Jesus says hate your dad.

Who likes their father?
Who loves their father?
Who loves their mother?
Who loves their brother or sister?
Who loves their life?
Who loves Jesus?
Who loves Jesus so much that they will lay down their life to accomplish his purposes?

Jesus lived in a family centered society where bloodlines justified much of what people did. Justified war. Justified life in separation from those of the country-side because they weren't of the same lineage.
Your power came from your family. To see the contrast in where Jesus was teaching from, think about our society which pays tribute to family in lip service, however economics are what justifies what our society does. Economics justifies war. Justifies life in separation from those without finances. Our power and importance comes from our pocketbooks in America.

As a further understanding of where our two societies differ. If you remember the parable Jesus told about the prodigal son. To us today, many people would find offensive the concept that the prodigal son took the inheritance and squandered it. This was seen as bad back then, however what would have been seen as worse was the fact that he left his family to begin with. Why would he do such a thing? What a fool.

I make this distinction not to say how much better life was in the bible. It wasn't. Though they valued family and relationships more than we do societal, it was still so fucked up that Jesus had to yell WAKE UP. And when he did people didn't like what he had to say.

So imagine if you will you are part of a society that values beyond all things bloodline and family. The Donald trumps of this world were those whose families had cajoled and wheedled their way to the top generationally. One day Jesus is teaching in a house, and word comes through the crowd that his mother and brothers want to see him. This is priority in this society. This is family. The red sea of people would at this point part for Jesus to see Mary and his brothers. This is what is proper. And Jesus seizes the opportunity to teach where our true alliances should be: He says “Who is my mother, and who are my brothers?” Pointing to his disciples, he said, “Here are my mother and my brothers. For whoever does the will of my Father in heaven is my brother and sister and mother.”

He is saying bloodline is insignificant compared to the loyalty he has to those that are functioning within God's kingdom. Those who are a part of what God is doing here on earth are his FAMILY. Do you realize that Jesus is using his own mom to underline his bond with someone who is having God's will be complete within them. This was not cool.
In Luke 14 there are tons of people around him, they were literally following him, traveling from this house to this house, some out of their home town.

Jesus stops and says “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.

Now for some of you this statement of hating your family may be good news. You're like: this is for me. You may say: Jesus this is my kind of religion. I'm already there.

Some of you who have better moms and dads may be a little offended. Why is Jesus telling me to be a hater? Is Jesus anti-family values?

But even if you had the best family in the world. You truly will not understand the bomb Jesus dropped by saying this. If you have any inkling that this could be difficult, in this society it was a crowbar to all they saw as important. A shattering of the power structure. How do I make it without my family? Hate my family?

It's father's day, so I thought I'd help everyone out today by revealing Jesus' plan for some of us to become a good fathers. Simply said, he taught us: to be a good dad, we need to hate our dad. I guess it works to become a good mom as well. We have to hate our mom. To become good, we have to hate our family.

What are the power structures in this world that are more important than becoming a child of the light? Where has retaliation taken the place of forgiveness? Where has business taken the place of compassion? Where has your needs taken the place of putting others before you?

To become a good dad we need to put to death our need to gain power over others. To be a good dad we need to hate those things that are in our life that arbitrarily mean that we are more powerful. To be a good dad we need to take a path of singularity where we are becoming good people.
Jesus had a very simple way to articulate the complexity of how you become a good dad. He said "Follow me."
Happy father's day.

Put that around your neck and wear it

C: I’m a gift giver. My love language is “gifts”. I love giving gifts and I love getting them…when they are thoughtful. If you aren’t going to be thoughtful, just give me the five dollars or whatever and let me go shopping. Seriously. It REALLY IS the thought that counts with me. There have been times over the course of my life where I have been randomly prompted to give a gift to someone…this happened recently and I asked the person in this story for their permission to tell it.

About a month ago, I visited an art blog that I frequent and saw a photograph of a locket from an etsy site. I immediately clicked on the photo, was taken to the etsy page and quickly purchased the locket for my friend, Angie. Inside the locket it says, “I am enough”. It was one of those moments where I didn’t even have to think about it. It was automatic, “Angie needs this necklace.” I didn’t discuss purchasing it with Geoff, I just purchased it. A week went by and no necklace…then two weeks….I began to wonder if the meaning of the message would no longer be of importance to my friend. “Was I really prompted to make that purchase?” “Has too much time lapsed and now it won’t be received with meaning?” These are all things my crazy gift giving mind goes through when purchasing a gift, any gift, for someone. I want it to be the right one, at just the right time, with just the right meaning for the person. Three weeks had passed and finally the necklace arrived. I decided I had indeed purchased the necklace for Angie and so it was definitely hers and I was just the messenger who got to take part in delivering her gift. I approached Angie at church and gave her the necklace. She immediately put it on and said, “You have no idea how much I needed this, this week.” I recently (for the purpose of this message) asked Angie why the necklace meant so much to her. She responded via text, “When u have something that causes u to doubt yourself or always feel u should be further along than u are. Then out of the blue someone who loves u listens to God and God tells u through them YOU ARE ENOUGH! U start to believe it’s true. This happened to me when Crystal gave me a locket that said You Are Enough….I start to believe it and when I doubt I open the locket.”

Two weeks later, for my birthday, my parents purchased a locket for me (via my sister, Sherri) from the exact same etsy site. Mine says, “Hope lives here”. I so needed to be reminded of that in that instant. I was brought to tears in front of my family because my closest people saw that Hope Lived HERE. I needed that. With all the failures I have had in my life that haunt me, I need to be reminded of the hope that lives in me….My parents and my sister did that for me.


G: We have been listening to the audio book, “I’m Proud of You: My Friendship with Mr. Rogers” by Tim Madigan. It’s a book that highlights the correspondences between Fred and Tim throughout their life. We have been literally sobbing through the entire thing.. Specifically whenever Mister Rogers pens a letter. In the book, Tim writes about his impending divorce and because of his deep friendship with Mr. Rogers, he is apprehensive to tell his friend the news, more so, than even telling his children. He writes:
And on that sunny December afternoon in 1997, I was sure I had finally found something I could say or do that would finally render Mister Rogers incapable of unconditional regard. He was a man who had devoted his life to children and their families, and I was a man about to destroy his own. ... I finally summoned my nerve, went inside to our computer, and typed out a letter to my friend, tears of remorse streaming down my cheeks. After years of counseling and struggle, my marriage was probably ending and I was the one ending it, I told Mister Rogers in my letter that day. Could he forgive such a person? Could he continue to love such a man?

His reply arrived within the week, dated December 20, 1997, two full pages on the stationery of Mister Rogers' Neighborhood, written in Fred's pinched, meticulous, highly distinctive hand. I did not make it through the first paragraph before I again began to cry.

My dear Tim,
Bless your heart. I feel so for you—for you all—but, Tim, please know that I would never forsake you, that I will never be disappointed with you, that I would never stop loving you. How I wish we could be closer geographically! I'd get in my car, drive to your house, knock on your door, and, when you answered I'd hug you tight.
You are a beautiful man, inside and out, and those who care about you are privileged to share your pain...As for suffering: I believe that there are fewer people than ever who escape major suffering in this life. In fact I'm fairly convinced that the Kingdom of God is for the broken-hearted. You write of "powerlessness." Join the club; we are not in control: God is.
Our trust and affection run very deep. You know you are in my prayers-now and always. If you ever need me you have only to call and I would do my best to get to you, or you to me...
...You are my beloved brother, Tim. You are God's beloved son.

The weight of our own imperfections can be so devastating. Tim had quite an advantage to have a friend that would know everything about him. Yet still value him in midst of his imperfections. The truth of our inadequacy has quite a weight, but when someone sticks close despite our failure. Somehow that weight lifts. Or it is at least easier to manage.

Jesus talked to people who were tired of the weight they were carrying. He said in Matthew 11:28-30 “Come to Me, all who are weary and heavy-laden, and I will give you rest. “Take My yoke upon you and learn from Me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and YOU WILL FIND REST FOR YOUR SOULS. “For My yoke is easy and My burden is light.”

The yoke is a necklace an ox wears for plowing. And when a new ox is learning how to “wear this yoke” they pair him up with a more experienced ox. Jesus is saying that you can share this burden that you have with him, and he will show you how to manage it. There is a relationship here... a teaching here. And just like Fred Rogers to Tim Madigan, the promise of someone being there to lighten your load.


C: What we would like you to do, is take about 2-3 minutes to close your eyes and think about a time when someone, genuinely prompted by God gave you a truth that lightened what you had been carrying around your neck. Please post your stories below if you wish.


I have a failed marriage under my belt, failed friendships, failed integrity, failed attitude, failed sisterhood, failed work ethic….the list goes on…and on, quite frankly. Those of you that know me well, know my story of literally spending about three months on the couch, ring less, jobless, penniless, directionless and for the lack of a better word, broken hearted about all of it. During those three months I conversed (aka yelled like a baby) with God about my devastation. Thankfully, in the midst of that, I had beautiful friends who did not give up on me, but embraced me, in all my disgruntled stupidity and are STILL friends with me to this day, which is a true gift of which I am eternally grateful. After about three months God said, “I love you.” Which I thought was complete B.S. And He reminded me again, “I love you.” In that moment, I realized I AM LOVED. WE ARE LOVED. Once I began functioning out of love instead of shame, guilt and fear, it changed the myopic lens at which I saw not only myself, but others as well...and God. The love we receive (from God) usurps the broken heartedness we experience. It doesn’t magically take it away; it usurps it.


G: Over the pillared halls of many knowledge institutions the statement "the truth will set you free" is chiseled for all to reflect on. Its not the entire verse... the entire verse can be found in John 8:31-32 it says:


To the Jews who had believed him, Jesus said, “If you hold to my teaching, you are really my disciples. Then you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.”


There is a little bit of contingency there. The truth is not absent of relationship. It is only in the context of learning with Him to be like Him that we can become persons increasingly capable of handling the truth. The truth has a vulnerability about it. It has a nakedness about it. And when we stand ALONE in that brokenness and vulnerability, many times we simply interpret it into something we need to hide. Or we go the opposite, and it becomes US. We ARE the perfect couple, or we ARE the major fuckup.

Jesus is saying, “Be with Me and Learn from Me, and I will show you not only how to become someone who can weather the broken heartedness that comes with knowing who you are. But better than that, I will show you who you really are.”


THAT is the truth that sets us free.


C: Once again, I’d like you to close your eyes for a moment. Only this time, I would like you to picture yourself with your head down. Picture what is weighing you down. A dear and trusted friend is approaching you. They embrace you and whisper a truth to you. What is it? What do you hear? What do you feel? What do you see? What do you smell? What do you know?


My dad recently gave me a buckeye that my grandfather, his father, carried around with him for luck. Apparently a buckeye is a symbol of luck – it kind of looks like a petrified turd, but it’s a buckeye. All you Southerners know what I’m talking about. The thing is, neither my dad nor I really believe in luck, but we do believe in the connectedness that symbols bring to us. When I carry this buckeye around in my pocket, I feel connected to my dad.

We have our own “buckeyes” here (small, round pieces of wood). What we would like you to do is write down what you envisioned your dear friend telling you that lightened what you had been carrying around your neck, on these discs. These are to help you feel connected and remind you that the truth of God’s love usurps the broken heartedness we experience. Small tokens to remember and feel connected.

The Heart of the beginning.

It was the beginning. A man went to work with his brother. He worked nights because that was when nature was most on his side. Tonight it wasn’t on his side. He would go home to his wife empty handed. Their relationship was good, but spending a whole night and not having anything to show for it always was hard. They had to take care of bills, they had to take care of the boat payment. He knew it was going to be a fight. And she knew how to cuss even better than him. And he was a sailor. A fisherman really. Maybe this was the reason he hadn’t gone home yet. As his boat was approaching the shore from that terrible night, people seemed to be up early. A local celebrity seemed to be in town and the crowd was thronging. Pushing this guy closer and closer towards the water Simon and Andrew’s boat was to be docking right where this crowd was most crazy. As they approached the craziness, they began washing out their empty nets.

Jesus climbed into Simon’s boat and continued to teach people about a reality where people are very safe within a heavenly father’s rule. However awkward the situation of a strange celebrity entering YOUR space was, it at least prolonged Simon going home to fight with his wife about being a failed fisherman. Plus it was cool to hear what this guy had to say close up. After Jesus had finished, he told Simon and Andrew to push out a little ways. Simon knew that it was the only way this guy Jesus was going to get some peace as there were about a hundred people on the lakeside shore and they weren’t going away anytime soon. As they pushed out, Simon felt the peace that he enjoyed about the water, that he learned from his dad. Jesus directed them to go further out and told them to put down their nets. Reluctantly, and emphatically informing Jesus of their terrible luck last night, they threw out thier net. Suddenly the net began getting heavier and heavier. As they began pulling it up they had to ask Jesus and a couple other boats to help them it was so heavy. There was so much fish!

Recalling what this celebrity was saying earlier, Simon got scared. He told the figure with dread “Get away from me, for I am a sinful man.”

This was the beginning. Many think this comment is a normal response of anyone who is in the presence of holiness. And it could be just like Isaiah’s revelation of the throne. But on a second look, the reverential response of awe to this divine power for peter seems more like a superstitious dread of the supernatural stemming from a slavish fear of God. The response of someone who doesn’t know the Father of Jesus. Powerfully impressed with the superhuman knowledge revealed in connection with the great catch they just received, he regards Jesus as a supernatural being, is this zeus? Is this the crackin? And he dreads Jesus as one whom it is not safe to be near, especially a poor and sinful mortal as himself. He remembers "I was about to have a screaming match with my wife. I was going to go to the local bar so that dealing with zero fish could be more bearable at 10 am." This was Peter’s beginning, no knowledge of a Gospel which magnifies the grace of God. His piety, sufficiently strong and decided, is not of Christian type yet, it is legal, one might almost say pagan in essence


It was the beginning. A man just had finished praying under a tree. His local rabbi said that might be a good thing to do. The fresh air and the piety would be a good way to spend his time. He was an active member in his synagogue, but he always felt he would never measure up to some of the people that were there. One of his friends that attended was a little more enthusiastic then he was, so when he arrived on the scene Nathanael judged what he had to say accordingly. “Nathan I have found the Messiah! It‘s Jesus of Nazareth” This wasn’t a usual thing for Phil to say, yet whenever someone comes to you with an answer for the political injustice of your entire country, and that answer comes from a no-name town in eastern Oregon, you might say what Nate said which was: “can anything good come from Nazareth?”

There was sufficient amount of prejudice of Galilee coming from the more metropolitan areas to have this come from a prideful Judean mouth. Yet Nathan was from Galilee, and as much an object of Jewish contempt as were the Nazarenes. His inward thought was, “ Surely the messiah can never come from among a poor a despised people such as we are… from Nazareth or any other Galilean town or village.

It was the beginning. And he allowed his mind to be biased by a current opinion originating in feelings with which he had no sympathy; a fault common to men whose piety, though pure and sincere, defers too much to human authority, and who thus become the slaves of sentiments utterly unworthy of them. He said this because Nathanael really thought that greatness is not available in and around his vicinity. Though skeptical, he approached a Nazarene who told him that he saw him praying under the figtree.

It was the beginning. And a man resided in Capernaum. He absolutely knew who Jesus was. No man could live in that town without hearing the “mighty works” done in and around it. Heaven had been opened right above Capernaum. Lepers were cleansed, demoniacs dispossessed; blind men received sight, and palsied men received the use of their limbs. The daughter of a distinguished citizen was re-animated into one of the living again. Yes “His fame went abroad into all the land.” Everyone wondered and talked about the various miracles that were abroad, but for Levi there was something more that made him want change. Who knows what he had to turn from. Extortion, fraud, shaking down half the land. Breaking a couple kneecaps. Or maybe he was the “nice” tax collector, and repenting for him was simply retiring. Regardless, if he was greedy… he no longer wanted to be. If he oppressed the poor, he now began to abhor the concept. It was the beginning and he wished to follow someone who was taking burdens off of people rather than putting them on.

It was the beginning, and a dangerous man entered the ranks of the followers of Jesus. There were some publicists that would have frowned on the acceptance of Levi. But at least he was someone who was for the current parties in power. This man wasn’t. This man might bring political suspicion to the Cause of Jesus. Yet Simon the Zealot was called and accepted. And what a potential for bloodshed within the bunks of the 12. The tax-gatherer and the tax-hater. The unpatriotic Jew who degraded himself by becoming a servant of the alien rule; and the Jewish patriot, who revolted under the foreign yoke. Not an accident, but a prophesy of the future.

Our New year gives us cause to ask what are WE at the beginning of. I want to go a step beyond losing weight, drinking less, or whatever and ask us what is beginning in our heart today. What is it inside you that is beginning.

Maybe there is nothing that is beginning in you. Or worse maybe you look at the survey of people that I exposed before you and you see fools. You see a man who doesn’t know who God really is, or you see a man who doesn’t have any self esteem, or you see a man that just made poor decisions in his life, or someone who has sold out. The beginnings of this heart of judgement is one that will be the same next year… maybe your beginning is to be more able to see things that are wrong with others.

But I bring these guys up because we don’t usually look at their beginnings, we look at their accomplishments, their “Sainthood” their ability to be SPIRITUAL in the RIGHT way. But they had a beginning too. And if you look at Peter, Nathanael, Matthew, or Simon the Zealot, you will see their embarrassing (or maybe not so embarrassing) beginning. But I want to highlight that at each of these beginnings was a humble heart that actually wanted answers.

Peter and Andrew DID want Jesus to show how they might be fishers of men, Nathanael DID want Christ to teach him to really pray to a living God, Matthew wanted his life to be the way of lifting burdons, and Simon wanted to live in the Kingdom of the true Israel. They all wanted a life that was different than what they had. Their heart was ready for Jesus to change the course of who they were. What does your heart want to begin? Is there a call?

Is there something in you that is beginning to be an enthusiast? Like James and John maybe your heart’s beginning to heat up, and, as an unbelieving world would say, your heart is turned by a dream about a divine kingdom to be set up here on earth, with Jesus for its king. My encouragement today is to let that dream possessed you, and rule your mind like it has for others beginnings before you. This vision of a life on earth as it is in in heaven will shape your beginning and compel your destiny, like Abraham, today, I encourage you to let your humble beginning start. Leave your country and go forth on what might be a very humble prayer that asks Jesus “I want to follow you… I will follow you… How do I do it?”