Sacred Heart of Jesus Parish

FR MICHAEL’S BIBLICAL IMAGERY

(Rev Fr. Michael Boakye Yeboah, Vice Rector: St Gregory Seminary, Kumasi-Ghana)

“HATE”

The Gospel of the 23rd Sunday in Ordinary Time is laced with a language that is highly uncharacteristic of Jesus. Throughout his public ministry, Jesus preached unconditional love to the extent that he advised his disciples to pray for their persecutors and enemies. On the Cross, Jesus gave a vivid example of this when he asked his Father to forgive those who nailed him to the Cross for they did not know what they were doing. On countless occasions, he preached about unconditional love and did not give his disciples any room for them to hate people, even their enemies.

Luke 14:26, which forms a key part of the 23^rd Sunday’s Gospel, is a difficult text for any Christian. Jesus says that whoever comes after him must hate father, mother, wife, children, siblings, and even life itself. The emphatic way Jesus employs the words satam (Hebrew) and miseo (Greek) – that is “Hate” as a condition for discipleship seem uncharacteristic of the man who loved sinners and died for them. It is within this context that many Christian scholars are of the view that the word may have been used in its figurative context and should not be taken literally. But before we journey with the scholars to understand this biblical imagery, let us take a look at the biblical background and examples of the use of the word HATE.

Hatred is a feeling of intense dislike, loathing, or hostility. One can hate persons, God, or other things. Examples include Esau’s hatred (satam), literally hated, of Jacob who cheated Esau out of his birthright (Gen 27:41). Sane’ is the general word for hate, while satam is more inclusive, suggesting a deep-seated grudge.

Joseph’s brothers hated him out of jealousy (Gen. 37:4). Absalom hated Ammon for raping Tamar (2 Sam 13:22), which led to Absalom murdering him in revenge. The Israelites claimed that Yahweh hated them and that is why he gave them over to the Amorites to be destroyed (Deut. 1:27). Parents who spare the rod hate their children (Prov. 13:24). Jesus observes that one cannot serve two masters because he will hate (miseo) one and love the other (Matt. 6:24).

Hatred brings negative consequences, such as God taking vengeance on those who hate him (Deut 32:41). Jehu announces to Jehosaphat that there will be violence against the king’s house because he loves those who hate Yahweh (2 Chr. 19:2). God condemns those who hate the righteous (Ps 34:21). The psalmist prays that the one who hates Zion may be put to shame (Ps. 129:5). Those who hate wisdom implicitly love death (Prov. 8:36).

Hatred is a positive quality in certain situations. Moses is to look for men who fear God and hate dishonest gain (Exod. 18:21). Psalm 45 commends the king for hating wickedness (Ps 45:7). The psalmist hates every false way (Ps 119:104). The psalmist hates those who hate God (Ps 139:21). Qoheleth states that there is a time to hate (Eccl 3:8). Amos tells the people to hate evil and love good (Amos 5:15). It may have been within this positive context of hate that Jesus addressed the crowd.

“…hate father and mother…”? The language Luke employs is very strong, and Matthew 10:37 softens it to “love more than…” I will like to think that, for one to understand why Luke employed the Greek word misein (hate), one should read the Lucan account alongside its parallel account in Matthew 10:37. After reading the two accounts, one should investigate further why will Luke use “hate” and Matthew will use “love more than…”. The common motives of the two evangelists are to draw home to the believer the need to love Jesus holistically and renounce everything. But to meet their common motive, Luke and Matthew choose different paths. The paths they chose were determined by the audience their respective Gospel accounts were

addressed to.

Matthew had Jews as his main audience of his Gospel account, so in using the phrase “love more than…”, he was addressing an audience who were already familiar with divine way of life in Judaism. But since they have been introduced to the fulfilled way of life in Jesus Christ, they were called to love more than what they have loved. Because the Torah, Prophets and all the Wisdom writings find their fulfillment in Jesus Christ. Therefore, the demand that Matthew makes on the Jews was to love Jesus more than their former religious observances.

Luke on the other hand addressed his Gospel account to the Gentile nations. Most of them did not belong to the “Judaistic Faith” and so leaving their pagan way of life to the “Christ Way” will demand a radical change. It may have been such a change that motivated Luke to use the word misein (hate); because unless they hate their formal ways, they may not be able to make that radical decision of following the Lord.

For one to better understand the words of Jesus presented to us by Luke, the figurative nuances of the pericope should be the focus and not the literally meaning of the words chosen by Luke. Jesus’ call for one to hate father and mother and other love relations can be explained in the following manner. The word hate should be understood as “detachment” or “renouncement”, while the phrase “…father and mother or any love one” should be understood as people or things that one is so attached to at the detriment to his/her relationship with Jesus.

This teaching of the Lord finds a good example in the life of St. Francis of Assisi. Since his family especially the father did not approve of his new found love in Jesus, Francis was ready to detach and renounce family and wealth in order to dedicate himself to Jesus.

            As God demanded loving him with one’s whole heart in the Old Testament (Deut 6:4), Jesus also demands the same undivided love from us. Jesus does not want anything to compete with God. Whoever has renounced everything for God’s sake has moved beyond all calculating. A man has to deliberate and calculate as long as he aims for a compromise. If he has that prospect in mind, he will never finish his tower or win his war. Jesus issues this provocative challenge to a great crowd of people who outwardly are his followers, yet is there anyone in this crowd who is willing to take up his Cross? Jesus gave up everything: his relatives, his mother. He had no place to lay his head. He “considers his life as nothing”, he will “carry his own cross” (John 19:17). Only he who has abandoned everything can receive it back – in his mission from God.

            In the second reading, St. Paul tries to shape Philemon into this selflessness, which is not only compatible with but coincides with pure love. St. Paul sends the runaway slave [Onesimus] back to Philemon, but tells him that, although the slave would be useful to him [Paul]; the decision to let him serve him must be Philemon’s own (the slave belongs to Philemon). By doing this, St. Paul both relieves Philemon of his possession and releases him from any calculating (Philemon gains nothing by sending him back to St. Paul). Indeed, St. Paul dispossesses Philemon in a yet more profound way: he returns the man to Philemon not as a slave, but as a beloved brother, for that is what the man has become to St. Paul, and “how much more a brother to you.” Even that is not enough, for St. Paul raises the stakes – he returns him “both as a man” (for the man has become a fellow man to Philemon by means of St. Paul’s love) and “in the Lord” who is selflessness himself, surpassing any sort of longing to possess.

            From the pen of the author of the first reading, one can learn that, a person cannot struggle by human means to accomplish Jesus’ command of complete dispossession for the sake of pure willingness toward God, for this is Wisdom that must be granted from on high. He who thinks solely in this-worldly terms, has to be “anxious” about many things simply because earthly things are so precarious. This anxiety distorts his perspective on heavenly carefreeness. The necessity to calculate keeps him from gaining any concept of “God’s counsels”, which are based on generous surrender rather than calculation. Only “through Wisdom” can he be “rescued” from this distorting fixation on cares.

The price every Christian should be ready to pay, is to love Jesus above everything on earth. The medieval Dominican mystic, Meister Eckhart once said: “…if you fill yourself with the world, you get emptied of Christ but if you fill yourself with Christ, you empty yourself from the world.”