"He who loves father or mother more than me is not worthy of me, and he who loves son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me." (Matt 10:37)

I have long known that I am not worthy of him. Like Job, I would do best to sit on some dungheap and admit that I ought not to darken my mind with questions about God, and simply repent in ashes. Like the publican who went up to the Temple to pray, I would do well not to dare to lift my eyes directly to heaven, but hang my head, beat my breast, and ask God to have mercy on, a sinner. Yes, I have long known that I am not worthy of him.

But I never once dreamed it was because I loved my mother. Because I loved my father. Because, if I had them, I would hope, and pray, to love my children.

I know I am not worthy of him - but because of that? Or because I do prefer peace to the sword? Or because my worst enemies are not those of my own household or my own parish? Is that why I am so unworthy of him?

What on earth is going on here? What on earth can our Lord have meant in this passage, in this teaching?

In St Matthew's version, which we heard this morning, it is all startling enough, but in St Luke's account of the same comment, it is positively chilling: "If anyone comes to me and does not hate his own father and mother and son and daughter, and even his own life, he cannot be my disciple."

What on earth could our Lord have meant, it is all so uncharacteristic, grotesquely uncharacteristic, of him and his love.

And still . . . skimming through the Gospels with a light, superficial reading, I have sometimes gotten the foolish impression, wrong and silly, but still unsettling, that our Lord could be a bit cavalier about his Mother. And his earthly father. When told his mother and brothers are outside anxiously waiting for him, he says, coldly it seems to me, even dismissively, "Who is my mother and brother? Those who do the will of my father, they are my mother and father and brother and sister." At that wedding in Cana of Galilee, site of his first miracle, his mother simply approaches, says quietly and unremarkably, "They have no wine." And he says, "Woman, what have you to do with me?" I half want to say: "What has she to do with you? What has she to do with you? Do you know about the Annunciation, do you know about the miserable jolting ride on a donkey, of all things, to Bethlehem while she was on the verge of delivery with you, which she then suffered through in some unheated, unlighted, dirty little stable, unsurrounded by the helping hands of many careful, tender village women who has been through it themselves? This is she who held you close as they fled to Egypt in the dead of night to preserve you from being murdered by a tyrant, just those few days after you were born. What has she to do with you?" What on earth can he have been thinking!

Ah, but then, I immediately remember that moment on the cross, when he was a young man of just 33, in his very prime, in the glory of his saving work and the unequalled glory of his messianic mission, and now, suddenly dying in agony, absolute agony, on a cross, and still, even then, in the midst of that excruciating pain, seeing that dear, dearly beloved, woman, and making provision for his mother, to see that she will be cared for, and watched over, and supported when he is gone.

That is the measure of his love for his Mother, which surpasses all that our minds can fathom.

What could he possibly have meant - "He who loves mother more than me is not worthy of me?" I think something very strange is going on here - something very peculiar. Perhaps a mother, father, brother, sister, child, household were actually unimportant to our Lord, so that he could dismiss them as a needless impediment to full discipleship, to really doing what we should be doing in the world, drawing us aside from fulfilling what we are called to fulfill in our lives. But how then does that square with the fact that with his dying breath he provided for his Mother, that he conce scolded the zealous Pharisees for allowing a man to declare himself holy and set aside for the Lord and so no longer able, or expected, to provide for his mother and father, declaring himself off limits -"corban" - and thus beyond the normal human expectations of caring for those we love. And how does any of this square with that simple, glorious, unsurpassed statement in one of John's Epistles: "How can you love God whom you have not seen, if you do not love you brother, whom you have seen?"

Are we to love our brother, honor our father and mother, and provide for our parents, even in our own last hour, with a lasting devotion? Or does all of that simply make us unworthy of our Lord, unable and unfit to be his disciples?

What is our Lord doing and saying in this morning's Gospel passage and in the even more hard-edged version in St Luke's?

He is, I believe, firmly, uncompromisingly, radically establishing, requiring, demanding ... priority, absolute and unchallenged and undimmed priority. He is to come first in our lives. First. Before our comfort or our security or our wants and wishes. Before our own hopes and dreams about ourselves and those around us, before our indulgences (of course, who would not agree?) But Wait! - as they say in the infomercials - there is more! Before ourselves - far more difficult, but still pretty inarguable. But even before our family, our friends, our siblings. Before our mothers. Absolutely, utterly first in our hearts, first in our lives, first in our loyalties, first in our love.

First. Not sort-of first, not mostly first, not occasionally or even often first. First. Without question or confusion. No other approach, however justified, is acceptable. No other relationship, however good, however precious, however holy is to come first, even briefly. Him first, before all others, all other lives and loves, all other relationships. Anything less is not, after all, really first. Not first at all. First place in our lives - an unqualified, unsurpassed, unshared first is what he asks us to give to him alone.

Now it is fairly easy to hope to put God first, to put Jesus, first in our hearts. We may even agree to do it, and mean that. But actually doing that is the hard part, the difficult part, the almost-impossible part.

That is one of the reasons I come to church - to be around other people who know that it is hard, and who also have a problem putting God first, always and faithfully and unfailingly. Indeed, in order to be around other people, on a regular, on-going basis, who will understand - who will know from their own experience how difficult it is, how hard it is, for me to do that, and keep doing that, and sometimes how difficult it is to even want to do that. I need to around people who all want to put God, put Jesus, first, and only first, but who are having a very hard time doing it and get as confused and discouraged as I do. I need to be around people who are going through that themselves and so will not ridicule or judge or condemn or dismiss me for my failed, but honest, attempts, because they try too, and also come up short. But to also remind each other to hold each other to account, quietly recalling each other to our first responsibility - to put him first.

Shortly after I finished this sermon, I came across this item in The New York Times:

"A Brooklyn woman was killed by a Manhattan-bound JFK Express subway on the IND line yesterday, after pushing her 4 year old son to safety.

According to the transit police, Norma Allen, who was in her early 30's and lived on McDonough St, saw her son, Lucien, tottering at the edge of the express platform in the Utica Ave Station just before 3 pm.

When she sought to pull him back, both fell to the tracks in the path of the express, which does not stop at Utica Ave, but was, as customary, proceeding through the station at a somewhat reduced speed. As the train approached, Mrs. Allen pushed Lucien off the tracks to safety underneath the platform overhang. That did not leave her time to get to safety herself."

When we put God in our hearts where that women put Lucien in hers, we will be worthy of him.