Lk 14:25-33
25Great crowds were traveling with [Jesus], and he turned and addressed them, 26“If anyone comes to me without hating his father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters, and even his own life, he cannot be my disciple. 27Whoever does not carry his own cross and come after me cannot be my disciple. 28Which of you wishing to construct a tower does not first sit down and calculate the cost to see if there is enough for its completion?
29Otherwise, after laying the foundation and finding himself unable to finish the work the onlookers should laugh at him 30and say, ‘This one began to build but did not have the resources to finish.’ 31Or what king marching into battle would not first sit down and decide whether with ten thousand troops he can successfully oppose another king advancing upon him with twenty thousand troops? 32But if not, while he is still far away, he will send a delegation to ask for peace terms. 33In the same way, everyone of you who does not renounce all his possessions cannot be my disciple.”
HATING ONE'S FATHER AND MOTHER: “Hate” in the biblical sense often means preference. Thus, “I loved Jacob but hated Esau” (Rom 9:13) means that the Lord, in his sovereign prerogative, chooses the younger Jacob over Esau. So, in the Gospel, Jesus is telling the crowd to prefer another person or group to their family.
Given the tight-knit nature of the Middle-Eastern family, this is a very serious matter. The family is the cornerstone of society, the pillar that supports the individual. The economics of Jesus’ time is deeply embedded in kinship and politics. A good fortune or high office for a member of the family means rejoicing for others who expect profit by it.
Since cutting family ties leads to a very precarious existence, a person should have another family to belong to. In this case, a person who “hates” his family transfers to another group—the group of Jesus and the believers.
A disciple who deliberately cuts ties with family and social network is bereft of security. This is the “cross” that he carries behind Jesus. That is why he must calculate the cost of following Jesus and remain firmly committed once he takes this option.
The “new family” of Jesus must now provide for themselves. They should attend to their members’ physical as well as spiritual needs. Thus, after Pentecost, the community or “larger family” of the disciples establishes a “networking” so that there would be no needy person among them (Acts 5:34). The apostle Paul would ask his Gentile converts to contribute to the collection for the Jewish Christians in Jerusalem in their need, for Jews and Gentiles have become one family in Jesus.