NOVEMBER 4, 2026 FATHER BRANDEN GORDON SDB
In today’s Gospel, Jesus says something which seems to contradict that which is contained in the 10 Commandments. He says, “Whoever comes to me and does not hate father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters, cannot be my disciple.”
How do we reconcile this statement with the fourth commandment received by the prophet Moses, from God, on Mount Sinai? “Honour your father and your mother, so that your days may be long in the land that the Lord your God is giving you.”
Jesus himself repeats this commandment given to Moses elsewhere in the Gospels, such as in the 15th chapter of Matthew, where he says: “Honour your father and mother.” And: “Whoever speaks evil of father or mother must surely die.”
So how is it possible to both honour and hate father and mother, and not only them, but all the other categories of relatives that Jesus lists in today’s Gospel?
Well, to begin to make sense of this apparent contradiction, we must first reflect on the Incarnation. In the Incarnation, the second person of the most holy trinity took on himself not only a human nature, but also a particular human culture. In other words, God became not just a man, but a first-century Semitic man.
In his human nature, our Lord Jesus Christ was a first-century Jew, Jews being one of the many Semitic groups whose tradition homeland is the Middle East, parts of East Africa, and the islands of Malta.
So then, Jesus was not only fully human, he was also fully Semitic. So he thought like a Semite, he walked like a Semite, and he talked like a Semite. And we know from sacred scripture, and from other pieces of historical and literary evidence, that hyperbole or exaggeration was a typical feature of ancient Semitic cultures. It’s just the way that people spoke and wrote.
So, for example, if you were to ask a Semitic person, in the first century, whether he prefers apples or pears, he might say, “I love apples, but I hate pears.” Then the very next day you might see that person eating a pear. And if you were to say, “Hey, I thought that you hated pears,” he might respond, “Come on. I didn’t really mean that I hated pears, but that I just like them less than apples. The fruit seller was all out of apples today, and I was hungry, so I just go a pear instead.”
Being a first-century Semite, Jesus thought and spoke in much the same way. For example, when he says: “If your right eye causes you to sin, tear it out and throw it away. And if your right hand causes you to sin, cut it off and throw it away.”
In these verses, and in today’s Gospel, is Jesus commanding us to mutilate ourselves and to hate our relatives? Of course not. Rather, he is using hyperbole to teach us the importance of avoiding sin, even avoiding the near occasions of sin, and of prioritizing our relationship with Jesus above all other relationships, even above our lives themselves.
We are to love God more than we love our parents, our spouses, our children, our siblings, and even our own lives. Now if Jesus were merely a man, he would have no right to make such demands of us. However, being God, Jesus has every right to demand our absolute allegiance.
So, while we’re not to hate anyone in the literal sense, we’re to love everyone less than we love Jesus, to prioritize our relationship with Christ above all things, to take up our cross and carry it. This is what it means to be a true disciple.
