NRS Luke 9
51 When the days drew near for him to be taken up, he set his face to go to Jerusalem. 52 And he sent messengers ahead of him. On their way they entered a village of the Samaritans to make ready for him; 53 but they did not receive him, because his face was set toward Jerusalem. 54 When his disciples James and John saw it, they said, "Lord, do you want us to command fire to come down from heaven and consume them?" 55 But he turned and rebuked them. 56 Then they went on to another village.
57 As they were going along the road, someone said to him, "I will follow you wherever you go." 58 And Jesus said to him, "Foxes have holes, and birds of the air have nests; but the Son of Man has nowhere to lay his head." 59 To another he said, "Follow me." But he said, "Lord, first let me go and bury my father." 60 But Jesus said to him, "Let the dead bury their own dead; but as for you, go and proclaim the kingdom of God." 61 Another said, "I will follow you, Lord; but let me first say farewell to those at my home." 62 Jesus said to him, "No one who puts a hand to the plow and looks back is fit for the kingdom of God."

Dear Friends in Christ, may the Lord keep your hearts and minds in the peace that passes all human understanding; for the sake of Jesus the Messiah. Amen.

I've been reading the New Testament for a long time, but even after all these years it still amazes me how radical Jesus was in his call to discipleship. Now by radical, you know, I don't mean wild-eyed or crazy, but rather, radical in the sense of going to the root of things. The English word radical actually comes from the Latin for root, as does the word radish. I don't know how Jesus felt about radishes, but in speaking to the most basic issues of life and death, Jesus was radical. And some of Jesus' most radical sayings have to do with family.

I've worked with a lot of different families in a lot of different situations, but in all those experiences I don't think I've ever met anyone who was neutral about their family. I've never met anyone who said about their family, "Ehh, I can take 'em or leave 'em." People may pretend to be indifferent to their family, but scratch the surface, and the quality that most defines our feelings toward family is intensity. In the very core of our being we feel very intensely about our families, maybe negatively, maybe positively, but always deeply, profoundly, strongly. Family matters typically stir up a big hot cauldron of emotion in us, and in that mix of bubbling, boiling feeling maybe the hottest of all is the drive for loyalty.

Whether we love our family or hate our family, or both love and hate our family, there's always some part of us that wants to be loyal to them. We can't help it. I think it's just something hard-wired into our very humanity. You may have seen the movie "The Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood" with Sandra Bullock. She plays a woman whose mother drives her crazy, and when she talks to her mom on the phone, she often gets so upset that she bangs the receiver on the counter. But she can't just hang up on her; she can't just go click and walk away. We may move next door, or we may move thousands of miles away, but there's some part of us that can't let go, that doesn't want to let go, that wants to be loyal to the flesh and blood that either we brought or that brought us into this world.

In the world of first century Palestinian Judaism, this loyalty to family was enshrined as a sacred duty. It was part of God's divine charter to Israel, in what we number as the Fourth Commandment, "Honor thy father and they mother." The authority of parents to rule over their children and the obligation of children to serve their parents were absolute. But radical that he was, Jesus dared to call into question even this most sacrosanct bond upon which all society was and is still based.

According to Luke, as early as the age of 12, Jesus was pushing the envelope. When Mary and Joseph, after much anxious searching, finally finds him teaching in the Temple, his mother asks him, "Child, why have you treated us like this?" But rather than apologize and ask forgiveness, Jesus answers, "Did you not know that I must be in my father's house?" (Luke 3: 48, 49). In John's gospel, at the wedding at Cana, when Jesus' mother first approaches him to tell him that they have run out of wine, he answers, "Woman, what concern is that to you and to me?" (2:4). Matthew, Mark, and Luke each tell some version of the story when Jesus was told that his mother and brothers were calling for him. Instead of going out to them, Jesus asks, "Who are my mother and my brothers? … Whoever does the will of God is my brother and sister and mother" (Mark 3: 33, 35). This is radical stuff, but edgier still is the way Jesus deals with family in today's gospel.

As Luke tells the story, "When the days drew near for him to be taken up, [Jesus] set his face to go to Jerusalem" (9:51). On that fateful journey Jesus encounters a man whom he commands, in the imperative, "Follow me." The man seems ready to comply and join Jesus on the road to Calvary, but first he asks Jesus to let him go bury his father. Jesus, though, answers, "Let the dead bury their own dead; but as for you, go and proclaim the kingdom of God" (v. 60). Whoa! Another man is ready to answer Jesus' call to discipleship, but before heading out he wants to say goodbye to his friends and family back home. But echoing Elijah's call to Elisha, Jesus answers him, "No one who puts a hand to the plow and looks back is fit for the kingdom" (v. 62). Again, whoa!

For Jesus, loyalty to him and the kingdom he embodies trumps every other bond, commitment, or duty, including loyalty to one's own family. Nothing is more important than our allegiance to Jesus; nothing even comes close to the obligation that binds us to the kingdom of God. The call of Jesus to follow him supersedes every other plea, petition, or request, even the sacred responsibility to attend to the burial of a parent.

Now that's what I call radical, but Jesus is not being anti-family. You may have seen or read news stories of cults and sects who claim the authority of Jesus to brainwash their victims into breaking off all contact with their families. That's not what Jesus is saying. But he is saying that family cannot be our ultimate concern. Family cannot be the most important thing in our lives. Family cannot be our reason for living. And that's good news. Because when we make family ultimate, or most important, or the be all and end all of our lives, then we make family into a god. And when we make family our god, we corrupt and destroy family. I've seen this over and over again. When people make their family into an idol, then that family inevitably becomes closed in on itself, heavy and oppressive, and finally suffocating. Family is a great good, but it is a false god, and false gods always (always! ALWAYS!) break us and leave us dead and dying.

Only God is worthy of our ultimate allegiance, and through Jesus we can truly give ourselves to God, loving and serving God with all our heart, soul, and mind, without destroying ourselves or the great goodness of God's creation, which, of course, includes our families. In Jesus the God of heaven and earth has reached out to us and opened the way for us to anchor our lives in God's eternal, unconditional, unmerited love. And by that love God empowers us to honor our parents and grandparents, to love and respect our spouses, and to raise our children to become servants of God who walk in the way of Jesus.

In the Name of the Father, and of the + Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.