Devotion for the Week

… week of September 7, 2025

What is Most Important

When someone comes to be baptized, they are often joined by family and friends who gather around the font and promise to love and support them as they grow in the faith. In the baptismal waters, God does something wonderful and profound: God connects us with Christ’s saving grace. In this moment we are made part of a new community that flows from God’s incredible love.

How dissonant it is to read Jesus’ words from Luke’s gospel today with this sort of an occasion in mind. “Whoever comes to me and does not hate father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters, yes, and even life itself, cannot be my disciple” (14:26). How can hating family be a faithful response to God’s divine grace and love? How can this be the way to live into the baptismal promises of love and care?

We know that Jesus loves the whole world: every person, creature, and molecule reverberates with God’s own heart. Scripture and sermons and songs of the faith proclaim time and again: we all are recipients of God’s love! And when we are baptized, we are unapologetically claimed as God’s beloved. Such belovedness is the very foundation of our identity in faith.

Perhaps we can take Jesus’ words here seriously without taking them literally: Christ’s love for us is more important than even our closest ties to friends, family, or chosen family. Christ’s love is more important than any paycheck we receive or how much cash we keep in our pockets. Jesus prioritizes life-changing love over all other loyalties we might have. When we are baptized, our lives are grounded in this countercultural compassion, justice, and care. Our relationship with God may indeed strain some of our other relationships, but perhaps it is exactly the sort of love that renews our hearts and truly transforms our world.