Family Feud

This is the message given in the Wheatland Parish on Sunday, April 21, 2013.  The Bible verses are Luke 15:24-35.


We’ve been looking at things we really wish Jesus had not said. This is probably one of the hardest ones of all. Jesus 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.”

That just intrinsically does not make sense to us. For most of us, our family is the number one thing in our lives. Now, I don’t have children, but I have a father and mother. I have a wife. I have brothers. And they’re very important to me. I love them. I’m guessing you love your family, too. And here’s Jesus telling us to hate them.

And that’s not all Jesus said. Jesus said we should hate even our own lives. That does not make sense to us, either. I’ve told you this before, but I like my life. In fact, I don’t know that I’ve ever been happier. I suspect most of you like your lives, too. Even if you don’t, most of us probably don’t hate our lives.

But that’s what Jesus tells us to do. And we don’t understand it. It seems to contradict the Jesus we know, the Jesus who tells us that we’re supposed to love our neighbors as ourselves. How can we love our neighbors and hate our family? How can we love our neighbors “as ourselves” if we hate our lives?

Not only does it conflict with the Jesus we know, it does not seem to be what Jesus did. There’s no evidence that Jesus hated his mother, Mary. In fact, while Jesus was on the cross, he told one of the disciples to take care of Mary. He said to Mary, “Woman, here is your son” and to the disciple he said, “Here is your mother.” So if Jesus did not hate his mother, why would he tell us to hate our mothers and fathers?

Now, the explanation we often hear is that, well, Jesus did not mean this literally. He was just making a statement about priorities. Jesus was just saying that we need to make sure that nothing—not our families, not even our lives—is more important to us than he is.

Now, that’s a good explanation. I’ve used it myself. It makes sense to us. It seems to cover the situation. In fact, I suspect it's probably right.

But let’s think about it a little more. If we say that’s the explanation, where does it lead us? Because too often, what we do—what I’ve done—is to hear that explanation, nod my head, and say yes, of course, that’s right. Nothing should be more important to us than Jesus is. And then I go on about my business.

When Jesus said stuff like this, that’s not the reaction he was looking for. When Jesus said stuff like this, he did not want us to just nod our heads in agreement and then go on about our business. When Jesus said stuff like this, he wanted us to do something about it. He wanted us to realize we’re not living the way we should and we need to make some changes.

The thing is that, for most of us, our families are so important to us that we have a really hard time thinking of a situation where we’d be forced to choose between our families and God. It’s easier, really, for me to think of a situation where I’d be forced to choose between my life and God. Those situations are pretty much theoretical—I’ve never been in a situation where I felt like my life was threatened because of my beliefs—but I can at least think of them. But thinking of a situation where I’m forced to choose between, say, Wanda and God is a lot harder.

Here’s one that I suppose could’ve happened, but did not. As you know, I decided to become a pastor when I was forty-seven. That was a big decision for Wanda and me. We made it together, and Wanda was on board with it. Suppose she had not been. Suppose I had been convinced that God was calling me to be a pastor, but Wanda had been dead set against it. Would I have still gone ahead with it anyway?

I don’t know. See, I really cannot imagine that situation actually having happened. Wanda’s agreement that we should do this was part of what confirmed to me that what I was feeling was actually real. If Wanda had been against it, that would’ve made me re-think the whole deal. It might very well have made me think that God was not actually calling me to do this. I can say, in theory, that if God was really calling me to be a pastor, I should’ve done it anyway. I don’t know that that’s what I actually would’ve done if I’d been faced with that situation, because I really cannot imagine that situation coming up.

It would be a really tough thing to feel you had to choose between your family and God. Let’s look at a situation that I know affects some of you. There are a lot of times when youth sports events take place over weekends. If your kids participate in those events, that means you cannot be in church on Sunday. So what do you do? Do you tell your kids they cannot be in those events because they need to be in church on Sunday? Or do you let the kids be in these events, knowing how important these events are to them?

Now, before we go any farther, please don’t assume what I’m going to say next. I know the standard pastor statement on this is to say that when I was a kid they did not have sports on Sundays and that’s the way it still should be and you should have your kids in church every Sunday. Well, that’s not what I’m going to say.

The reason I’m not going to say it is that it’s just not that simple. Things are not the way they were when I was a kid, and they’re not going to be. We need to deal with the world the way it is, not the way we wish it was. And the fact is that there are sports on Sundays, and kids want to be in those sports.

Besides, I remember when I was in Wessington Springs, before I became a pastor. Springs was hosting a state teener baseball tournament, and I was the public address announcer. Because of a rainout, they had to reschedule a game for Sunday morning. On Sunday morning, I was at the ballpark rather than in church. And these were not even my kids playing. So I understand that often these are not easy decisions to make.

There are other factors involved, too. For one thing, choosing to sit in church is not the same thing as choosing Jesus. It’s entirely possible to sit in church on Sunday morning and not have Jesus be the most important thing in our lives. It’s also entirely possible to put Jesus first even if we’re not in church every Sunday. I mean, you’re going to miss out on these wonderful sermons, but it’s still possible to put Jesus first without being in church every Sunday. It's also possible that if we tell our kids they cannot be in sports because they have to be in church on Sunday, they'll come to resent the church and we'll get the opposite result of what we hope for.

On the other hand, we have to be careful. We especially have to be careful with the message our kids get from our choices. What we don’t want is for our kids to get the message that sports are more important than our faith, and that if we have to choose one or the other, it’s okay to choose sports. Much as I love sports, I don’t want to give that message to anyone, and I don’t think anyone else here does, either.

So, if we’re not in church on Sunday, we need to make sure our kids learn that faith is more important than sports in some other way. Maybe that means doing daily devotionals together. Maybe that means watching the sermon over the internet together and then talking about it. Maybe that means attending church on the road wherever we are.

It could mean a lot of things. The point, though, is that we need to find some way to give kids the message that believing in Jesus is more important than sports. We need to be intentional about giving them that message. It’s not going to be enough to say the words. Kids hear people tell them things all the time, and they can tell who’s phony and who’s sincere. They can tell whether faith is the number one thing in our lives. They can tell whether we expect faith to be the number one thing in their lives, too. If we want kids to get the right message about the importance of faith, we need to do things that show them that message.

I don’t mean to pick on families with kids in sports here. That’s just one example. There are lots of other examples we could use. We could talk about camping trips. We could talk about vacations. We could talk about caring for sick relatives. There are all sorts of times when family considerations make demands on our lives. I have elderly parents, as do some of you. As they continue to get older, I may have to go and spend more time with them. That may cause a conflict with some of my work here, and it may be something we need to work through.

We need to spend time with our families, of course. We need to take care of our families. But Jesus tells us that nothing, not even our families, not even ourselves, should come before loyalty to him. We always need to put our faith in Jesus Christ first. Again, Jesus did not tell us this just so we’d nod our heads in agreement like bobblehead dolls and than go about our business. Jesus said it because he wants us to do something about it. Jesus said it to challenge us. Jesus said it because he wants us to change.

Family is important, but Jesus is more important. It’s not enough for us to just say it. We need to show it. We need to teach it. We need to live it. No matter what may come up in our family’s life, we need to make sure none of it is more important to us than our faith in Jesus Christ as our Savior. We may not need to literally hate our families, but we need to make sure that, no matter what's going on with our families, we’re choosing Jesus first.