8) Unless you hate

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Large crowds were travelling with Jesus, and turning to them he said: ‘If anyone comes to me and does not hate father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters – yes, even their own life – such a person cannot be my disciple. (Luke 14:25-26)

This chapter in Luke’s Gospel probably marks a change in the ministry of Jesus. He has to go to Jerusalem and there be first welcomed by the crowds, and then rejected and crucified. Up to now He has welcomed the crowds and even fed them. Now He has a message of division. He has not come to be lauded as a celebrity; in fact, He has come to be treated like a criminal. The message of the gospel while bringing hope also brings conflict. It is a reflection of the spiritual realities with which He had been dealing for these three years. And depending on how people’s hearts respond to the message of repentance, they will either accept Him or reject Him.

family

Now He presents his listeners with choices which will reveal the true state of their hearts. When He has finished, there will be those who will no longer see Him as the popular teacher, but the teacher of hard truths. In our passage, He begins to outline the importance in spiritual warfare of the need to hate.

In the fourth part of this series, we looked at some comments Jesus made about the family. It was an introduction to this important subject. Now He ramps up the commitment which He expects of true disciples. We can easily dilute the power of what He says and make it just relative, such as ‘you must love Jesus more than anyone else’. This takes the edge off the importance of His challenge. It is misleading to say that hating is equivalent to just loving more. Let’s try to get to grips with what Jesus meant.

emotion

You would think that love and hate were complete opposites, but in fact they are complementary. Love is a very important human emotion but hate is also an important human emotion: they work together to bring balance to our character and actions. Where there is love without hate, love achieves little. Where there is hate without love, hate becomes destructive, especially to the person feeding on their inward hatred. The news is full of all kinds of hate in the world. This makes it something we tend to veer away from. But as we heard from Jesus Himself, hate is a very important emotion if we are to be a true disciple.

I probably should at this point deal with the way the modern use of the word ‘hate’ has become politically loaded. For instance, we now have something called ‘hate speech’. While attempts to try and deal with genuine hatred in society were probably well meant, the word has been so corrupted, that it can even cover something someone says which another person finds upsetting. I hope I can negotiate this conundrum, so that we can understand what Jesus was referring to, and put it into practice.

reformers

Hate is a powerfully motivating emotion which brings with it inexhaustible energy: hate makes you determined. Take the example of William Wilberforce. This evangelical Christian was the driving force behind getting slavery outlawed. He spent 20 years pushing the legislation through Parliament. For Wilberforce it meant enduring attacks in newspapers; he was physically assaulted and faced death threats. The effort compromised his health. But his hatred of slavery drove him on.

Josephine Butler was a Victorian reformer. She was a passionate Christian who was appalled at the treatment of young girls, especially in the way they were traded for prostitution. She was the driving force behind getting the age of consent raised from 12 to 16, to give girls protection from sexual predators. And where did her energy come from: a hatred of the way girls and women were abused.

self

Let’s look at the last part of what Jesus said in our passage:

If anyone comes to me and does not hate … even their own life – such a person cannot be my disciple.

The key to understanding the whole passage is the reference to self: a Christian disciple must learn how to hate his or her own self-life.

This is completely opposite to our natural human way of thinking. Instinctively we are motivated by self-love, self-interest and self-importance; but the Holy Spirit will teach us how to hate all these things in ourselves. Let’s be clear that this is not self-loathing or self-harming – those are destructive, and in fact, self-centred things. Jesus taught that we should love others as we love ourselves: love and hate balance one another. If we want to love others, then first we must love ourselves. If we want to hate the things that are wrong, then first we must hate the wrong in ourselves.

The rage and hatred we often hear about in the news is always directed at other people, and what they do or say: it is short-sighted. Until we learn to hate what is wrong in ourselves, then we will never change. If any of us has a problem with gossip, for instance, then we will never reform until we hate gossip. If we are obsessed with negativity and unbelief, then it will always control us until we learn to hate it.

revelation

It was the poet, Robbie Burns, who penned the line about being able “to see ourselves as others see us”. That is a challenging and liberating experience. But much more liberating is the ability to see ourselves as God sees us. Modern Christianity seems to present God as only looking at us sentimentally – a love not balanced by hate. Surely you and I can acknowledge that there are things in our lives which God hates – unless you are prepared to think you are sinless!

God has no intention of treating us like spoilt children. When we allow the light of Jesus to shine in us, it is actually a very liberating experience. It may be painful and sometimes tearful to see how awful we are when compared to the standard of God’s holiness. But the way the Holy Spirit shows us this, does not produce self-loathing, but a hatred of sin and a desire for His holiness.

opposition

Now with this understanding we can get to grips with what Jesus meant about hating family members. The temptation is to run a mile from this passage because it is controversial. It’s a passage which can be misused to create division in families. But hating is not the same as hostility. My Dad hated my Christian faith: I hated his atheism – “we’re no different to pigs” he liked to tell me. But I only had feelings of love and respect for him. In the Jewish context, this teaching would have meant a great deal more to them than it does to us, because the way we view the present-day Western family is so different to the ancient customs. Being rejected by your Jewish family was a fearful prospect.

A man named Maurice Reuben was part of a wealthy Jewish American family. But after reading the New Testament, he heard the voice of Jesus calling him to become a Christian. Immediately his family rejected him. He lost his share of the business; his brother and his own wife literally turned their backs on him; he couldn’t see his new baby son for 12 months. They even had him sectioned in a mental institution until he was released by a court order. None of this prevented him from becoming an effective Christian evangelist. He was putting Jesus first and so hating his family. But he continued to love them and after three years his wife became a Christian too and supported him in his ministry.

We can understand what is happening if we look at it in the spiritual realm. Spiritual warfare is continually taking place all around us; there is a battle between the Kingdom of God and what Jesus called ‘the kingdom of this world’. When anyone genuinely becomes a Christian, they are immediately attacked by these opposing spiritual forces. These forces will use any means they can, including family pressures. Jesus was crucified by the forces of this world, using Roman soldiers who were ignorant about what was really going on; which is why Jesus prayed, “Father, forgive them for they don’t know what they are doing.” Family members can sometimes oppose our faith even though they may not fully know what they are doing.

clash

But we must understand some other important things. One of the biggest mistakes with this passage is to assume that every family will oppose a Christian in their own family. What Jesus taught was a spiritual principle. He did not imply that there will be family conflict in 100% of situations, 100% of the time. There are many parents and siblings who support those who become Christians.

The kingdom of this world opposes the Kingdom of God. In the spiritual realm there is a clash of kingdoms. In the time of Jesus, the kingdom of this world was largely policed and propagated through the influence of the family. Family ‘honour’ dictated how you should behave. Your family would determine what you were taught, what you could wear, your employment and whom you could marry. In Western society, family influences are not as strong in the same way. But they are not the only influences. The kingdom of this world is also fed to us through education, friends, the media and increasingly the Internet.

So, Jesus is showing that we should hate the influences of the world which prevent us from being true disciples in God’s Kingdom. So even though things are different in our present Western culture, hating as Jesus teaches in this passage has many contemporary consequences.

For instance, many children in Christian families were brought up to believe in traditional sexual morality practised within the confines of marriage. Of course, not all chose to follow this teaching, but instead chose to follow the trends of this world. But now it can happen that Christian parents will change their beliefs on traditional sexual ethics, so as not to offend their own children who don’t practise them. As Shakespeare wrote, ‘there’s the rub’: parents who do maintain their beliefs may well face inter-family conflict.

disciples

The bible teaches in Romans 1:30, that those who reject God’s revelation of Himself may become ‘God-haters’ and then hate those who are disciples of Christ (John 15:19). But if we are ruled by the compassion of God’s love for people, and if we understand the energy that comes from hating what is wrong, we can be followers of Jesus in the world.

We could also illustrate the application of love and hate by looking at the way God is a father to us:

My son, do not make light of the Lord’s discipline, and do not lose heart when he rebukes you, because the Lord disciplines the one he loves. (Hebrews 12:5-6)

Parents train their children out of their negative characteristics and into positive qualities. It is combining love and hate: positively loving children but hating their negative traits. As we all have probably seen, if a blind eye is turned to children’s negative traits, they can be ruined for life.

It is necessary for us to understand what is really going on in the conflicts of being a disciple of Jesus, and the opposition which this may involve. Jesus taught that being his disciple would involve rejection. This rejection has its origin in the spiritual powers which rule this world. We understand that God loves the world (John 3:16), but also judges the world:

Now is the time for judgment on this world; now the prince of this world will be driven out. And I, when I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all people to myself.’ (John 12:31-32)

It is the wise combination of love and hate. It is winning and winnowing (Luke 3:17).

battle

Jesus foresaw the inevitable clash between the Kingdom of God and that of the world. This cannot fail to draw in family members who do not accept Jesus as Lord. Jesus encouraged us to see that the hatred had its root in the spiritual vitriol directed at Him. Rejection may feel personal, especially if coming from family, but it is rooted in a rejection of the truth of the gospel:

‘Brother will betray brother to death, and a father his child; children will rebel against their parents and have them put to death. You will be hated by everyone because of me, but the one who stands firm to the end will be saved. When you are persecuted in one place, flee to another. (Matthew 10:21-23)

This hard saying is to encourage us to stand firm to the end. It would have been wrong of Jesus to ignore the truth of the battle that ensues when the truth of the gospel is preached. We should expect rejection; and sometimes from those dear to us as well. It is also one of the hardest things to accept if we have to move house as Jesus said might happen, because the persecution is too dangerous or even life-threatening for us to remain. Hard sayings are essential for hard times.