TEACHING
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SUNDAY, SEPTEMBER 04, 2022
10:30 AM (communion) HATE and Hyperbole Luke 14:25-33; 2 Corinthians 6:14-18 with Shel Boese Today’s world claims to be more advanced, progressive, etc. but hatred is everywhere—even if we avoid the word. Jesus’ way is a path of love so how does he teach to 'hate your family and hate your possessions'? We’re even told to separate from or “cancel” some people. What do we do with these teachings, and how does context shed light on them? Are we called to hate in some cases?
FIRST LOOK
Just when Jesus seems all about healings and invitations to dinner, he stuns with words that shock in their directness. -R. P. Byars
THROUGH THE TEXT 25 Now large crowds were accompanying Jesus, and turning to them he said, 26 “If anyone comes to me and does not hate his own father and mother, and wife and children, and brothers and sisters, and even his own life, he cannot be my disciple. ...In Jewish traditions, “hate” is used regularly of the animosity between actual enemies, to be sure. But it is also used in binary wisdom aphorisms employing “love” and “hate” as paradigmatic responses of discernment: the wicked are said to hate discipline, justice, and knowledge, while the righteous hate wickedness, falsehood, and gossip (for example, Psalms 45:7; 50:17; 97:10; 119:163; Proverbs 1:29; Sirach 19:6). -Carolyn J. Sharp, Professor of Hebrew Scriptures, Yale Divinity School
28 For which of you, wanting to build a tower, doesn’t sit down first and compute the cost to see if he has enough money to complete it? 29 Otherwise, when he has laid a foundation and is not able to finish the tower, all who see it will begin to make fun of him. 30 They will say, ‘This man began to build and was not able to finish!’ 31 Or what king, going out to confront another king in battle, will not sit down first and determine whether he is able with 10,000 to oppose the one coming against him with 20,000? 32 If he cannot succeed, he will send a representative while the other is still a long way off and ask for terms of peace.
Sources: Feasting on the Word C:4; Workingpreacher; Luke, 2 Corinthians. Commentaries; Others. |