“Whoever loves their life loses it, and whoever hates their life in this world will preserve it for eternal life.” Hate yourself! At first this seems to be what Jesus is demanding in today’s Gospel: hate your life to preserve it. But we must be careful how we interpret Jesus’ words. What Jesus is really saying is that God’s Will and God’s Way must come before all, even our own will and life. Jesus uses the two extremes of love and hate to challenge us to respond to this radical call to do God’s Will.
Today’s Gospel saying is similar to another saying of Jesus: “If any one comes to me without hating their father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters, and even their own life, they cannot be my disciple.” (Luke 14:26). Here also Jesus does not mean that we should literally hate our parents or ourselves; just the opposite we should honor our father and mother. What Jesus is saying in this scandalous or challenging saying is that discipleship, following Jesus’ way of doing God’s Will, must come even before the most sacred duty to love and honor our parents.
Sadly, at times a too literal interpretation of Jesus’ words has led to a negative view of the world and human beings and to a warped spirituality with hair shirts and flagellation. When Jesus tells us to take up our cross, he does not mean to inflict pain and suffering on ourselves with hair shirts and flagellation. Our cross will come from outside when we put God’s Will before all. When we welcome the outcast or show compassion to the immigrant, or embrace the leper as Jesus did, we may well experience the suffering of mockery and ridicule.
A truly Christian Spirituality calls us to see ourselves as good since we have been created in God’s image and God’s likeness. We have also been recreated in baptism and put on the Lord Jesus Christ and so we are the Body of Christ. As the Body of Christ may our prayer also be our action: “Thy Kingdom come, Thy Will be done”.