6 December 2017
Text: Luke 14:26-33
In the name of +
Jesus. Amen.
St.
Nicholas is one of the world’s most beloved heroes of the faith. He lived in the fourth century in Asia Minor,
which is today Turkey. Nicholas was a
pastor and bishop and defended the Christian faith at a critical time. In fact, he was at the council of Nicaea when
the Nicene Creed was born. Tradition
says that he actually got into fisticuffs defending the doctrine of the Trinity
– something we generally try to avoid these days.
Bishop
Nicholas had a reputation not only for being a staunchly orthodox theologian
and defender of the faith, but he had a soft spot for children and the
poor. There are many stories about his charity
and kindness – including the giving of gifts to children.
And
since the St. Nicholas died on December 6, 343 AD – 1,674 years ago today – the
Church all over the world celebrates his feast day today. This being the case, the good bishop has been
forever linked to Christmas, and the celebration of the Lord whom St. Nicholas
served his whole life.
And
so it seems weird that the Gospel reading chosen in honor of St. Nicholas’s
feast day as we approach Christmas should be Jesus telling us to hate our
families – including our children.
Yes,
indeed, what could be more triggering than Jesus instructing His followers to
“hate” – and to say this at Christmas time.
Why would our Lord Jesus Christ say to hate the children?
Well,
obviously, Jesus is using what is known as “hyperbole” – a form of exaggeration
to get our attention. What our Lord is
saying here is tremendously important, for He makes us take a long, hard look
in the mirror to see how many ways that we sin.
He calls us to repent of the most basic sin of all: idolatry. He points out that our worst sins often
camouflage themselves as virtues.
Our
Lord Jesus Christ says, “If anyone comes to Me and does not hate his own father
and mother and wife and children and brothers and sisters, yes, and even his
own life, he cannot be My disciple.”
To
be a disciple of Jesus, dear friends, means that Jesus is our number one
priority – even more important than our families. For we cannot serve two masters. We cannot worship two gods. And we have a habit of finding anything to
worship other than the one true God.
Yes,
even our families can become a false idol, turning us inward upon ourselves in
our homes, and away from the Lord, where He is to be found in the Holy
Scriptures and in the sacraments. How
often pastors hear that parents have to take their families out of church
because of a soccer game or a dance recital!
It is as though anything and everything takes priority over hearing the
Word of God and receiving His holy sacraments.
People who never miss work or pull their children out of school will
routinely miss church – and will do so in a way that sounds virtuous: for the
sake of their families, in love for their children.
Jesus
calls us out on this false piety. For if
we really love our children, we will love God first, and we will raise our
children to put their Christian faith before anything and everything. Or as we say in the Catechism: “we should
fear, love, and trust in God above all things.”
“Above all things,” dear friends,
even above our love for our families.
Paradoxically,
if we “love” our children more than God, we are really hating them. And if we “hate” our children compared with
our love for God, we are really loving them.
And
in fact, to be a disciple of Jesus means that we even love God more than we
love our own lives. For our Lord pointed
out the similar paradox that whoever would save his life will lose it, and
whoever would give up his life for the kingdom will save it for eternity.
This
is what our Lord means that in order to follow Him, we must “bear [our] own
cross.” To follow Jesus means to make
absolutely everything in this life subservient to Him. No exceptions. That includes our own lives, our families, and
all that we hold dear in this world. And
this is real faith, dear friends. To
have faith in Jesus doesn’t just mean we think that He is a real person, or
even that we intellectually acknowledge His historic work on the cross. Rather it means that we trust Him, here and now
unconditionally, even to place our most beloved people and things in His hands,
knowing that in doing so, we don’t lose them, but in fact, save them.
Jesus
compares this life of discipleship to a building project. If we want to build something, we get an
estimate. We make sure that we know what
we are getting into before we commit and begin.
He also compares the Christian life to the calculations performed by
military strategists. How many troops do
we have, and can we win?
Dear
brothers and sisters, our Lord doesn’t want you to follow Him blindly, but
knowingly. To be a Christian is
costly. It will cost your life. It means placing all things in His trust, and
withholding nothing for yourself. But it
isn’t like you are leaving behind the things you love, but rather you are
putting them in a kind of bank, into the hands of Jesus, as the ultimate act of
trust. Do you have faith enough in Jesus
to let go of your most beloved people, and even your own life?
Well,
here is the good news, dear brothers and sisters, what is important is that
Jesus has exactly this kind of faith for us.
He loves God the Father and He loves us more than He loves His own
life. He bore His own cross and hated
His own life in order to save us. He
counted the cost of building the tower to Heaven – not the phony tower of
Babel, but the true tower of the tree upon which He was suspended between
heaven and earth, in accordance with the Father’s will, and for the purpose of redeeming
us. He calculated the cost of the war between
good and evil, determining that His blood was sufficient for victory.
Our
Lord Jesus loved us and redeemed us by His blood. He humbled Himself to be born of the Virgin Mary.
He came to the Christians in Myra sixteen
centuries ago when Bishop Nicholas preached and officiated over the divine services,
distributing the body and blood of Christ to those whom Christ loved, and our Lord
continues to pour Himself out for us today, dear friends, challenging us and strengthening
us with His Word, and instilling in us a faith capable of self-sacrificial love
by feeding us with His body and pouring His blood into us, as the Holy Spirit works
upon us as the gift given to us in Holy Baptism, uniting with us, and making us
holier and more loving with each passing day in His presence, even as we do nothing
but sit and kneel and be fed and nourished.
This
is the lesson of St. Nicholas for us: that we poor miserable sinners, we children
of God, receive divine gifts through the work of the Lord’s servants, giving us
faith as a gift, calling us to love our children and our families not by idolizing
them, but by placing God first and living out that divine love with our families,
whom we truly love by our “fear, love, and trust in God above all things.”
That
is the faith the Lord calls us to, the faith we confess in the Nicene Creed, the
faith St. Nicolas preached, the faith of Jesus Christ given to you, dear friends,
now and even unto eternity! Amen.
In the name of the Father
and of the + Son and of the Holy Spirit.
Amen.
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