture to see the difference between the self that we are as beloved by God, and the self we need to present to others in order to win their approval, acceptance, and the computer-mouse clicks of likes, and followers.
Christian faith is a trust in the God of the Psalmist whom we heard just now. The Psalmist who sings of the God who knows them more deeply and more perfectly far beyond their own self-knowledge. More than that, Christian faith is about this God who wants to pull me in that direction of learning from God just who is this person whom God sees me to be. That’s the companionship of brother Jesus along the way, and the comfort of the Holy Spirit emboldens us in the journey.
That learning path begins in knowing that my own self-knowledge – and therefore my own discipleship – is fragile and flawed and always in need of humility and of change and growth, and that the key to that growth and even flourishing in self-knowledge is found when I find that God’s honest and true vision of me, which may seem at times like a sharp and tough gaze, is in fact an embrace of love that reaches an arm around my shoulder and holds me as I try to navigate the tough choices in life with both fierce and tender compassion.
To stick to the vision of the Gospel unflinchingly means to stick to a vision of love and of justice and of peace that is the difficult path of fulness of life, that takes out of us more than we think we can give of compassion and care and commitment, whatever gets in the way of the goal of that path; this is both comfort and discomfort; and it is grace that leads us on this path – grace: that gift of God’s continuing presence and empowerment of us to get on with God’s own work, which can do infinitely more than we can ask or imagine.
Glory to God, from generation to generation, in the church and in Christ Jesus. Amen
The Revd Dr Eileen Scully