Jesus said, shockingly, "‘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" (Luke 14:26.) What are we to make of these strange, paradoxical words? One way into it is to take a look at what Danish philosopher Soren Kierkegaard said about the three modes of life - the aesthetic, the ethical, and the religious. While not wanting to domesticate these strange words, we can perhaps get a better insight into what they might mean for us today.

1. Hate and
Love

3. Luke
14:25-33

4. Now large crowds were traveling with him; and he
turned and said to them,

5. "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.

6. Whoever does not
carry the cross and
follow me cannot be
my disciple.

7. 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.'

8. 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.

9. So therefore, none of
you can become my
disciple if you do not
give up all your
possessions.

10. What Does The
Passage Say?
• What is the setting?
• Who are the
characters?
• What happened
before and after?
• What is the genre?

11. What Does The
Passage Mean?

12. Anxiety
• Classical world: Anxiety of fate and death.
Christus Victor.
• Medieval to Modern World: Anxiety of guilt and
shame. Where can I find a gracious God?
• Modern-Postmodern: Anxiety of
meaninglessness. What are humans for?

13. Transformation not
Information
The point of Jesus
teaching is often not
to tell you new stuff,
but to transform you
and your thinking
(=metanoia)
What are some
examples of this?

14. Natural Law
Following Aquinas, the
basis of western ethical
systems is based on
something like: you
must pursue the good,
pursue a harmonious
society, preserve
yourself in being

15. Paradox
A paradox is a seeming contradiction
which is not really contradictory at all if
looked at from another angle or
through a larger frame which
demands a change on the side of the
observer.
Richard Rohr

16. Poles of Paradox
• Can you think of
examples of Jesus
directly contradicting
this passage?
• Can you think of
similar passages or
events?
• Is this passage Good
News?

17. Why Kierkegaard?
Because he lasers in on
the distinction between
ethics and spirituality.
He would have had no
idea of the sort of gap
between ethics and
“spirituality” which the
20th Century

18. Kierkegaard’s Three Modes
One way into this (not
the only one)
• Aesthetic (concerned
sense impressions)
• Ethical (concerned
with fulfilling societal
norms)
• Religious (myself
and God)

19. The Aesthetic
The aim is to maximise
life’s pleasures -Bach or
strippers it doesn’t
matter which. The thing
is to escape boredom.
Eventually this wears
thin, so turns to…

20. The Ethical
Here one fulfils one’s
role in society – good
parent, good citizen,
good employee, good
church-goer. The
Aesthetic is subjugated
to the ethical
The spiritual self is not
nurtured, so this turns
to…

21. Question
• What do you think “the ethical mode” means?
• Give me an example from the media of
someone living the ethical life

22. The Religious
How do I live an
authentic life? How do I
deal with my anxiety in
the face of death and
meaninglessness?
There is a gap between
the ethical and the
religious

23. Hate… your own life?
Perhaps the purpose of
the “hate” language is to
sharpen the distinction
between what’s merely
ethical and what is
“religious”

24. The Gap
One limitation of the ethical is that, if you try
seriously to be good, you will soon discover that
you are not able to be entirely good. Do you
really love your neighbour as yourself?
Theologians call this gap “sin”

25. Failure
I pay my taxes, do my job well, am a good
person. Why on earth does all this shit happen
to me?
I come to the end of my own resources

26. Meaninglessness
Is all there is to life
fulfilling ethical
obligations – just a long
series of work meetings,
child raising and jury
duty until we finally die?
What is ultimately the
point?

27. The Limitations of the Ethical
Do any of those
limitations speak
to you?

28. Sidebar: Individualism
Can you be a disciple
all by yourself?
Kierkegaard has a very
individualistic view – but
we would probably want
to affirm a much more
communal picture of it
now.
Jesus appeared to want
people to form
communities

29. The Nub
• Jesus is describing a gap, even a conflict,
between what is ethically desirable and what
following him demands.
• The strong language is to emphasize this
• It doesn’t necessarily mean exactly what it
sounds like (though it might in some circs)

30. Identity
I think it comes down to this:
who am I – and, in the final
analysis, whose am I?
Where do I derive my
identity from?
Am I primarily a pleasure
seeker? Or a good citizen?
Or does my identity lie
somehow both outside
myself and inside my soul?

31. Possessions
It is only when I find my
identity in Christ, “submit my
will to a higher power”, that
I can give up all my
possessions because the
are not mine, but belong to
Jesus, and I’m using them
for the Mission.
Living within this reality
without anxiety is grace.

32. The Return of Ethics
Because to be Jesus is to be
like Jesus, and Jesus
exemplifies self-sacrificing
love, for Christians the
religious ultimately embraces
the ethical and (I think) the
aesthetic.
(Kierkegaard might not agree.
I leave this as an exercise for
the reader)

33. Blessing
The Lord bless us and watch over us;
The Lord make his face shine upon us and be gracious to us;
the Lord look kindly on us and give us peace.
Amen

35. Bibliography
Migliore, Daniel L Faith Seeking
Understanding, Wm Eerdmans Publishing
Co, Michigan, 2nd Ed 2004