Things I Wish Jesus Hadn’t Said by Jason Koon

Things I Wish Jesus Hadn’t Said

**Jason Koon**

Day 1 of 6: Jesus on Family Values

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.
-Luke 14:26 (NIV)

Euro-American scholars, ministers, and lay folk…have, over the centuries, used their economic, academic, religious, and political dominance to create the illusion that the Bible, read through their experience is the Bible read correctly.
–Esau McCaulley

“Shalom requires lament.”
– Soong-Chan Rah

I am the walking talking embodiment of the word privilege. I am a straight, white, Protestant, cis-gendered, middle-class male – it doesn’t get much more privileged than that. So when I read the Bible, especially when I read the words of Jesus (I mean really read them), it doesn’t take long for me to run across things I wish He hadn’t said. To seriously consider the things Jesus said from a position of privilege — drink them straight without diluting them with 2,000 years of explanation and rationalization — is to be set on edge. Jesus didn’t come to comfort people like me; he came to shock me out of my complacency.

Few statements have more shock value than Luke 14:26. The crowds had been following Jesus around the Palestinian wilderness for weeks now. I imagine he was a curiosity to them, an intellectual topic to be studied. Maybe there was some buzz; perhaps He was the cool new rabbi everybody talked about on whatever the first-century equivalent of TikTok was. Whatever the reason, the people are out there with Him, and they’re listening. This is His opportunity to hook them. So what does he say?

“Hate your father, get your mother to disown you, and, while you’re at it, might as well just go and kill yourself.” (Luke 14:26 NIV)

For Luke’s late first-century readers, there was nothing metaphorical about the threat of losing their families, reputations, or even their lives over religious differences. In Palestine, the rift between Jesus-following Jews and the establishment had reached its boiling point. Throughout the Roman Empire, anxiety bubbled over the rise of the violent and unpredictable new emperor, Domitian. Luke’s Jesus isn’t asking his readers to think about the metaphorical crosses they might bear. He’s talking about real-life suffering.

Fast forward a couple of thousand years. How many LGBTQIA+ people of faith know the sting of losing fathers, mothers, or siblings because of who they are? How many are shut out of the faith communities that nurtured them in childhood? How many young Black men risk taking up their crosses every time they drive through the “wrong neighborhood”? For some, simply daring to ask these kinds of questions risks their place in the family.

Millions of people take up their crosses every day. They don’t have a choice; it’s there, waiting for them the moment they open their eyes in the morning. But people like me will never know that kind of hurt. What will I ever know about risking my place in the family just by being honest about who I am? How do I take up my cross and follow? And what does it mean for me that Jesus explicitly ties salvation, liberation, enlightenment – whatever you want to call it – to a kind of suffering I’ll likely never fully understand?

As much as people of privilege want to find comfort in Jesus's words, that’s not what they’re there for. Instead, Jesus offers lament. He shocks me out of my complacency. His words hold my eyes open to the painful reality of inequity until I learn to lament the power structures I’ve unduly benefited from.

Jesus challenges me to see the suffering of the marginalized and hear the cries for justice from the oppressed. In short, He deconstructs my privileged way of seeing the world so I can begin reconstructing a more compassionate and inclusive vision of God’s Kingdom. And along the way, hopefully, I too will find salvation, liberation, enlightenment – whatever you want to call it.

How have you experienced privilege in misreading the Bible or misunderstanding faith?
What is the one thing you most wish Jesus hadn’t said?
What is one practical step you can take to begin to lament injustice and abuse?

Jason Koon (he/him)

Start reading this 6-day devotional in the app. Find it on the Featured shelf.

Download & Subscribe