23d Sunday of Ordinary Time
Sept. 4, 2016
Luke 14: 25-33
Holy Cross, Champaign, Ill.
“If anyone comes to me without hating his father
and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters, and even his own life, he
cannot be my disciple” (Luke 14: 25).
We’ve heard some strange language, even harsh and
alienating language, from Jesus in the gospels of recent Sundays. Today the one who preaches universal love,
even for enemies, for people who do us harm, tells us we have to be ready to
hate our own families! The one who
commands us to love our neighbor as we love ourselves tells us we have to hate
even our own lives!
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| Christ Carrying His Cross (Titian) |
A couple of considerations are in order. 1st, at the end of ch. 9 of St. Luke’s
Gospel, Jesus “set his face to go to Jerusalem” (v. 51); i.e., he set out with
resolution, with determination. Now
we’re in ch. 14. Everything we’ve been
hearing from Jesus since the 13th Sunday of O.T., 10 weeks ago, has been spoken
as he journeys, with full awareness, toward his passion and death. The 1st line of today’s passage is, “Great
crowds were traveling with Jesus.” When
he tells us we have to carry our own crosses and come after him, following in
his footsteps, he knows already that he’s walking toward crucifixion; he’s
already twice predicted his passion, death, and resurrection. If we’re with him on our life’s journey, the
journey we hope will end in eternal life, we, too, have 1st to be crucified—at
least metaphorically.
2d, Jesus is a 1st-century Jew, and he uses the
language of a 1st-century Jew, which was Aramaic, part of the Semitic family of
languages like Arabic and modern Hebrew.
Semitic languages use a lot of exaggeration for emphasis, like the image
of a camel squeezing thru the eye of a needle.
Today’s language of “hating” one’s family and renouncing “all” one’s
possessions is another example of such emphasis.
Jesus’ words today—“hating” one’s family, taking
up the cross, renouncing possessions, and 2 very short parables about building
a tower and facing an enemy army—all together make one emphatic point. If we wish to be Jesus’ disciples, we have to
be all in for him, totally committed.
Does Lovie Smith want players who show up for practice when they feel
like it? Paraphrasing Will’s song to Ado
Annie in Oklahoma!, “With Jesus it’s
all or nothing, and nothing else will do.”
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Thomas More and his daughter Margaret
at the Tower of London
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If, like Thomas More or Thomas Aquinas or
Katherine Tekakwitha, you have to choose between Jesus Christ and your family,
you choose Jesus. If, like so many
Christians in Iraq and Syria in recent years, you have to choose between your home,
your property, your livelihood, even your life, and Jesus Christ, you choose
Jesus.
At the Last Supper, Jesus told his disciples there
were dwelling places for them in heaven (cf. John 14:2). (In the old Rheims translation, they were
called “mansions”; that sounds so much better!)
What’s the cost of building that mansion for our eternal
habitation? Calculate the cost, as
someone building a tower had better figure out his costs before he starts. In another place—in fact, it’s right after
Jesus starts on his journey toward Jerusalem—he advises his followers of the
cost of coming along with him; he warns us not to put our hand to the plow and
then turn back, because if we do we’re not “fit for the kingdom of God” (Luke
9:62).
We regard our 1st responders as heroes because
they know the potential cost of the work they do, the service they provide; and
like the heroes of the NYPD and FDNY on 9/11, they’re ready to pay that
price. In one of his eloquent
Revolutionary War pamphlets, Thomas Paine decried the “summer soldier and sunshine
patriot” who shrinks from his country’s service during the crisis, during
“these times that try men’s souls.”
Before you start on the road to Jerusalem with Jesus, before you accept
Baptism, before you come to the Eucharistic banquet to commune intimately with
Christ, make a firm decision that you will complete the journey, you will not
shrink from serving your Lord, whatever it may cost you.
We are engaged in an epic battle, not against an
earthly army but against a demonic one—as we’re reminded every time we pray the
St. Michael prayer. Two weeks ago,
Washington, D.C., pastor and blogger Msgr. Charles Pope posted “Comfort
Catholicism Has to Go; It Is Time to Prepare for Persecution,”[1]
with a subheading that begins, “We are at war for our own souls and the souls
of people we love.” An illustration with
his post shows a huddle of a couple of dozen Christians and a lion in the
foreground of a Roman arena, and behind them a dozen or so crucified victims.
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The Christian Martyrs' Last Prayer
(Jean-Leon Gerome)
|
Msgr. Pope challenges us to embrace the truth of
Jesus Christ, to proclaim it, and to live it even in the face of cultural,
political, and legal hostility. He’s not
talking about the Middle East. He’s talking
about here. He tells us:
It
is time to prepare for persecutions that will get bolder by the month and
year. The dark movements that marched in
under the banners of tolerance never meant it.
And having increasingly gained power, they are seeking to criminalize
anyone who resists their vision. No
tolerance for us. Religious liberty is
eroding, and compulsory compliance is already here.
He wonders how many bishops and priests, much less
laity, are ready to say to the civil authorities, “We will not comply with evil
laws or cooperate with evil.”
Msgr. Pope’s talking about laws and judicial
rulings that aim to force the disciples of Jesus and our institutions—our
schools, our hospitals, our other social services—to employ people who teach and
act against what we stand for. For
instance, if I’m not mistaken, here in Illinois the Church can no longer run
adoption services because we refuse to place children with people who model an
immoral lifestyle. He’s talking about
rulings that aim to force us to subsidize immoral practices or even to actively
engage in them, e.g., to compel medical residents to learn abortion techniques,
nurses to take part in abortions, Catholic hospitals to give abortion referrals
if not provide the procedure itself, individually or family-owned pharmacies to
provide birth control; rulings to force us to give at least the public
appearance of endorsing activity that is morally repugnant, e.g., by compelling
photographers, bakers, and florists to take part in gay weddings. Can you imagine what would happen if a court
ordered an Afro-American baker to prepare a cake for a Klan rally?
But even in our day-to-day lives, following Jesus
has a cost. It demands faithfulness in
our marriages, chastity in our relationships and even in our thoughts, attentiveness
to the poor, obedience to parents, respect for people who irritate us or with
whom we disagree, diligent work in school or our employment, patience when
we’re driving (and no endangering others by texting while doing it, much less
drinking before doing it), self-restraint when we get angry or upset, resisting
the urge to tell tales about our neighbors and coworkers, telling the truth to
those who are entitled to the truth, and much more.
What’s the mansion in God’s kingdom worth to
us? What price are we willing to
pay? Are we willing to renounce Satan
and all his works and all his empty show and “the lure of evil, so that sin may
have no mastery over [us]”[2]? This is the crisis, the decision point, of
every life. And each of us has to answer
for himself or herself.
[1]
National Catholic Register on-line,
Aug. 22, 2016: http://www.ncregister.com/blog/msgr-pope/.
[2] Baptismal liturgy.
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