Twenty-third Sunday in Ordinary Time,2007
Wisdom 9:13-18b
Psalm 90:3-4, 5-6, 12-13, 14-17
Philemon 9-10, 12-17
Luke 14:25-33
Why do we do what we do? What or who guides our choices? Those were the questions that Jesus was trying to answer in the Gospel I just read. Large crowds who were healed and fed by Jesus were following him as he travelled. He talks to them in very sober terms about what they must do if they stay with him. He speaks about calculating the cost, He names two of the greatest stumbling blocks: attachment to family and to possessions. None of these in themselves is wrong, but these attachments could take priority, much as an addiction can gradually take over our life and our decisions.
Jesus advised his disciples that if they wanted a lasting relationship with him, there would be certain costs. Following him is not a matter of being infatuated. The saying about hating one’s own family members is jolting to our ears. Hate is a harsh word, and almost unbelievable as coming from the mouth of Jesus. How could any normal person choose to hate father and mother, wife and husband and children, brothers and sisters, and even one's own life? The word hate, however, is best translated as being detached or separated. In Jesus’ time, people did not think of themselves as individuals but derived their identity and their social standing from their family, clan, village and religious group. Families determined everything about you: your identity; your status in society, your religion; your economic status. To be cut off from your family was to become a nobody, a person without identity. It was very much like being dead.
Jesus' own family generally did not understand him. St. Mark tells us that When his family heard of this "they set out to take charge of him." Noticing what Jesus was saying and doing made them question whether or not he was crazy.
This Labor Day weekend many of you have or will be joined to your families. Families today are scattered. But with the help of cell phones and the internet sites like Face book we can get in contact almost instantly with members of our families wherever they may be in the world. But that was not so at the time of Jesus.
Jesus emphasizes for us that at times in our lives we must leave everything behind to follow a dream or a call. Many of you right here have done that when you decided to get married. This does not mean that we hate what we leave behind. I am sure that the thousands who left their homes along the East Coast in the last few days hated to leave behind all their possessions, their homes and even memories. But they did this for a higher call -- in order to save their lives. Many Americans in the past years have left behind loved ones and family to fight a war. In all of these situations we are willing to leave the present for an unknown future because we have faith in the cause for which we are leaving everything.
Today's message from Jesus is difficult. To truly love Jesus everything else in our life must take second place. We must transfer our loyalty from our blood family to the family of Jesus. But it is only through our love for our family that we can transfer that love for Jesus.
For most of us that transfer of love and loyalty has been gradual. Spiritually, it began the day we were brought to a Church by our parents to be Baptism. It continued as we received religious formation at home and prepared for First Communion and First Confession. As we got older we then became Confirmed in our faith and its practice through the sacrament of Confirmation. For many that relationship has continued when you got married.
Although we are urged to give up our possessions and to share our goods, we are not called to do this all at once. In fact we do most important things in our life by stages or by steps. We creep before we walk, we survive on liquids before we get solid food, we spend years in grade school before high school, your 10th or 15th year of marriage is different than your wedding day. The same can be said of the practice of our Catholic faith and spirituality.
Why do we do what we do? What or who guides our choices? What groups shape our thoughts and behaviors? Do family? Do friends? Do the possessions of others?
Jesus never asked his followers to sign membership certificates or pledge cards. Rather, he warned them how tough it would be to be his follower. He said that we are to look at the cost and see if we are really able to follow him. He does not want a half hearted commitment.
Let our response to him be: HERE I AM LORD.
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