"hating" for God

Sermon preached at St Michael’s Baddesley Clinton for 9.45am Holy Communion (Book of Common Prayer) on Sunday 5th September 2010.
Trinity 14, Proper 18, Year C

Readings: Philemon 1-21 Luke 14: 25-33

Outline Notes Only


Gospel reading needs some explanation
- Jesus always says love others, but here he says “hate”

Similar sayings of Jesus:
Luke 9: 57-62 - what Jesus says to people who want to follow him.
let me first go and bury my father - let the dead bury their own dead
let me say good-buy to family – no one put hands to the plough and turns back is fit

Luke 9: 23-26
followers must take up your cross – he who wants to save his life will lose it

Matt 10: 34-39
I have come not to bring peace but the sword


So what is Jesus saying…

Cost of following Jesus is total, - required to “give up all your processions”

Man who builds the tower
The king who sizes up his army.

Processions seems to include family bonds – must come second to the bond with Christ

Examples – Mary, St Frances, experience

Priorities – God first, family bonds second

Even those who are called by God to exercise earthly power often have to have an experience of letting those things go, in order to put God first. Experience of losing.

Philemon as an example, lost his slave, but later returned to him, differently

Wisdom of losing life in order to find it.

Summary – let’s get our priorities right, God in the first place, all else second.
Let’s be ready to lose things for the sake of God, confident that God has other gifts to give us, higher, purified and more refined.
Above all let’s trust God, who created us and gave us all that we have. He has our good at heart and other good things that he wants to give us.
Amen