Following on the blog about people who don’t want to be “found” by God, some other people want to have both – to be found, without having the baggage that comes with “being found”. Luke has a somewhat disturbing account of the teaching of Jesus in chapter 14:25-27. In essence, Jesus has been recorded as saying that if an individual is not prepared to sacrifice the dearest and nearest, i.e. their own families, they cannot be followers of Jesus.
That cannot be literal, i.e. to leave one’s father and mother. A similar picture of the same magnitude of severing relationship with one’s father and mother is used in describing marriages. Unless there is fundamental challenge to this, we should not accept this saying as literal. Even denominations of the most observant of the Bible as the word of God are made up of families, usually extended families in one household.
We cannot serve God and money (Matthew 6:24). However we take this as literal, there is a sense that if we so devote to something, we can be seen as “serving” – to God, or to money. The saying, and others of Jesus, in Matthew 6, is about who we are committed our lives to. It cannot be both. It cannot be having been found by Christ, and do not agree with God’s requirement for us as his disciples.
