With every new diet craze that sweeps our increasingly plump continent, a tremendous transformation takes place. Alas, not in the pudgy body shapes that struggle towards trimness. But on the grocery shelves of our local supermarkets.

Have you noticed the transformation? (At this point you may want to hold up some of these items you're talking about.) Our foodstuffs are changed from their most basic forms so that they fit whatever diet regimen reigns supreme.

First, it was banning sugar. Suddenly sugar-free, artificially sweetened sodas, cookies, and chocolates filled the grocery shelves.

Then fats became public enemy number one. Suddenly fat-free chips, ice cream, and butter-substitutes made greasy fingers obsolete. Dr. Dean Ornish made the low-fat diet popular, even among the presidents.

Now . . . as no one needs to be told . . . it's a low-carb/no-carb world. Dr. Robert Atkins first introduced his low carb diet program in the 1970s (known then as the "Dr. Atkins Diet Revolution"). Since not enough people seemed to notice, about ten years ago Dr. Atkins reintroduced his revolution, and our grocery stores - and best-seller lists (you may want to show one for proof) - have never been the same.

Supermarkets are now stocked with low-carb muffin mixes, candy bars, and the pork-rind display. The low-carb section covers at least one whole end-of-the-aisle display case in most grocery stores. In some stores it's half an aisle. We're obsessed now with counting carbs, keeping anything white, starchy, and comforting from our tables and tongues, our lips and hips. It's estimated that nearly 25 million Americans are on a low carb diet during any given period. Dr. Atkins' prophecy was right. He created a revolution.

I'm going to venture a prediction: I doubt that the Atkins-style diets, or its vegetable friendly version called the South Beach diet, will succeed in slimming us down any more than previous diets have. It's the number of calories we take in that makes us look the way we do.

But this one man has changed the way we think about diet-food, and even the food pyramid itself. Personally, I love the idea of prime-rib as diet food. Can I get a witness? I love the idea of bacon and eggs as diet food. Can I get a witness? After years of denying ourselves bacon, butter, cheese and eggs, who wouldn't be thrilled to find them reclassified as diet foods.

Green and lean is out. Red and grease is in.

The low-carb craze was ridiculed by the medical establishment in the 70's because it seemed so absolutely contrary to common sense. How could you lose fat by eating fat? That's the trouble with common sense, however. In appealing to the lowest common denominator it too easy simplifies complexities and lets the status quo rule everyone's status. It takes backbone and back-talk to rise against some common-sense conventionalities to advocate the uncommon and uncharted.

It goes against common sense to steer into the direction your car is sliding on any icy street to bring it out of a tailspin. It goes against common sense to eat fat in order to lose fat.

Jesus was a master at overturning the common sense and conventional wisdoms of his day. When Jesus preached and taught about discipleship, he never failed to make Atkins diet-food (that is, hamburger) out of some of the most sacred cows for success in the first-century world.

In today's gospel text, the beast Jesus slays seems particularly sanctified and sacred - the primacy of the patriarchy known as the family.

There's a huge chasm between what we think of family today and the family of the 1st century. Our families are separated by huge distances, estranged through self-absorption or disinterest, shredded and patch-worked by divorces, infidelities, addictions or incarcerations. But even in 21st century North America we can still be shocked and appalled by the forcefulness with which Jesus dismisses conventional family-ties in today's gospel text. In order to truly be his disciple, Jesus declares, we must "hate father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters, yes, and even life itself" (verse 26).

Of all the hard sayings of Jesus (and there are shelves of books on these hard sayings), some call this the hardest of the hard. How could such horrible-sounding advice create strong, faithful disciples? Even when we understand that Jesus isn't talking about an emotional response but is describing behaviors and actions, this rejection of the family as our primary connection, our safe harbor in a heartless world, and the rightful recipient of our greatest loyalty, is hard to swallow.

In the first century, far more so than today, the family was one's most fundamental source of self-identity. Your clan, your tribe, your people made you what you were and determined where and how your life would be lived. Did you get to pick where you would life? No, your family did. Did you get to choose what you would do for a living? No, your family did. Did you get to choose whom you would marry? No, your family did.

It was that very influence, that essential hold on heart and head, that Jesus called his disciples to reject, to hate. Jesus' harsh words shocked and shook up that crowd of would-be disciples. For he called them to understand love and loyalty in a whole new way. These earthly connections that we all feel make us who we are - a father, a mother, a husband, a wife, a brother, a sister, a son, a daughter - are only secondary identities.

What we are, what we must be first and foremost, are servants of the Most High God, disciples of the kingdom, faithful followers of the One who is the Way, the Truth, the Life.

Jesus knew the road disciples must follow was neither easy nor safe. Any distracted disciple whose loyalty was fractured between family and faith could never hope to bear the burden of the cross each one of us must carry.

Jesus knew that just as he would be rejected, abused, and killed by the world, that his disciples would also face extreme hostility and hatred. But if disciples could hate, that is reject, the earthly ties that bound them to human allegiances and loyalties first and foremost, then they could focus their faith and draw their strength from God's power, God's love, God's kingdom.

Jesus went against common sense, against conventional wisdom, by declaring the family's strength couldn't be the source of his disciples' strength. Our primary identity isn't in family but in Christ. Only by letting go of family, letting go even of one's own life and picking up the cross - could disciples hope to save their lives, save their families, save the world. Discipleship is no call for milk-toast types to blindly follow well-worn paths towards piety or inner peace. Discipleship is a call to strike out on new, even unexplored routes as directed by the divine will for advancing the kingdom. We need a kind of spiritual Atkins diet, a Low-Carb Christianity, to keep us fit for the rigors of such a road. There's no room for a soft, squishy, comfort food Christianity. In a disciple's diet, only high protein, meaty fare will see us through.

Do you claim to be a disciple of Jesus this morning? If you are, have you counted the cost? Have you considered your cross as you travel the discipleship path? Is your primary identity shaped by this culture and by the significant others in your life? Or is your primary identity found in your love and loyalty to Jesus the Christ?

(This is a good place to end this sermon. If you have time or inclination to continue on, here's a suggestion for another ending and or development.)

Disciples of Jesus must cultivate a new kind of "Triple-A Personality" to keep on the faith journey. The traditional Triple-A Personality is defined as acquisitive, aggressive, and autonomous. This is precisely the pathways Jesus calls his disciples to hate, to leave behind.

But Jesus offers a new kind of Triple-A Personality. Jesus' disciples must embrace a pilgrimage personality that's Adventurous, Audacious, and Agapic (loving).