In Luke 14:26-27, Jesus says, If anyone comes to me and does not hate his father, mother, wife, children, brothers, sisters, and himself as well, he cannot be my disciple. Whoever does not bear his cross and follow me cannot be my disciple.

Hate your life? Hate your wife? Jesus delivers this hard word about the level of commitment that was required of a disciple. This doesn’t make sense, doesn’t this contradict everything that he told us about loving?

When you do a word study on the word “hate” that Jesus uses it reveals that it doesn’t carry the same meaning as when we use it in English. In a Hebraic sense, the Hebrew word “hate” can also mean, “love less” or “put in second place.” If you look at Genesis 29:31, when it reads that Leah was “hated,” the context demonstrates that Leah wasn’t unloved, rather loved less than Rachel. In Deuteronomy 21:15 there’s another example of this second place love.

To be a disciple of any Rabbi was a high calling and a difficult one. As for the 12, they lived homeless for 3 years and left their wives and children. It was required that when a married talmadim (disciple) left for longer than 30 days to study with a Rabbi, he needed his wife’s permission. There was a cross to bear and a burden to carry for the disciples.

Jesus words still hold, we still have a cross to carry and he must be loved first. He hasn’t changed him mind, He’s not going to settle for second place. He wants us to love him and trust him more than the status and security we find our social network, friends list, or family relationships.

The call is to reshuffle the deck of my affection and make sure he is promoted to the top of my relationships.

This calls for a Sabbath from Facebook and Twitter today. I don’t think I’ll be updating my status. I’m going off the grid to reorder my friends list with the Rabbi.