Our Priority

Great crowds travel with Jesus. At some point on his journey, he stops, turns towards them and says something that might provoke real questions about his movement. “If anyone comes to me without hating his father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters, and even his own life, he cannot be my disciple.” This is pretty extreme. It wouldn’t seem out of place as something said by the leader of the cult. It seems to violate the fourth commandment, honor thy father and thy mother. Obviously, that kind of extreme interpretation does not make sense: Jesus is not creating a cult that requires us to reject all other attachments. But there is an important truth here. In Christ, all of our other relationships are recontextualized and transformed. To know how that is, we have to continue the Gospel passage, and read it within the context of the rest of the New Testament, and the Catholic tradition.

               Jesus continues, “Whoever does not carry his own cross and come after me cannot be my disciple.” This line means a lot more to us than it did those great crowds that were following Jesus when he said this. For them, this was nothing more than an allusion to a particularly painful and humiliating form of execution. For us, it goes beyond that because we know where Jesus is going when he turns around and says this. A few chapters before this in the Gospel of Luke, Jesus set his face firmly towards Jerusalem, knowing that his time drew near. Jesus is, himself, on a journey to literally take up his cross.

               The crucifixion is such a central point of our faith, and we are so used to talking about it that we don’t often consider how unexpected it is. It would seem that somebody with the power that Christ has, both God and Man, able to cure diseases, expel demons, and even bring people back from the dead, would not have to take up a cross. So why does he? Is this because he hates his own life? Is that what he meant when he turned around and told the crowd they should hate their families as well as their own lives? Many objections to Christianity focus on this point: the seeming rejection of the good of life as lived in this world. And this is a real question for Christianity: God became man, and as God and man, he submitted himself to crucifixion under Pontius Pilate. The answer revealed through the New Testament and repeated consistently throughout the history of the Church, is that Jesus was crucified for the forgiveness of our sins. The crucifixion is not an act taken out of hate for his own life, although it may seem that way, but out of love for us: so that, through His Cross, we might have a way to eternal life, to the life with God we were made for.

               Christ does not hate his life, in the typical way we use the word ‘hate’: he took on human nature and fully became one of us, like us in all things but sin. His bodily life is an essential part of this: God became man, God takes on human nature, destroying the previous separation that existed between God and man. He gives up that life for our sake, gives that body as a sacrifice, so that we might have forgiveness for our sins: so that our relationship with God might be restored though his taking upon himself the rejection of God that constitutes each of our sins. He then destroys the last barrier between God and man: the barrier of death, through the resurrection of His body, the restoration of that body, now in a glorious form, that He gave up for our sins. These are acts of God’s love for us, not acts of the rejection of life. However, this love is given primacy over the good of his life itself: Christ’s life is given up for the sake of restoring humanity to God. It would not be accurate to call this hatred of the body, in the strong sense we use the word ‘hate.’ However, it would not be inappropriate to say Christ ‘hates’ his life in the sense that the good of that life is subject to the restoration of communion between God and man. Applied to us, we would say that our life is subject to love of God and love of neighbor.    

Jesus recognizes that he is not calling us to something easy or straightforward. The parables following indicate that he wants to make clear exactly what the stakes are: both for his listeners at the time, following him to Jerusalem, and for us who also follow him to the Cross, and take up our own cross in imitation of him. To truly follow Christ, we must be willing to renounce ourselves and our possessions: we must be willing to subject our private, individual good to the love of God and love of neighbor that can only exist together. This is what it means to follow Christ. It isn’t a matter of being generically nice and inoffensive, insofar as the wider culture dictates it: we are called to prefer nothing whatsoever to the Love of Christ, as St. Benedict teaches.

               We can see an example of this in the excerpt we have from the very short letter St. Paul wrote to Philemon. Slavery has been a common practice throughout human history, including the period when St. Paul lived. During his travels and imprisonment, a slave named Onesimus became a Christian, and one of Paul’s most important helpers. However, his background created the potential for complications: although it is not clear in the letter, some commentators think Onesimus was a runaway slave, who had perhaps stolen money from his owner as he fled. So Paul sends Onesimus back to Philemon, his owner, and also a Christian, with this letter. He leaves the choice of action to take in the hands of Philemon, but makes it clear the way Christians ought to relate to each other. Paul makes it clear that, in Christ, Philemon should no longer consider Onesimus a slave, but instead a brother: the life in Christ that Philemon is called to as a Christian obliges him to act outside of his cultural norms: Philemon is to consider Onesimus as equivalent to Paul himself. It is a carefully worded and diplomatic letter, since it is meant not to denounce Philemon, but to encourage him to turn to Christ rather than to cultural norms in deciding how to treat his neighbor.

               We are similarly called to prioritize love of God and love of neighbor to everything else, even when it may take us outside our culture’s norms. However, it can sometimes be difficult to figure out what actions this means we should take at any particular time: all actions involve those God wills for us. As the reading from Wisdom asks, “Who can know God’s counsel, or who can conceive what the Lord intends?” The conclusion given in the book of Wisdom is that the paths of those on earth are made straight only by the Holy Spirit sent by God from on high. The Holy Spirit speaks to us, and we must listen.

               But what can we do? Are we just passive observers? Of course not. We are given the Holy Spirit through the grace of the sacraments of Baptism and Confirmation. Through the regular practice of Confession, and receiving Christ’s body, blood, soul and divinity in the Eucharist, our strength is renewed. Through our participation at the sacrifice of Christ in the Mass, we apply His grace to our life. Through a regular life of prayer and ascetic practice, we experience of His presence. It seems like a kind of hatred of our life. It can even be interpreted at times as a hatred for those who, in human terms, are closest to us: father and mother, wife and children, sisters and brothers. However, it is not, it is just a recontextualization of those relationships. Instead, our love for God, strengthened through engaging in the life of the Church, brings us to truly love our neighbors, including those closest to us, as ourselves, as fellow members in the body of Christ, the Church.