The Kitchen Sink
An occasional piece of paper
September 5, 2010
Vol. 13 no. 35
Do they really know what they are doing? The Lectionary Guys, that is. Here it is Labour Day Sunday when we honour the workers and theoretically nobody works (even the Riders and the Blue Bombers play), and one week away from our Fall start-up for choirs and church schools. This means there are usually not many families in worship with us, yet.
Today’s reading is all about getting rid of your family, so hopefully, no young children will read this today. Hating your father and mother is not considered a proper topic for all those ‘family-centered’ churches which appear oblivious to how dangerous, subversive, and disturbing a book the Bible is. And this is Jesus speaking, not some angry prophet of yore.
This is perhaps Jesus’ most difficult teaching and it has seldom made sense to most Christians. One wonders whether there would still be a Christian Church if everyone had followed through on these commandments. In the early Christian centuries there were many people who took Jesus literally and abandoned their families, going out into the desert or a monastery to live the solitary life. There were times and places in which one virtually had to be celibate in order to be baptized. However, even at the height of that enthusiasm for the renunciation of everything in order to follow Christ - possessions as well as family - most Christians were still living the family life. There are still monks and nuns and celibate priests, but they are a small minority of the Body of Christ.
The Gospel remains and Jesus’ words are consistent with his ideas on family elsewhere, insisting on what it takes to be a real disciple. You can’t fool around and hold anything back to be a Christian. That’s harder.
Robert Kitchen
Knox-Metropolitan United Church
Regina, Saskatchewan