Gospel Reading on 23rd Sunday of Ord. Time (Year C) (Lk 14:25-33) (2004/09/05)

25 Great crowds were traveling with Jesus, and he turned and addressed them,
26 "If any one 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.
27 Whoever does not carry his own cross and come after me cannot be my disciple.
28 Which of you wishing to construct a tower does not first sit down and calculate the cost to see if there is enough for its completion?
29 Otherwise, after laying the foundation and finding himself unable to finish the work the onlookers should laugh at him
30 and say, 'This one began to build but did not have the resources to finish.'
31 Or what king marching into battle would not first sit down and decide whether with ten thousand troops he can successfully oppose another king advancing upon him with twenty thousand troops?
32 But if not, while he is still far away, he will send a delegation to ask for peace terms.
33 In the same way, everyone of you who does not renounce all his possessions cannot be my disciple.

Homily:
Wow! This is sure a tough lesson. We’ve read at the beginning of this gospel passage that “great crowds were traveling with Jesus;” I just wonder how many or how few of them were left by the time Jesus finished His teaching. It’s not inconceivable that after these words something similar happened what St. John reports at the end of his account on Jesus’ Eucharistic discourse in chapter 6 of his gospel: “Many of his disciples, when they heard it, said, ‘This is a hard saying; who can listen to it?’ And many of them drew back and no longer went about with him.” (Jn 6:60.66)

Yes, the rules of conduct for those who wish to follow Jesus are certainly not for the fainthearted. What he proposes here are radical demands and radical demands call for a radical commitment. He does not tolerate hesitation, compromises, and delays. He said: “No one can serve two masters; you cannot serve God and mammon.” (Mt 6:24) In Rev 3 he tells the Christians of Laodicea: “I know your works: you are neither cold, nor hot. Would that you were cold or hot! So, because you are lukewarm, and neither cold nor hot, I’ll spew you out of my mouth.” (Rev 3:15-16) Jesus puts us in front of a choice: “Satan or me; the world or me? You must choose NOW! You cannot procrastinate to make a decision!”

Every follower of Jesus must make a radical decision FOR Jesus. If you want to meet the Lord you must make the entire journey, you cannot stop at half of the way, saying: “This is enough for me.” If you want to see San Antonio, you have to travel all the way to the Alamo city; you cannot make a compromise solution of stopping in Waco. Yes, there’re various levels of the Lord’s radical call. Jesus calls all of us without exception but this call is a personal call, fitting just right to the personal make-up of each of us. Some of us God calls to travel to San Antonio by airplane or by car on the freeway, others to drive on a winding, two-way road, still others on a dirt road, maybe some should ride on horseback, while a few just have to keep walking through a dusty trail all the way down to the missions.

Everyone, without any exception, has to carry a cross, his personal cross if he/she wants to be Jesus’ disciple, but our crosses differ as for their size and shape and weight because the cross of each of us is custom-made, tailored personally for each of us. Remember when Jesus said, “Take my yoke upon you,” He spoke as a good carpenter: when someone ordered a new yoke for his animal of burden, the good craftsman fitted it exactly to the surface of the animal’s body so that it would be “easy” on the animal. That’s why Jesus immediately also added: “(Take my yoke upon you,) for my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.” (Mt 11:29-30) So, we have to listen to God’s call that we could realize what kind of road did Jesus mean for ME to take for going to Him, what kind of cross (or yoke) He designed for ME to carry. Ultimately this is the most important question in life for me to find out: out of the many possible roads to Jesus which path was planned for ME? Jesus said: “I am the way, and the truth, and the life; no one comes to the Father, but by me.” (Jn 14:6) Jesus is the Way for everyone but Jesus devised a special, personal Way for each one of us.

Yesterday I had the privilege to be present at the solemn profession of a young nun at the Carmelite Monastery in Arlington, Texas. A “solemn profession” means the final promises a young religious takes for life. A life-long commitment; it’s just like a wedding. Well, the step Sister Teresa Agnes was taking yesterday was certainly a radical decision to make a radical dedication for a very radical way of life: This 24 year old young woman will never leave the premises of the monastery (except in the case of some emergency) and in that same location, she will live the strict, monotonous monastery life of prayer and work every day for the rest of her life. This is truly like walking from Dallas to San Antonio, but walking not on the flat terrain of Texas but more like walking to the top of Mount Everest. Well, the Sisters indeed consider their lives as climbing on a mountain to the top but their mountain they don’t call Mt. Everest; they call it Mount Carmel: they make ascent on Mount Carmel.

But you know what was the most beautiful in yesterday’s ceremony? The most beautiful feature of the event was that this bold leap of Sister Teresa Agnes into God’s loving arms was celebrated with such a great joy! The celebration was maybe even more joyful than any wedding. The Sister’s face was radiating of perfect joy. There was no trace of what you’d expect before such a momentous take-off, like agonizing worry about the future, tears of farewells, or sadness over leaving the “joys of the world”. Nothing like that; what all those present felt was more that heaven and earth rejoiced together over Sister’s courageous move. Experiencing that atmosphere of joy filling the chapel the thought came to my mind that God must be very much pleased with this event. After all, don’t we read in one of the letters of St. Paul that “God loves the cheerful giver”? (2Cor 9:7)

But where did this joy come from? This is an important question for each of us because, since each of us has to make his/her personal radical decision, we better find out how to make it (or repeat it) not filled with fear, worry, or bitterness but rather full of serenity, joy, and peace of mind.

The first thing to do is, as today’s gospel recommends, calculate carefully as someone who wants to build a tower or wage a war, consider what are his assets and see whether he’s able to carry out his plans; but this is a strange calculation because Jesus’ disciple will find out quickly that, although he has very little capital to begin with and what little he has would not be enough to carry out his bold plans, he has a “bank” with inexhaustible resources and this “bank” is God’s treasury of graces. He’ll readily admit his poverty and he’ll rely with utter confidence on the generosity of his “bank”: he’ll know that he’ll always have enough to continue building – or fighting, he’ll always receive his “daily bread” if he keeps trusting and keeps praying: “Give us this day our daily bread”. Thus, he has nothing to fear, nothing to worry about, he just has to go ahead, trusting God. We’ll always be able to achieve our plans, build our tower, wage our wars, travel our journey not by our own resources but by the power and graces of God. Do not fear!

In today’s epistle (Second Reading) Paul writes this sentence to Philemon: “I did not want to do anything without your consent, so that the good you do might not be forced but voluntary.” This is the second step or second condition for being able to take our radical step cheerfully: Do it freely, out of free will, answer “Yes” to God’s call with promptness, just like Mary did at the Annunciation. One of the antiphons sung yesterday at the solemn profession was: “With a joyful heart, O Lord my God, I give all to you!” We, too, should have this kind of generous heart, readiness, spontaneity. A gift is a gift only if it is freely given and not forced on someone.

But why should we give at all? Why? We give because our hearts are full of love. True love always gives, and gives cheerfully. Cheerful sharing is love’s essence. Just like at a wedding, so at a solemn profession, or at any other radical self-giving one can give oneself cheerfully because the person looks at the other, not at himself/herself, because he/she wants to give the self to the other, instead of being sorry for giving up independence, riches, or anything else. Life is supposed to be constant giving because life is supposed to be a constant love-dialog. And this explains also the ugly word of “hating” one’s mother and father, wife and husband, siblings and children in today’s gospel. In the usage of the Semitic languages exaggeration is used frequently. It’s called hyperbole. They’d use an image or metaphor of exaggerated size, like when you say about a very strong man, “He’s strong like a bull”. So, in today’s gospel reading, to emphasize the absolute and highest degree of love the disciples are supposed to have toward Jesus, it is said that, in comparison to that, every other love toward God’s creatures would look like hatred, just like stepping in from the bright sunshine into a room, at the first moment the room, though filled with daylight, will look dark in comparison to the outside brightness.

So, let’s say in the spirit of this fearless joy and free self-offering love: “With a joyful heart, O Lord my God, I give all to you!”
Amen.

Rev. Julius Leloczky, O.Cist