Being a Disciple in the Post-Truth World
Scripture
Luke 14:25-33
Reflection
Dear sisters and brothers,
Today’s scripture text starts with a sentence: “Large crowds were travelling with Jesus.”
This sentence is the context in which Jesus further builds the responsibility and commitment of discipleship, saying:
“If anyone comes to me and does not hate father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters—yes, even their own life—such a person cannot be my disciple.”
Why does Jesus talk about hate?
God has given us the Ten Commandments to follow.
Jesus reduced the Ten Commandments into two commandments: 1. Loving God, and 2. Loving our neighbours as ourselves.
Now, we come here today and we hear these words of Jesus to hate.
How can we reconcile these apparently conflicting demands as disciples of Jesus?
How can we hate those we are supposed to love?
Moreover, why?
At this moment, I remember the final women’s tennis tournament between Venus and Serena.
Venus won the tournament after a hard fight with her sister, Serena.
She did not celebrate her victory.
Instead, she ran to Serena and hugged her, saying, “I love you.”
Love and hate are the opposites of each other.
They love each other.
Hate has no role to play here.
However, they had to hate each other because one was standing in the way of the other’s becoming the world champion.
One was an obstacle to the realisation of the other’s goal, aim, dream and destiny.
Therefore, they had to hate.
They fought each other.
Venus said, “I love you.”
Why did she say that?
Because the game is over now and her sister is no longer an obstacle in the way of her victory.
She said, in other words, “I am sorry, but I had to do it: I had to fight you so hard, I had to hate you because you were standing in my way of goal, aim, dream, and destiny. But I still love you.”
That was a rare example of hating those we love.
We can learn much about the command to hate our loved ones from it.
Venus loves Serena every day at her home.
Nevertheless, Venus hates Serena when Serena becomes an obstacle that could prevent her from realising her ambition to achieve her goal, aim, dream and destiny.
In a similar way, we are called to love our parents, siblings, spouses, and indeed everyone else, with the exception of when they become an obstacle in our submission to follow Jesus Christ, the eternal life.
Eternal life is worth much more than any possessions in our lives.
We must possess eternal life so that no person or material thing stands in our way of building the Kingdom of God.
That is why Jesus concludes today’s scripture text with these words: “In the same way, those of you who do not give up everything you cannot be my disciples.”
It is a matter of life and death.
To explain this, Jesus gives us two examples.
The first example is of the man who intends to build a tower.
He plans.
He estimates the cost.
Likewise, a disciple of Jesus Christ has to plan his or her life and assess the cost of being a disciple in this material, post-truth world.
The second example is that of the king, marching out to war.
Notice that the king has only 10,000 troops, whereas the enemy has 20,000.
Identifying ourselves with the king in the parable, we can see that the enemy outnumbers us.
The post-truth world is filled with temptations to be famous and popular.
It generates desire.
It makes us greedy.
It forces us to have possessions or wealth.
I am sure that we will fail unless we totally surrender to a stronger person for our help in our weaknesses.
A stronger person in our lives is none other than Jesus Christ himself.
He overcame all the human temptations of this world.
He renounced all the possessions of this world to build the Kingdom of God and to bring eternal life to us.
Through his experiences, he speaks to us about how to be his disciple.
Today’s scripture text is one of them.
We, as disciples of Jesus Christ, must understand how radical the demands of discipleship are.
Following Jesus is much harder than any other life in this world.
Being in this world but not of this world is not easy.
The good news is that Jesus recognises and heals our human flaws.
Our enemies may be strong in numbers.
But, Jesus stands with us.
As Saint Paul says, “When I am weak, then I am strong.”
Yes, Jesus strengthens us in our weakness.
If it is so, we can proudly say, “I can do all things through Christ, who strengthens me.”
As a result, as Jesus’ disciples, we imprint God in our lives.
Because, without him, we can do nothing.
May the heart of Jesus live in the hearts of all. Amen.
