13 Pentecost - Luke 14:25-33

You may have noticed that we have video walls.

We’re still working out bugs in the system, like getting the pastor to use them.

Had it occurred to me sooner, we could have started this Anniversary Sunday sermon

with a music video.

But for this year, you’ll have to settle for me reading lyrics, which is still better than me

singing them.

You’re welcome.

And the words are so good that maybe it’s better to let them shine on their own,

and probably it’s better for those of you who are married to fill in the images with

your own faces and memories in your mind.

Clint Black sings:

It gives me heart remembering how We started with a simple vow There's so much to look back on now Still it feels brand-new We're on a road that has no end And each day we begin again Love's not just something that we're in It's something that we do

I remember well the day we wed I can see that picture in my head Love isn't just those words we said It's something that we do

There's no request too big or small We give ourselves, we give our all Love isn't someplace that we fall It's something that we do

Something that Jesus does, constantly, especially in Luke’s gospel, is flip things over.

He would say this week that hate isn’t something that we feel or someplace that we fall; it’s something that we do.

Hate is not so much an emotion as a decision; it’s not so much a reaction as a calculated

rejection, a no said in service to a different yes.

He is not calling us to hate our family in the 21st century America sense of the word;

there’s plenty of that happening already.

He is calling us to be clear with ourselves and our family that they are not God.

For his disciples, therefore, family is not first priority.