Pentecost+13/Proper 18C (Luke 14:25-33)

Jesus does it again what he did three weeks ago. Recall his radically divisive words, “Do you think that I have come to bring peace to the earth? No, I tell you, but rather a division!” (Luke 12:51) This morning, he sounds more provocative, “Whoever comes to me and does not hate father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters, yes, and even life itself, cannot be my disciple.” (Luke 14:26) “Hate” is a strong word and is a requirement to be Jesus’ disciple. How can having an adversarial emotion toward our immediate family as well as life itself help us become his disciple?  Isn’t Jesus’ message all about love? What’s the reason behind all this nonsense Jesus is talking about?

The keyword to decipher this provocatively divisive teaching of Jesus is a foundation. Without any foundation, there’s no result. We can’t build anything. It’ll eventually collapse. We often talk about how fundamentals are crucial to mastery. This fact is very much reflected in our language. For example, think of the term 101. When we observe something that lacks basics, we then say, “It’s Oreology 101 that one MUST split the wafers, that one MUST dunk it in milk but no other beverages!” 

Jesus’ discipleship 101 is to get our foundation straight, and then relearn how to love our family and life. This still is a tough message to swallow because we often find our foundation in the family. Family is where we develop a sense of who we are. We are named by our family. We start as children and siblings. This foundation is so embedded in human life. I don’t believe Jesus teaches us to deny this reality we’re living in. His way of getting our foundation straight is to start the process of transformation. Identities we’ve been forming, reforming, and creating and denying, are to be dropped here. Identities are like possessions as we put different masks on. We drop them. “...none of you can become my disciple if you do not give up all your possessions."

This experience of giving up or dropping possessions of identities we create and destroy to invent who we are in our own image and that of others can be quite daunting because we feel like we’re losing ourselves. And yes, we are indeed losing ourselves. This can cause fear and anxiety if we’re holding on to those identities that make us feel like "who I am." Moses trembled when he encountered the burning bush. Paul lost his sight as he heard the voice of Jesus on the way to Damascus. Then the question is how we can drop our possession of masks to get to the foundation of our being.  

Simple. We go back to how we came into being. To be more specific, we return to exactly what we started our life with. That’s our frame of reference. We look for the anchor that holds and sustains our lives right here, right now. What activity have you been doing that you’ve never stopped since you were born? Breath. Breath is the frame of reference for us to counter any fear or anxiety when our invented identities become stripped away before God. When we close our eyes in silence, we focus on our breath. As we pay close attention to our breath, we realize that this breath energy has been in every part of the body all along. There’s no need to pull and push breath here and there. It’s more of connecting the breath energy from one point to the other, from the head to the heart and then to the toes. There is a sense of losing ourselves yet our breath, which is now experienced and perceived as the Breath of God the Holy Spirit, holds us. This is the foundation of our being. 

As we continue to concentrate on our breathing in and out, tensions in our body lessen. We relax, which doesn’t mean we’re about to get drowsy. We are alert and awake, heedful of thoughts and feelings arising and passing. When tensions dissipate, we are founded, grounded in being itself. Enjoy that sense of being rooted in the Life of the Spirit. 

From this foundation, we return to our “father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters, yes, and even life itself.” This way, we skillfully become children, siblings, and friends as the followers of the way Jesus of Nazareth has taken, being rooted in the Breath of God. Returning to this Breath is, after all, Christian Life 101.