Luke 14 - What Does It Mean When Jesus Says I Need to Hate My Life In Order to Follow Him?

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Jesus at a Pharisee’s House

Jesus is at the home of a prominent Pharisee, when the issue of healing on the Sabbath comes up. By this time not only is the Sabbath a big issue, but the passage says Jesus is, "Being carefully watched!"

In front of Jesus, there was a man with "abnormal swelling". It could have been an infection, or some other ailment. This time Jesus asks the Pharisees a question, 

“Is it lawful to heal on the Sabbath or not?"

By this time they know well enough to not try and answer Jesus' questions, so they remained silent. Jesus healed the man by taking hold of him and sent him on his way. 

When Jesus healed the man, His accusers believed that He worked on the Sabbath, and violated God’s command, but that wasn’t true. With this question, Jesus reminded them that there was no command against healing on the Sabbath. - Guzik

Jesus then pointed out again how they would probably react if an ox, or a child fell into a well. Immediately, they would pull them out and not consider it a work on the Sabbath. Again they were speechless. 

Jesus came upon another teachable moment, when the guests arrived at a wealthy man's home were picking different places at the table. At weddings then as today there were seat assignments.

 In Jesus’ day, the seating arrangement at a dinner showed a definite order of prestige or honor. The most honored person sat in a particular seat, the next most honored person in another place, and so on down the line. - Guzik

Jesus taught them that it was much better not to sit where the distinguished guests would be sitting. In that case the host might come and ask them to move, which would be very embarrassing. Instead they should take the lower seat, and if the host decided to give them a better seat so be it. 

The main point he is teaching here is that humility is always stepping down rather than propping oneself up. Paul said in Philippians 2:4,  "Each of you should not look to your own interests but to the interests of others."

In a few days Jesus would give them the ultimate example of humility on Good Friday. Jesus, the Son of God, humbled himself and became obedient even to death on a cross! This is why in Philippians 2:5 Paul says, "We should have the same mindset as Jesus himself!"

Being a servant is a mindset. Humility is a choice. Jesus finished by telling them not to invite just the very important people over for dinner, but also the less unfortunate, the lame, and the blind. Though they might have some worldly gain by trying to entertain those who could repay them, they would be repaid in heaven when they invited to downtrodden and forgotten. 

The Parable of the Great Banquet

Following this someone said to Jesus, “Blessed is the one who will eat at the feast in the kingdom of God.”

The man spoke of the goodness and blessedness of the great banquet with the Messiah that was spoken of many times in the Old Testament, and is known in the New Testament as the marriage supper of the Lamb: Blessed are those who are called to the marriage supper of the Lamb! (Revelation 19:9) - Guzik

This gave Jesus another opportunity to talk about the great banquet God had prepared for all people. 

In the story a man prepared a great banquet and invited many people to come. When the banquet was ready, he sent his servant to come to the banquet saying, 

‘Come, for everything is now ready.’

Instead of coming to the banquet, they all started making excuses. The excuses seemed valid enough. One, just bought a field and had to go see it. Another, bought some oxen and need to go try them out. Another, said he got married and couldn't come. 

These excuse makers condemned themselves; their excuses were only a thin veil hiding the fact that they did not want to come. “Back of an excuse is a lack of desire.” (Morgan) There is no rational reason why someone would not want to be part of this feast; they just didn’t want to. 

The owner of the house was quite miffed about this. He had gone to all of this trouble and wanted to share this banquet with someone. So he called the servant back and told him, 

‘Go out quickly into the streets and alleys of the town and bring in the poor, the crippled, the blind and the lame.’

So he did this and some came, but the owner still was not satisfied, so he sent him out again saying, 

 ‘Go out to the roads and country lanes and compel them to come in, so that my house will be full."

I am always struck by the words, "Compel them to come in!" It was so important to the owner to share this feast that he basically told his servant, "Do whatever it takes to get them here!"

The parable ends on an ominous note when Jesus says, "I tell you, not one of those who were invited will get a taste of my banquet.’”

There are a lot of ways to interpret this parable, but the most obvious one is that those who made excuses and in effect rejected the invite were the Jewish people. Jesus had come to them first and invited them to the Messianic banquet, but they refused his offer. 

Since God wants all people to be saved and wants heaven full, people like the apostle Paul were commissioned to go to the Gentiles to offer the free gift of the gospel. The free gift of Jesus is like God's invitation to the heavenly banquet. The Gentiles may be the highways and by ways. The lame, blind, and poor might be the Jewish people who were not part of the elite like the woman at the well, or Zaccheus the tax collector, or Nicodemus. 

Bruce on compel: “Reflects in the first place the urgent desire of the master to have an absolutely full house, in the second the feeling that pressure will be needed to overcome the incredulity of country people as to the invitation to them being meant seriously. They would be apt to laugh in the servant’s face.”

“As the commentators well recognize, the veiled reference is to the Gentiles who would soon be invited to enter the kingdom of God through faith in Christ.” (Pate)

The Cost of Being a Disciple

Though the invitation to the banquet is a free gift by invitation, Jesus moves to the subject of following him. It is important to note this scene was where large crowds were following him. Many of the people following were just looking for Jesus to do more signs and miracles. They weren't necessarily wanting to follow him. 

So Jesus says this about what it will mean to follow him, 

"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. 27 And whoever does not carry their cross and follow me cannot be my disciple."

"Really does Jesus want me to hate my parents?"

This is where it is very important to not build a doctrine around one verse. Clearly throughout the bible Jesus honors teaches that the 4th commandment is to honor one's parents. But on the heels of the story of everybody making excuses to not come to the banquet, Jesus continues with this theme. 

It might be the case where Jesus would call someone to leave them family, which might cause a lot of problems for them, especially in Jesus' culture where a son stayed with the family business. 

Jesus boldly said that the true disciple comes to Him without reservation, setting Jesus first. Other relationships are definitely of lower priority than faithfulness and obedience to Jesus.

This was an audacious demand. None of the prophets or apostles asked for such personal commitment and devotion. If Jesus was not and is not God, this would be idolatry and probably madness. - Guzik

Jesus uses two more analogies to illustrate the cost of following him. First, is the person who decides to build a tower but doesn't consider the cost of building it. When he runs out of money, he suffers the embarrassment of not being able to complete it. It would have better for him not to build it at all than to do this. 

In the second analogy Jesus tells about a king who is trying to decide if he should go to war against another king. If he has only 10,000 men, he would be foolish to challenge a king with 20,000. Instead he would send a delegation to negotiate a peace treaty. 

In the same way, Jesus was asking these crowds to think about what it would mean to follow him, which was everything. When Jesus calls us to follow him, he asks for our complete allegiance. If we are not willing to give up for him, we are not fit to follow him. 

Most people will say that Luke's gospel is the strongest in terms of the cost of discipleship. Clearly these passages are very sobering, but they come right from the mouth of Jesus, so we need to take them very seriously. 

Everybody knew that a cross was an instrument of torture for the worst criminals in Jesus' day. 

His cross: Jesus chose this phrasing instead of saying, “The cross” or “A cross.” The idea is that there is a cross suited to each individual, and one person’s experience of the cross may not look just like another person’s experience of the cross.

How do we keep this in tension with other teaching in the bible about the Good News that God loves us so much He sent His only Son that if we believe in him we will not perish but have eternity. Or, stories like the "lost sheep" or "prodigal son", where God goes to any length to find these people even though they have no intention of following Him. 

So what else can we say about this tension? Again we need to remember the context of Jesus challenging to the crowds. 

We remember that Jesus spoke this to the great multitudes, instructing them on what it meant to be His disciple – especially, that it is more than accepting an invitation.

These words I believe are very helpful. 

We have a difficult challenge in understanding and communicating the gospel here; there are two extremes to avoid.

1. We can never give people the impression that they have to clean up their lives before they come to Jesus; that is like washing up before you take a bath.

2. Yet likewise we can never give people the impression that Jesus won’t want to clean up their lives with their cooperation after they come to Him. - Guzik

We are saved by grace through faith in Jesus. Once we are saved, we are born again as children of God, not of natural inheritance but born of God. 

Once we are saved, we are called to be a disciple of Jesus by obeying his teaching and being a disciple who makes disciples. We can't make disciples if we are not one ourselves. 

Being a disciple of Jesus means, "To take up our cross and follow him!" This means we have to die to living a life glorifying ourselves, but living to glorify God!" Picking up my cross is to emulate Jesus' love for the world no what the cost is to us.