Hate (one’s family)

“If anyone comes to me and does not hate his own father and mother and wife and children and brothers and sisters, yes, and even his own life, he cannot be my disciple.”
(Luke 14:26)

The chronology and sequence of events is not always obvious in Luke’s account of Jesus’ ministry; however, the gospel provides the context as here. Jesus is being followed by ‘great’ crowds – and John’s gospel records that the crowds often wanted Jesus to perform, whether it was producing food or a healing miracle. This was in danger of becoming a circus, and Jesus would have none of it.

Jesus words can be understood to rebuke those who trailed after him, and it was a deliberately shocking statement, intended to arrest people in their tracks – not least, because he seemed to contradict the fifth commandment, to honour your father and mother that Moses declared to Israel, and many would remember the qualification given the reality of Roman servitude.

‘Honour your father and your mother, that your days may be long in the land that the Lord your God is giving you.’ (Exodus 20:12)

Surely Jesus is not making a new commandment, not merely enhancing but challenging Moses’ authority? Perhaps he does not really mean ‘hate’?

Of course, the statement would have been made in Aramaic but everyone who believes in the inerrancy of Scripture must trust Luke’s Greek to convey authentically Jesus’ words, and the word ‘hate’ is miseó (μισέω), a verb meaning just that, ‘to hate’. Of course, Jesus is not countermanding the decalogue, this was not simply tantamount to blasphemy and would have given Jesus’ enemies every pretext to denounce him; moreover, it would be nonsense to think he would contradict himself, for as God, he wrote the tablets presented to Moses!

Many have looking to understand Jesus have viewed the verb in terms of comparative usage; that is, miseó means to love less than. Others have seen this as hyperbole, which Jesus did use, for instance, in advocating to pluck out the eye that offends (see Matthew 5:29); thus, the hyperbole would suggest that loving God to such an extent makes all other love closer to hate; but there is a different, no so subtle, message behind his provocation.

So, what is meant here? Miseó has another aspect in Greek, and that is to hate by abhorring or rejecting. And that sense helps to understand what he saying by way of his reprove of insincerity of the crowds. How much are they willing to jettison from their lives to come under his auspice, what about eschewing their own family? This then is not about hating individuals, but what the values they represent. Jesus is challenging the Jews to look at what one’s family means to them and, in particular, their family’s priority over God and his priorities.

As Jesus says this is concerns the difference between discipleship and ‘followship’. Though many of his followers might deign to come under Jesus’ rabbinical authority, he was so much more than a teacher, he wanted the Jews to acknowledge his Messiahship. For this to happen – and remember, at this juncture, this expectation was not to be spiritually aided by the Paraclete, the Holy Spirit – required a radical rethink indeed. Jesus knew that to come under his authority and apply his teaching to one’s life, a person would have to recast all they knew – even their relationship to God, which was framed by the Law of Moses, and remember, the primary audience for Jesus’ ministry were Jews, not Gentiles.

The Mosaic Law had many elements, some worshipful and ceremonial set exclusively in the context of the Temple; but many, many more instructions concerned civic and domestic activity. Take the Sabbath, that essential element of Jewish religion; this was essentially a home-based activity. This upheld the centrality of the family as key to their religious practice. Indeed, as Jesus would teach elsewhere, the point of the Sabbath was being lost in all the additional burdens the Pharisees were adding. This became a litany all about what not to do; whereas God’s gift of the Sabbath was a promise to observant Jews that none would suffer by sacrificing a day’s labour; in other words, the focus should not on doing nothing, but on God. The Sabbath then and now is undistracted family time with God.

But just as Jesus would redefine the Sabbath – following him meant being with God in person, not just for one day, but every day – so Jesus would redefine the true meaning of the family, which is an earthly representation of spiritual union. Not for nothing did he call his followers ‘brethren’, and remember the Greek rendering of this, adelphoi is gender neutral. In another astonishing statement, he clarifies exactly who is in his family:

While he was still speaking to the people, behold, his mother and his brothers stood outside, asking to speak to him. But he replied to the man who told him, “Who is my mother, and who are my brothers?”

And stretching out his hand towards his disciples, he said, “Here are my mother and my brothers! For whoever does the will of my Father in heaven is my brother and sister and mother.” (Matthew 12:46-50)

He knew by the Spirit that the crowds that currently flocked about him would reject him, and that any that had the temerity to stick with him would be rejected in turn.

‘Do not think that I have come to bring peace to the earth. I have not come to bring peace, but a sword. For I have come to set a man against his father, and a daughter against her mother, and a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law. And a person’s enemies will be those of his own household. Whoever loves father or mother more than me is not worthy of me, and whoever loves son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me. And whoever does not take his cross and follow me is not worthy of me. Whoever finds his life will lose it, and whoever loses his life for my sake will find it.’ (Matthew 10:34-39)

These difficult teachings then are all about the cost of discipleship, and particularly in the context of his earthly ministry to his own people, who would ultimately reject him. Paul spoke of the hardening that came upon all but a handful of Jews, reduced to one hundred and twenty disciples immediately after the crucifixion and resurrection (Acts 1:15).

So, this is not commandment to be taken literally; flying in the face of all Jesus’ teaching on love and forgiveness; loathing one’s family goes against everything but shunning does not, remember he advocated the believer reject any in unrepentant sin from their new family, the church (Matthew 18:17) which as Paul explained is a loving act to safeguard salvation (1 Corinthians 5:5). So, a follower becomes a disciple if he is prepared to reject his own flesh and blood, to benefit from the sacrifice of Jesus’; putting first and above all other Jesus as the Christ is the principle here.

And that is the application for Gentiles and for that matter the Church, who is now blessed with spiritual insight by the indwelling Spirit of God? The teaching holds but is understood with the wisdom of discernment not available to the Jews at the time Jesus spoke to them. After all, is not unusual, in fact, relatively common to distant oneself from one’s family in the transition to adulthood. It is essential for a young person to believe in Jesus on their own account, not because they are expected so to do. To be a member of a Christian household does not in itself, impute saving faith.

Today it still pertains to those that would follow Jesus must put no one before him as God; replacing family values with God’s and be prepared to forsake one’s family if need be. As Paul would say that in application of Jesus’ doctrine, discipleship is ‘living sacrifice’ (see Romans 12:1); it requires re-evaluating and discarding all one previously held dear, whether the ambitions of worldly achievement, or accumulating wealth, even living through and by one’s family – and Paul is not simply talking about conventional martyrdom, in line with Jesus when he addresses his closest followers of his impending death:

Then Jesus told his disciples, “If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. For whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will find it.” (Matthew 16:24)