Why You Should Love Jesus More Than Your Family
How is this even possible?
Did you catch what Jesus said? He said something in today’s Gospel that can seem completely impossible.
He says, “Whoever loves father or mother more than Me is not worthy of Me. And whoever loves son or daughter more than Me is not worthy of Me.” Then He goes on to say, “Whoever does not take up his cross and follow Me”—the most cruel form of torture that the Romans would offer against the people—”is not worthy of Me.”
So what does Jesus mean here about not being worthy of Him? We can maybe translate it as not being qualified to follow Him—that if you do not love Me more than your children, you do not love Me more than your parents, you’re not qualified to follow Me. Or to put it a different way, if you try, you won’t be able to.
That’s what He’s saying. It’s very clear here that following Jesus requires everything from us.
So the context of this passage actually gives us a little bit of an understanding of why Jesus is saying this. Jesus had said to His disciples, “I have not come to bring peace, but the sword.”
Now, you might ask yourself, “Well, what do You mean Jesus didn’t come to bring peace?” Actually, He came to bring peace. He came to unite the human race in Himself.
But the effect of His coming was division.
Why? Because everyone responds to Him differently. In other words, His coming divides the human race because our response to Him is divided. Some people choose to accept Him, to follow Him. Some people choose to reject Him.
And therefore, in the early Church, in the time of Jesus, when Jesus was coming and preaching and after He rose from the dead, there were great divisions in families.
People followed Jesus; people didn’t follow Jesus. And those who followed Him were persecuted. They were resisted. And some of them were even put to death by their own family members in such a way that if someone chose to love their family members more than Jesus, what would they have to do? They’d have to compromise on their faith. They’d have to stop following Jesus in part or altogether, thereby not being able to be His disciple.
But those who chose to follow Jesus in difficult circumstances found themselves resisted and persecuted.
The key thing to remember is that while today our children and our parents aren’t really putting us to death, we have to acknowledge that this is very difficult for many of us.
And not only are many of us struggling, there are some people who are struggling and they don’t even realize it. Let me be specific.
There’s very likely some people here who have been cut off by their children or given the silent treatment because you’ve expressed disapproval of their sexual lifestyle.
Maybe some of you have been cut off because you refused to go to that same-sex wedding.
Maybe some of you were cut off because you believed it was remarkably imprudent for you to attend that wedding that was outside of the Church.
Maybe some of you have parents who don’t support you in your faith. They don’t really have the same kind of convictions that you have, and you don’t have support. Sometimes you feel not only unsupported, but you feel marginalized in your family.
And there may be some others who are struggling, but they don’t realize it.
Some people are struggling because, in order to keep the peace, in order not to rock the boat, they choose to remain silent about their convictions about Jesus and His teachings within their family.
Image: Photo by Tamara Govedarovic on Unsplash
