Jesus said to his apostles:
“Whoever loves father or mother more than me is not worthy of me,
and whoever loves son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me;
and whoever does not take up his cross
and follow after me is not worthy of me.
Whoever finds his life will lose it,
and whoever loses his life for my sake will find it.”
Whoever receives you receives me,
and whoever receives me receives the one who sent me.
Whoever receives a prophet because he is a prophet
will receive a prophet’s reward,
and whoever receives a righteous man
because he is a righteous man
will receive a righteous man’s reward.
And whoever gives only a cup of cold water
to one of these little ones to drink
because the little one is a disciple—amen,
I say to you, he will surely not lose his reward.”

Whoever loves father or mother more than me is not worthy of me, and whoever loves son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me; and whoever does not take up his cross and follow after me is not worthy of me. Whoever finds his life will lose it, and whoever loses his life for my sake will find it.

Jesus says “Whoever loves father or mother more than me is not worthy of me, and whoever loves son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me” This is a very hard saying, and we might easily be tempted to think that Jesus is meaning something like: whoever loves something or someone instead of me is not worthy of me. But that would be an incorrect interpretation. So getting this distinction correct is very important for our understanding of this teaching.

What Jesus is doing here is making an extremely important distinction. One of the names for God, as revealed to his followers is, in latin: the Summum Bonum (which means Highest Good). His other name is “I am” (which means that He is creation itself). What this means is that God is the highest goodness, the highest truth, and the highest beauty, and second that everything He created was created Good true and beautiful.

So with that understanding, We come back to what Jesus is saying. Lets begin by clearing up what He is not saying, Jesus is not saying that it is wrong to love your family or your spouse, or even the other good, true, and beautiful things of this world. In fact, God created all of those things as gifts for us, His beloved children, and He delights in our enjoyment of those good things. His point is that your love needs to be ordered properly. If you love the people and things of God’s creation more than the creator Himself, then you have it all backwards. In fact it is a distortion to do so, because how can you love a good thing of this world and not love the source of all goodness Himself (God the Father). Same for Truth and Beauty. If you get this backwards, then nothing in God’s kingdom will make sense.

So we come to the end of this passage, and Jesus’ enigmatic message about finding & losing your life. What does it mean to find your life? This refers to desiring first the things of the material world, the sins of the flesh and the lies of the devil…, over God. Losing your life, on the other hand, is about sacrificing the things of this world and realizing that His way, and His truth, and His life are the only thing that matters. But even more, it is about understanding that this world is fleeting and that the only thing that matters is eternity With God in Heaven.

But the price for this reward, is very high, and requires sacrifice. The christian life is simple. As T.S. Eliot wrote about Christianity it is: “a condition of complete simplicity, costing not less than everything.” But that is not the end of the message, Peter Kreeft, wrote that “the cost and the reward is everything.” That means that the reward is going to be beyond our comprehension. It will cost us everything in this world, but it will give us everything in the next. So we must get our priorities straight, we must put God first, love Him first, and seek Him first, and resist the lure and temptations of this world, and if we succeed we will obtain eternity with God in Heaven, and that is “Everything.” But the choice is yours, choose wisely.

Oh lord, help me today to not seek to find but instead to lose everyting for your sake.