In life, what is easy to get doesn’t carry much value or meaning. We don’t put much meaning or value into something that is easy to get. Something that requires our time and effort matters to us. What’s most difficult is what’s most meaningful. For the past few weeks, I have seen a crowd of high school and college graduates walking so happily and proudly with their graduation gowns on at subway stations. They have endured three, four years of going to school and fulfilling requirements for their studies. This is for some an easy task to fulfill but for those whose environment isn’t so supportive, this isn’t easy. Showing up requires a certain character or even a virtue of fortitude or unyielding courage in the face of hardship or firmness or grit.
What would be the most difficult, yet most meaningful and life giving task for us Christians? We might say making lots of money, nurturing our children, coming to church on Sundays, fighting for social justice issues, and etc. These are all good causes to stand up for, yet these are not essential elements of the Christian life. You can do all these things without being a Christian. For us Christians, all these things are considered various results or fruits of being a Christian. The most difficult, essential, yet most meaningful task or calling for us Christian is to follow Jesus, not alone, but with fellow Christian sisters and brothers. Nevertheless, calling this somewhat obvious and trivial aspect of our Christian life as the most difficult thing to do would puzzle some of us. Why is it the most difficult thing to do? Doesn’t baptism automatically make us followers of Christ? In a way, yes but not enough. It’s like you want to get better at basketball but do not practice how to dribble and how to make a shot. Not only do we need the help of the Holy Spirit but we ourselves need to set our will to become a faithful follower of Christ. The Holy Spirit is always ready for us but it is usually us who aren’t so attentive if not indifferent. So, simply put, my thesis/agenda is this: what’s most difficult is what’s most meaningful. And the most difficult and meaningful thing for us Christians to do is to follow Christ faithfully. Today’s gospel lesson shows us Jesus’s brief interaction with those who want to be his followers. It’s quite interesting how he deals with each one of them. The first one approaches Jesus and says, “I will follow you wherever you go.” This is rather surprising that Jesus gets to have a newcomer or someone who wants to be his disciple. But then, Jesus’s response is quite unusual and unwelcoming if not hostile. He says, “Foxes have holes and birds of the air have nests; but the Son of Man has nowhere to lay his head.” Which means those who follow him have nowhere to lay their heads either. So, what’s Jesus trying to do? Turning this person away? Well, before we answer, let’s look at the next two interactions. The second encounter goes like this. Jesus tells another person directly, “Follow me.” And that person says, “Lord, first let me go and bury my father.” He’s not saying no, but he has a specific condition or obstacle. “Not just now. I’ll certainly follow you but let me first handle this.” We have no idea whether his father recently died or hasn’t died yet but his point is that he cannot follow Jesus right away. Jesus then responds, “Let the dead bury their own dead; but as for you, go and proclaim the kingdom of God.” He sets the kingdom of God over family values. Then, Jesus’s prioritizing of the gospel becomes clearer in the third encounter. The person who Jesus tells to follow answers, “I will follow you, Lord; but let me first say farewell to those at my home.” Jesus is skeptical and says, “No one who puts a hand to the plow and looks back is fit for the kingdom of God.” He sounds like “Cut your family ties for the kingdom of God. Don’t even say good-bye to them.” Jesus’s emphasis on the urgency and priority of the kingdom of God over family values and relationships is quite offensive to the generation in his time as well as ours. This urgency is often found in St Paul’s letters. He recommends Christians to not marry. He doesn’t ban marriage but what’s more spiritually beneficial is the life of celibacy. He believed the second coming of Jesus would take place in his lifetime. So he thought rather than spending our time focusing too much on family responsibilities, spreading the gospel came first. What about the first encounter in which Jesus seems to turn away his potential follower? He’s indeed discouraging the one who would like to follow him while troubling those who would still like to follow him once they hand over their family values and say goodbye to their family. Jesus clearly is not so good at attracting people. If I were next to him, I might want to tell him, “Lord, I think I will be better at recruiting people. Can you please not tell them anything?” At this point, let’s reframe what’s really going on with Jesus. What’s the whole point of Jesus discouraging the one who wants to follow or rushing the ones who will follow to not look back? I believe what Jesus is doing in common with all these three potential followers of his is the reality check. To the one who believes he or she can follow, Jesus goes directly to the reality of Christian discipleship. “Foxes have holes and birds of the air have nests; but the Son of Man has nowhere to lay his head.” Following him doesn’t give us fame or honor or respect. Don’t be naive about it. It’s the most difficult journey to be on. Do you really want that? To the ones who want to take care of their family matters first, Jesus urges, “Cut that family ties. Expand your understanding of what family is in the kingdom of God. Do you not realize we are brothers and sisters, tied by my body and blood, not by your biological links?” Commit your whole self to the kingdom of God. “Commit your entire life to me, ” says Jesus. Jesus’s calling to the discipleship probably sounds too difficult to keep up with. But my friends, as I said earlier in the beginning of my homily, what’s most difficult is what’s most meaningful. This Christian life is the life of freedom. In this total commitment to Jesus, at first it seems there’s no freedom but rather religious slavery or fanaticism. Well, before we judge whether Christian discipleship is of religious fanaticism, let’s listen to St Paul in the second lesson. He says Christ has set us free. There’s nothing that binds us any more. We are created to be free. That Christ has given us freedom is quite true because whether to follow Jesus or not already presupposes we have freedom to choose. If we’re not up for it, we don’t have to. But let’s give it a try. This life Jesus calls us to live as well as the life of freedom St Paul calls us to live out are the same. St Paul makes it more concrete what it’s like to live our lives as Jesus’s disciples. It is the life of love. Love your neighbor as yourself. This is the only proper way to truly love yourself as well as others. Loving God requires loving ourselves and others. St Paul has a sense of humor as he explains this life of love. “If you don’t love your neighbor as yourself, this is what happens. You bite and devour one another. Be careful not to be eaten by others.” He definitely has a point. If you don’t live this life of love, you will be quite dead. If you do, you will face the death of Jesus. Either way, we die once. But what really matters is that we live everyday. (We don’t live once.) With what do you want to live your life until your death? What kind of death would you like to have? Being eaten or consumed by others whom you don’t call neighbors? Or being crucified with Christ with the promise of the resurrection? In my liturgy class, this professor talked about what he would like to see in every Sunday mass. He would like to see every single baptized Christian in an alb because that white alb is the true cloth that every baptized Christian wears, not just clergy or the ones at the altar. I want to push a little further that I hope to see every single Christian wearing a collar around their necks like our Jewish brothers wearing a yamaka hat. The most legitimate reason why clergy wear a collar is to remind other Christians of who they really are and to what life they are called to live out. My friends, don’t forget who you are as Jesus’s disciples and to what life you’re called to live out. It’s the life of love. I ask the Holy Spirit for the gift of fortitude, one of the four cardinal virtues, that we become firm and persistent like Elisha who refused to leave his teacher Elijah and like the author of Psalm today whose hands are stretched out by night and refused to be comforted. And you are not on this journey of Christian discipleship. In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen. |
Paul"...life up your love to that cloud [of unknowing]...let God draw your love up to that cloud...through the help of his grace, to forget every other thing." Archives
January 2025
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