"And another said, 'I will follow you, Lord, but first let me say farewell to my family at home.' To him Jesus said, 'no one who sets a hand to the plow and looks to what was left behind is fit for the kingdom of God.'" (Lk 9: 61-62)
As I pondered over the readings for this Sunday a few points jumped off the page, one of which reminded me of what Pope Benedict said two weeks ago at the prayer vigil for the closing of the Year for Priests. I'll start with the readings themselves and then share how the Holy Father's insights are relevant for each of us.In the first and second readings, and the Gospel in particular, we see that following the will of God requires a decisive decision on our part - a willingness to sacrifice everything for God, whether it means material things, friendships, or even our family ties. Nothing is allowed between us and God which has the potential to distract us or become an idol. Elisha wanted to return home in today's first reading in order to say goodbye to his parents before becoming Elijah's disciple, and Elijah responds, "go back!" as if to say, "forget it! Never mind!". Perceiving the seriousness of the call, Elisha quickly sacrifices the yoke of oxen (which is his whole livelihood) and thereby demonstrates a repentance for his hesitation and a complete willingness to follow God's call. We will see something similar when we look at today's Gospel.
In the second reading St. Paul reminds and exhorts the Galatians that the ways of the "flesh" are diametrically opposed to God's ways - the way of the "Spirit". Living according to the "Spirit" means true freedom, while the life of the "flesh" means slavery. There is a firm and resolute choice to be made for one or the other. Living for one means death to the other. It would be nice if this meant a once in a lifetime choice, but it's not that easy. This entails a daily decision backed by concrete actions, as the "flesh" always attempts to gain new ground or regain the ground it lost to the Spirit.
Turning to today's Gospel we have a series of encounters between Jesus and unnamed persons. These encounters take place within the wider context of Jesus resolutely journeying toward Jerusalem where He will undergo betrayal, torture, and death. His words are clear, direct, and decisive - as the choice to become a disciple of Christ must also be. There's no room in discipleship for trying to figure out how to live the best of "both worlds". According to some Fathers of the Church who commented on these passages, Jesus spoke very directly to the men in today's Gospel because their words revealed a divided heart, or hesitation, or a heart in which other people or things were preferred to God. As for the man who said, "Lord, let me go first and bury my father," and Jesus responded, "let the dead bury their dead. But you, go and proclaim the kingdom of God," St. Ambrose and St. John Chrysostom made two interesting points. First, both hold that Jesus would not prohibit a man from burying his father, but rather responding to God takes priority over other relationships (St. Ambrose), or that the man meant "let me take care of my father until he dies and then I will follow you," and Jesus responded the way He did knowing the man had other brothers or sisters who could take care of their father (St. Chrysostom).
So we can see in the readings for this Sunday that God has a plan for us, that He does reach out to us, that He does call us, and that if we are to follow Him worthily a full-hearted "yes" is demanded of us. This is true for every single person (not just priests and sisters). But the question remains: "How can I give up, or risk, so much?!" I think the beginning of the answer to that question is found in today's responsorial psalm: "You are my inheritance, O Lord". Many times we are slow to want to give up the things of this world. Maybe we do not understand that God is our true inheritance, or maybe we think this world is all we have, or maybe we don't remind ourselves that the world we live in is only temporary, or maybe we don't reflect enough on heaven and the afterlife.
As I mentioned at the beginning of this post, the Holy Father said something 2 weeks ago which is especially relevant for this Sunday - especially the responsorial psalm. I will quote what he had to say and comment afterwards: "One great problem of Christianity in today's world is that it does not think anymore of the future of God. The present of this world alone seems sufficient. We want to have only this world, to live only in this world. So we close the doors to the true greatness of our existence."
If we live our lives closed to "the future of God", living only for this world, then the wisdom of today's responsorial psalm seems to be foolishness. There is a twofold challenge in the psalm. First, we are speaking of giving absolute priority to the God we cannot see, versus the people, relationships, and things of this world which are immediately visible to us. Second, we say that God is our inheritance. An inheritance is not given immediately, but requires a long period of patient waiting. So on two fronts we see that the answer provided in the response, "you are my inheritance, O Lord" requires that we live in this world with the "eyes of faith", recognizing that there is more to our existence and destiny than meets the natural eye. It is the loss of this vision of faith which the Holy Father sees as problematic for Christianity. We no longer look to our future, but only the material world, resulting in Christians becoming fixated not on our eternal and fulfilling inheritance but on what we can get out of this world - that which is immediately within reach. This ultimately results in a hesitant response to God's call, or renders us incapable of giving God our best, where we respond to Him with a wholehearted "yes".
I pray that the Lord may illumine our minds and hearts so we may recognize His voice in our lives, and that strengthened daily by His grace, prayer, meditation, and the knowledge of our inheritance, we may follow Him generously through the trials and pains of this life to our heavenly inheritance. Have a blessed Sunday.
(Photo courtesy of Br. Lawrence Lew, O.P.)
(Quote from www.vatican.va)
0 comments:
Post a Comment