Crossan [Historical Jesus, 299-302] discusses Jesus opposition to the patriarchal family. He observes:

The strife is not between believers and non-believers but quite simply, and as it says, between the generations and in both directions. Jesus will tear the hierarchical or patriarchal family in two along the axis of domination and subordination. Second, and even more significant, is that the division imagined cuts across sex and gender. (p. 300)

 

Jesus Seminar

Text	Item	Source	JS Mtg	%Red	%Pink	%Gray	%Black	W Avg	Color
Thom 55:1-2a	71	Q, T	87StP	5	18	45	32	0.32	Gray
	71	Q, T	89Tor	22	13	56	9	0.49	Gray
Thom 101:1-3	71	Q, T	87StP	0	5	9	86	0.06	Black
	71	Q, T	89Tor	6	12	18	64	0.20	Black
Luke 14:25-26	71	Q, T	87StP	4	30	43	22	0.39	Gray
	71	Q, T	87StP	27	18	48	6	0.56	Pink
Matt 10:37	71	Q, T	87StP	0	22	43	35	0.29	Gray
	71	Q, T	89Tor	9	22	44	25	0.39	Gray

The commentary in The Five Gospels observes:

This saying, which must have been offensive to Jesus' audience when he first enunciated it, has suffered the fate of other harsh sayings in the tradition. Matthew softens it by making the love of family subordinate to the love of Jesus. But Luke and Thomas retain the rigorous form: hatred of family is a condition of discipleship.

The severity of this saying can only be understood in the context of the primacy of filial relationships. Individuals had no real existence apart from their ties to blood relatives, especially parents. If one did not belong to a family, one had no real social existence. Jesus is therefore confronting the social structures that governed society at their core For Jesus, family ties faded into insignificance in relation to God's imperial rule, which he regarded as the fundamental claim on human loyalty. (p. 353)