Domes - Our Monthly Newsletter
Dunbar UCC
September 9, 2007
Jeremiah 18:1-11
Luke 14:25-33
Hate Your Mother
- My mother and I have a great relationship. I call her and talk with her a few times a week. She thinks walk on the water -- but I tell her to keep that a secret. So she was startled when I told her today’s sermon title. She said, “You’re not serious, are you?”
- I said, “Mom -- you read the Bible. Don’t your remember that Jesus said that? He wants us to hate our family and our lives too.” Mom said, “He didn’t mean that, did he?”
- What a great scripture lesson to have on such a fine, family occasion as Rally Day! We got our sign out front inviting all to come and enjoy food and games -- we promise you a fun time -- and then, after we lure you all in here, and we pass the peace and greet people we haven’t seen all summer -- after all this cheer, I say: “Good to see you all -- welcome back -- now let’s all follow Jesus and hate our families!”
- This is a good time for me to put in a plug for Bible Study. We have Bible Study here every Monday evening from 7-8. Maybe four to eight people come to those. But if you came to Bible Study you’d see a scripture passage like this -- and you’d understand what it means. It’s our responsibility to know the scriptures. How can we follow Jesus if we don’t know him? Jesus did say hate your mother -- hate your children -- hate your spouse -- your brothers and sisters too. He also said, or implied, hate your country, and your comfort. Hate your security and all your money. Hate your political party, and your lifestyle. Hate everything that comes between you and God.
- That’s what Jesus was talking about. He was talking about the first and most important commandment that Moses gave us. Every other commandment comes from that -- every law in the Bible comes from that -- every lesson that Jesus taught, every parable -- comes from the 1st Commandment, which is: “I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage. You shall have no other gods before me.”
- That’s what we’re talking about here. Jesus doesn’t want you -- literally -- to hate anyone. He used hyperbole to make a point. And the point is that if your mother says “never forgive those people,” and Jesus says, “forgive 70 times 7 times,” you listen to Jesus, not your mother. And if your country says, “Kill the enemy,” and Jesus says, “love your enemy, and do good to them” you listen to Jesus -- even if people call you “unpatriotic.” Because Jesus is our God, right? Not the U.S. Government.
- Are you surprised that, at the end of his short ministry, Jesus lost most of his followers. What politician would say, “Folks, our enemies did a terrible thing to us when they flew two planes into the World Trade Center. But we need to love them -- we need to forgive them and find a way to make peace with them.” Are you going to vote for them? And yet, the one we say we’re following -- the one this church is named after -- told us just that. Maybe before we get too far into the new church year -- we should take another look at Jesus -- and decide if we really do want to follow him. By church growth standards where a growing church is a successful church -- Jesus failed. His followers dwindled until, when he was finally executed, only his mother and a few others were there to watch him die. In the past few years, our numbers have dwindled. Maybe that’s a sign that we’re doing something right. It happened to Jesus too. You come here on Rally day and we invite you to have a good time, but first, we say, “We follow Jesus, not Hilary Clinton or Rush Limbaugh. That means we love our enemies and only want to do good to them. We don’t believe in war and violence as ways of settling conflicts. So we’d like you to sign our petition to end the Iraq war. And we love gays and lesbians and people of every color and race. We love good and bad people here. We will even sacrifice our lives for the well-being of another person, because this is what Jesus taught us.” So come to Rally day, but first pick up your cross and follow Jesus -- pick up your instrument of torture and death and put yourself on it -- and hate whatever or whoever tells you to put that cross down. Good. Now that we’re clear about that -- let’s have some fun, and enjoy this first day of our Church School year.