Luke 14 – 25 Now large crowds were traveling with him, and he turned and said to them, 26 “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.
Paraphrasing Martin Luther.
“What does this even mean?!!!
This passage has been troublesome for me and many for a long time. Our congregation has a Wednesday morning Bible study group that has been together for a while now. We discussed the passage just yesterday. There were as many thoughts as there were people in the group. It is difficult to overlay our admittedly middle-class US lifestyles over this in a way that makes sense in any meaningful way. Though I think “hate” is a strong word for translation, I’m pretty convinced it is a First Commandment situation: You shall have no other gods.”
The first disciples who were called by Jesus literally left their nets, the family business, and everything else to follow Jesus. But we have families. And we have stuff. And we have responsibilities – God knows!
It has been quite a week. My husband and I live in a small city, a college town. Last Friday, we were eating out at a really nice restaurant for the first time in a long time. By “long time,” I mean that our anniversary was on June 1 (40 years – yay us!) and we were having our first nice meal out since before then. I got a call about a church related crisis during the meal. I won’t go into details. We did order dessert. But then, we went and addressed the situation. We were out until 11 pm until things were adequately sorted out for the night.
I spent an afternoon in court related to that event and more time during the week.
A couple of evenings ago, a dear friend, colleague, and parishioner – all in one – had a medical emergency. Because of our relationship, and my husband’s no-nonsense attitude and professional experience, he had been named Power of Attorney for healthcare by this beloved Child of God. That was before dementia started to steal her away from us. We, her out-of-state family, and the nurse at the facility agreed it would be best to have her checked out at the local hospital. This was early evening. She went in by local ambulance. We met her in the Emergency Department. Having worked in hospice for decades, hubby is big on individual dignity and autonomy in healthcare.
We had many conversations with her out-of-state family and her local friends that night. The attending physician wanted to transport her to a larger hospital 45 minutes away, in the opposite direction from all of her support people. If we could take her 45 minutes in the OTHER direction, she would have had many, and I mean MANY people who love her, who could visit and offer support as needed. We all decided that our friend should not be transported until morning because an overnight transport would frighten her and take her out of her support community. And she was at a point in her life where she wished no extraordinary measures be taken to prolong her life. Her wishes had been put in writing quite some time before her memory started going. A transport would temporarily rescind her wishes. If she were in transit, they would be required to resuscitate her by any means necessary. We talked with this friend, who seemed relieved to not travel overnight. We talked to the Dr who seemed to understand. We thought everyone was on the same page, finally. We could weigh more options in the morning. Exhausted by decision fatigue, my husband and I left for home at about 10:45. At 10:58, the ER doc signed orders to have her transferred to the community that no one else agreed to. (Paperwork later showed that this was a “non-emergent” transfer. No lights, siren, or rush.) The ER doc called at 1:30 am to leave that message that she had been transported. We were so exhausted, we did not hear the notification and only found out at about 7 am.
My husband took the next day off work to be with her, answer questions, and communicate with everyone who needed information.
Another friend is with her today.
I will go tomorrow (Friday).
Family
Today is still only Thursday. On Monday, we received notice that my husband’s uncle passed away. This was someone who was in the family business with hubby’s dad and grandpa. They lived in the same small town. The cousins all grew up together, went to Catholic School, mass, and high school together. They had family meals where grandma would make homemade ravioli from scratch – sauce, sausage, dough, and everything! They dropped in on each other’s homes without notice. They were very close. The funeral is on Saturday. We had talked about going. The funeral is a five-hour one-way drive. On a Saturday. We are both preaching on Sunday. I found myself sending this text to hubby’s three sisters this morning.
Even if we could find someone to cover our Sunday responsibilities, we are probably too tired to make the drive. It is one of the many decisions we have had to make in the past 40 years or so in which we have chosen the person in the greatest perceived crisis to direct our attention toward.
I have always felt that to apply this verse from Luke to my own life and ministry would have been self-aggrandizing. Who am I to say I am that unselfish or such a good follower of Jesus. I’m not. I try, but I always fall short of my own expectations. I can only imagine the Almighty frequently doing a facepalm about me. i can twiddle away time with the best of procrastinators. I didn’t always handle our stress in the best way. Sometimes, I just wanted to forget, or not feel. There is an old theological saying that goes back to the Latin which is basically that “we are all saint and sinner at the same time.” Lutheran theology generally leaves us pretty humble.
I know this has often left us letting family down. We have grown children. We tried to make family our priority as much as we possible could, but we couldn’t always. There is no way to take back time we missed with them. We did the best we could as much as we could. We had vacation time, and took some cool vacations, day trips, and adventures in our own home, but when they had weekends off, we usually worked. I’ve missed some big extended family Easter Dinners when we only live a half hour from hubby’s family – because after Easter at church, my energy and ability to socialize were running on empty. Same with Christmas.
We will try our best to pay our respects to Uncle Julius. Somehow. He was a pretty remarkable guy who paid some big prices for being a truth teller. I’m pretty sure he would understand. But, he’s already on the other side of these kinds of worries. RIP.
I don’t think those early disciples that were simply called to “follow me” had any idea what Jesus had in mind when he talked about making choices between following him and family priorities. Certainly, there is a weird balance between self-care/family-care and outward ministry. I do know, that in the Gospel of Luke, Jesus already had his “face set toward Jerusalem” by chapter 14. That means, he was trying to prepare the disciples for the awful things to come.
I am relieved by the Gospel of John’s account (ch 21) in which even though Peter denied even knowing Jesus 3 times during the “night in which he was betrayed,” AFTER the resurrection, Jesus addressed Peter directly.
15 When they had finished breakfast, Jesus said to Simon Peter, “Simon son of John, do you love me more than these?” He said to him, “Yes, Lord; you know that I love you.” Jesus said to him, “Feed my lambs.” 16 A second time he said to him, “Simon son of John, do you love me?” He said to him, “Yes, Lord; you know that I love you.” Jesus said to him, “Tend my sheep.” 17 He said to him the third time, “Simon son of John, do you love me?” Peter felt hurt because he said to him the third time, “Do you love me?” And he said to him, “Lord, you know everything; you know that I love you.” Jesus said to him, “Feed my sheep. 18 Very truly, I tell you, when you were younger, you used to fasten your own belt and to go wherever you wished. But when you grow old, you will stretch out your hands, and someone else will fasten a belt around you and take you where you do not wish to go.” 19 (He said this to indicate the kind of death by which he would glorify God.) After this he said to him, “Follow me.”
God be merciful to all those who are trying to be faithful followers, screw it up, try again, screw it up, try again . . .
Help us to choose our priorities well. Help us to hear your words of absolution when we cannot declare them to ourselves. Give us rest when we need it. And give us clarity of YOUR vision for all your children.
RDP WRITES 