Let’s start with the elephant in the text for today, shall we? Jesus says that to follow him, you must “hate father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters, yes, and even life itself.” And that feels so very contradictory to the rest of what Jesus has to say. What about his instructions to love? Don’t they apply to our closest kin? Or even God’s commandment to honor your father and mother? This sounds like the opposite.

The word in Greek is “miseo” which does mean to hate. The softest definition we could possibly give it would be “to give something less esteem, or less importance.” It’s the same word Jesus uses when he says, “No one can serve two masters. Either you will hate the one and love the other… You cannot serve both God and money,” in Luke 16:13. It’s also the word he uses in John 12:25 when he says, “Anyone who loves their life will lose it, while anyone who hates their life in this world will keep it for eternal life.” These ultimatums seem unreasonable, and in the wrong hands, they could even be dangerous. So why does Jesus say it?

Well, his explanation is: if you’re gonna build a tower, you should make sure you have the funds before you lay the foundation, and if you’re gonna go to war, you should double check that you can win it before you lose your army. I think that Jesus knows that being his disciple will come at a cost. It will cost him his very life to practice what he’s preaching. What he’s teaching is so counter to the way of the world that we live in, he knows it will cause rejection for those who follow him, and it may lead them to face impossible choices.

So, I think Jesus is being honest about where this path may take them and asking them to consider that beforehand. Will you still want this if your family rejects you for it? Will you still choose this path, even if that means losing your status, inheritance, or influence which are all tied to that family? Yes, his way is the way of love, but it is a love that extends to all people, which is often unpopular. Sometimes, even with the people that we love the most.Living in this radically counter-cultural way, is difficult to do, and not everyone will be willing to do it with us. Each of us must commit ourselves to the way of love, because it takes so much intention, care, and effort to walk this path that not all are willing to give.

This kind of commitment to living in a different way is in our UCC roots. When we were formed, it was because of a group of churches that committed themselves to unity. They set out to bring their denominations together, instead of dividing them into more denominations as most churches in America were doing at the time. It turns out, coming together was more difficult than splitting apart. The former denominations had to be willing to die to allow the new one to flourish. Churches and people who were steeped in their own traditions faced losing that former identity to gain a new one in the UCC. Our denomination was decades in the making as these groups negotiated what they could and couldn’t let go of. There were more than a few moments where it seemed like it wouldn’t work, but eventually it did, and our denomination still works hard to keep building unity today.

In July, I went to our General Synod, where all of the UCC’s decisions get made. This national gathering is not for our leaders to come and give directions to the churches and people of the UCC. It is where the people and churches of the UCC come to give directions to our national leaders. Delegates from every conference come together to decide who will lead us and how. We do not have a leader whose job description includes divining God’s will for us. We are the body of Christ together, and so together we make the choices, and that process is lengthy, and frustrating, and requires each of us to relinquish our individual control over the process and the outcome.

Our delegates even work together to decide the UCC’s stances on social justice issues. I sat in on the committee meetings for a resolution called “Responding to the Federal Government’s Attack on Immigrants, Migrants, and Refugees.” Just like at many committee meetings, there was some talking in circles, some heated moments, and some moving ones as well as we heard stories about people who are afraid to go grocery shopping, or to the hospital, or to their jobs because they’re afraid of being arrested and deported.  The ones who wrote the resolution, turn it over to a committee for review. The committee can’t completely rewrite the resolution, but they can make some changes to it. Once they’re done, they hand it over to the general synod, where there is more debate, possibly further changes, and eventually a decision on whether it will pass or fail. So, for days, there were lots of individual thoughts, stories, and opinions shared on this topic, because people cared deeply about supporting our immigrant neighbors. Some moments were beautiful, and some felt like they were bogging things down, but we took the time it took to have the conversations.

Ours is not a fast process, nor am I saying it’s a perfect one, but in it I could see our commitment to being in community with each other. I could see that we were trying to live the way of Jesus, even when it invited conflict and passion as we all chose to sit and hear each other out. And while the resolution was ultimately passed by our general synod, in the UCC, we are still individuals. We are united in faith, but free in conscience to follow Christ for ourselves. We don’t get to control each other; we just have to trust each other like a big extended family, and it’s our commitment to freedom and respect for each other that makes that trust possible.  We love deeply and manage the messiness with as much grace as we can. That’s the beloved community of God, and it is our choice to accept the costs that come with it.

What I think Jesus is talking about here is our agency. Not even God can make this commitment for us. We must be willing to carry our crosses. We must choose to stay in community, and to do the work that it requires, and no one else can do it for us. We are free to choose not to, if the cost is too high. Following Jesus may cost us even our family ties, as we choose loyalty to our whole human family. Anyone who’s been rejected by their family for loving their queer neighbors or queer selves, knows how heartbreaking that choice can be.  Following Jesus will often cost us our comfort and requires us to be willing to let some things go, like anything that harms our neighbors, and the power we like to hold over them that keeps us from loving them as ourselves. That can be a steep price for us to pay.

As communities in Minneapolis recover from another school shooting, I wonder how many children it will cost us before we give up the power of our guns. When will the cost of human lives outweigh the cost of relinquishing our easy access to killing machines? How long will we continue to deem that price too high to pay and continue choosing the curses of the path that leads to death, literally allowing ourselves to perish. As with the path to life, we are free to choose the path that leads to death. It may require less sacrifice from us in the moment, but still, God warns us that it comes with consequences. So, God has set both paths before us, and it is for us to choose which one we will commit to.

It seems like a paradox for Jesus to say that we must hate our lives to choose the path to life, but after reflecting on this, I think it kind of makes sense to me. There have been moments in time when I hated my life. I think that most of have them. It’s a scary place to be, but when I look back on those times now, I think they may have helped me to find my freedom. Because realizing that I hated the way I was living, made me want to live differently. It made me care less about what other people expected, and care more about what I expected for myself. It took some work, and it didn’t happen overnight, but I decided to be happy and be myself, and without those moments, I would not have found the UCC or become the pastor I am. I chose more life for myself, and so must we all, to reach the future God has promised us.

Perhaps what Jesus is saying that the comfortable do not choose to change, but the ones who are hungry for change will lead the charge for it. Perhaps we need to be a bit dissatisfied with the path we’re on to become the ones who care enough to change our course. It is a commitment, one that is costly and unpopular, but to reach life, we must choose it with our whole hearts. Even though it is more difficult to come together than it is to split apart, and the committee meetings are twice as long, the way to life, the path of Jesus, is a commitment to life abundant for everyone. If the peace we have been promised is ever to be our reality, it will be because of our willingness to pay the prices that come with reaching it. Only through our choices, our agency, and our hard work together with God, will it be possible. May we pursue life. Amen.