13th Sunday After Pentecost

Today's Gospel reading features one of the difficult sayings of Jesus from Luke. Jesus says, "Whoever comes to me and does not hate father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters - yes, even life itself - cannot be my disciple." (v. 26) Yikes! This is not a church growth strategy for sure, and Jesus is not making it easy to be his follower. Jesus is not trying to get a crowd, in fact, he is thinning the crowd. He is looking for real disciples who are willing to carry the cross. In our world today, we sometimes try to soften the demands of Jesus, to make them more palatable. But Jesus is making it clear his end goal is human flourishing, and anything that opposes this or builds barriers to it must be set aside - sometimes for a season and sometimes forever. Whether it's our relationships, our comfort, our jobs, our prejudices, our privilege, or even what is closest to us - our family.