Now large crowds were traveling with him, and he turned and said to them,“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.
Whoever does not carry the cross and follow me cannot be my disciple.
For which of you, intending to build a tower, does not first sit down and estimate the cost, to see whether he has enough to complete it?
Otherwise, when he has laid a foundation and is not able to finish, all who see it will begin to ridicule him, saying, ‘This fellow began to build and was not able to finish.’
Or what king, going out to wage war against another king, will not sit down first and consider whether he is able with ten thousand to oppose the one who comes against him with twenty thousand?
If he cannot, then while the other is still far away, he sends a delegation and asks for the terms of peace. So therefore, none of you can become my disciple if you do not give up all your possessions.
Luke 14:25-33 (NRSV)
Across communities and societies, family is of prime importance as it shapes the identity of an individual. In the Indian context, however, knowing about one’s family history allows people to understand the signifiers of one’s identity: caste, profession, social prestige, and financial in/stability, among other things. Among many Indian communities, a common joke that is offered as a piece of advice or as a statement of fact to those on the verge of getting married is: “You don’t marry a person; you marry a family.” While it calls the respective individuals to acknowledge the communitarian spirit of the Indian culture, it duly points to how family is central to the making of an individual and how family dynamics shape, govern, and reorient relationships and loyalties.
Writing on the significance of the institution of family and family loyalties during the Greco-Roman period, Santiago Guijarro reminds us that, “To be born in a certain family was a decisive factor, because family was the depository of ‘honour’ of position in society, and the transmitter of economic resources” (Constructing Early Christian Families, p. 62). In the centuries to follow, the relevance of “family institutions and modes of operation” expanded due to its link with the rise of Christianity (Early Christian Families in Context, p. 176). Thus, given the construction of the idea of family as the basic architect of one’s identity and the conveyor of belief systems and ideologies, it is only normal for a modern-day reader to be taken aback by Jesus words: “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” (verse 26).
How might Jesus’ words have been heard by the “large crowds” that followed him? Stephen C. Barton argues that the idea of subordination of familial loyalties to God was not uncommon in the Greco-Roman world. To him, yes, the listeners would have been astounded despite the familiar rhetoric, but they would not have perceived Jesus “as some kind of social fringe-dweller engaged in an idiosyncratic campaign to undermine the fabric of society” (Constructing Early Christian Families, p.98). As suggested earlier, Jesus is not anti-family, perpetuating hatred towards one’s beloved, for biblical scholars have parsed the Greek word for hate, contending that it should not be taken literally, as it is a Semitic hyperbole used to imply a “comparative degree of preferences” (Hermeneia. Luke 2, p. 386). Some have argued that hate is not an affective quality but an act, where Jesus is not suggesting his hearers to hate their loved ones, but separate themselves from what those relations represent: social hierarchies, exclusion, perpetuation of the status quo, and the maintenance of social control.
Having said that, what might Jesus’ words—to hate one’s familial connections—mean for us today? To answer that question, I turn to the idea of the preservation of the traditional family unit in American conservative politics. The traditional family unit is the bulwark of patriarchy and heterosexism, and this institutionalized relationship has been used to empower the logic of exclusionary identity politics. Allow me to explain. Consider the right-wing political activist Charlie Kirk, who, in a recent debate at Cambridge University, repeated the baseless claim that women are “unhappy” and “depressed” because they do not want to be homebound and do not want to procreate. His idea of family is dependent on a concept of womanhood where reproduction is primary and independence from heteropatriarchal norms is dangerous.
In the same debate, Kirk adds, “It is absolutely wrong and bad when a society stops having kids to replace the population, and you have to import the third world, and you become the third world.” During a podcast with a conservative political commentator, he remarks that it is better for men of a certain race to take up blue-collar jobs, which would thereby reduce the entry of foreigners. In making a deliberate connection between family and immigration, Kirk is reiterating that families, particularly white families, are the primary building block of the nation. He propagates an idea of family that, in its exclusionary and xenophobic nature, grants certain people identity and security that otherwise would not be made available. The idea of family, then, is crucial not only as a means of security for individuals but also to the imagination of the nation.
Given how the institution of family is used as a means to produce and reproduce control, perpetuate social capital, separate communities from each other, and create hierarchies between those who have and do not have a family, I understand Jesus’s call to discipleship as resistance, for it disrupts the traditional family system. Discipleship entails a shift in priorities, demanding fidelity to Jesus and the subordination of all competing loyalties. Jesus is the priority and the source of security; everything else loses precedence. Being part of Jesus’ community of disciples entails the sacrifice of exclusionary identity politics, transcending biological connections, and standing in solidarity with those without security and possessions. Therefore, discipleship calls us to rethink “relationality apart from familial parochialism” (Jesus and the Politics of Mammon, p.157).
In Luke 8, we get a glimpse of what a community of disciples or a nontraditional family might look like. When Jesus was told that his mother and brothers were waiting to see him, he replied: “My mother and my brothers are those who hear the word of God and do it” (Luke 8:21). As Theodore Jennings Jr. notes, the one who does the will of God is the mother; not the one who procreates (The Man Jesus Loved, p. 175). The focus here has shifted from biological procreation to spiritual procreation, subverting familial connections. By subverting familial connections, Jesus is not undermining ties of affection but dismantling the social and economic security that comes with them, while simultaneously expanding the meaning of relationality.
Interestingly, for Jesus, to be a disciple is not enough to subordinate relationships and the privileges that come with them; one must be ready to carry the cross. In verse 27, Jesus says: “Whoever does not carry the cross and follow me cannot be my disciple.” The reference to the cross is intriguing to say the least. During a recent conversation with my friend, systematic theologian Esther Parajuli, I was reminded that crucifixion was a public spectacle, and therefore, discipleship cannot be a private affair. Carrying the cross, as a disciple, requires us to step out of the house, the comfort zone, and deny the privileges of living a compromised life of escapism from the realities that need to be engaged with.
Taking Jesus from the private rooms of our home to the public space does not imply imposing our religious beliefs or orthodox family values on the public, forcibly turning them into public law. Rather, carrying one’s cross is doing what costs us: caring for the sick, providing for the needy, visiting the incarcerated, being a voice for the silenced, and advocating for the poor. Discipleship entails moving from “abstract belief in Jesus to a material response…” (Reading the Bible from the Margins, p.241). Discipleship, here too, disrupts the logics of boundary maintenance, demanding that we associate ourselves with those who transcend familial bonds.
Jesus calls us to be his disciples—to discard and uproot competing loyalties and securities, undergo the often-painful process of refashioning our identities in and through Jesus, experience discomfort in our relationships when we fight sexism and question male privilege, have our ‘Christian’ fidelity questioned when we stand in solidarity with the LGBTQ+ community, be hated when we advocate for the protection of the living, and be ridiculed for defending the homeless and poor. This is what it means to be a disciple of Jesus. Discipleship is disruptive because, as Kinley Tenzin, my friend and seminarian, opines, “it challenges our idea of love and commitment in our pursuit of truth (Jesus).” Indeed, discipleship as resistance disrupts the very foundations that shape and govern our being.
