First Reading - Wisdom 9:13-18
Second Reading - Philemon 9-10,12-17
Gospel - Luke 14:25-33
The first reading tells us that the will of God can only be discerned by the help of God’s Wisdom (the Spirit of God). God gives us this Divine Wisdom directly in the Sacraments of Baptism and Confirmation, and the Spirit empowers and instructs us through Divine Revelation in Scripture and Sacred Tradition. Hence, we must prepare our plan of action in Christian discipleship, relying on the power and light of the Holy Spirit. Our decisions as true disciples of Christ must flow from our religious values, what the author of Wisdom calls “things [that] are in Heaven.” This means that we are called to make decisions as disciples of Jesus, not as merely foolish people caught up in the cultural values of our time. (The book of Wisdom was written in Alexandria, Egypt a century before Christ. It was the work of a pious Jew and was intended to bolster the Faith of his fellow-Jews who were tempted to “assimilate” into the dominant pagan culture). Today’s passage is about deep theological issues, such as the ability of the human mind to grasp the ways of God, and the interaction between body and soul. God’s mind is Infinite, so we finite creatures, His children, must constantly, and deliberately, pray for Heavenly wisdom.
In the second reading, we hear an appeal of Paul to Philomen citing his own example that how, as a responsible Apostle and model disciple of Christ, he had to renounce the service of his new helper and return him to his master. As a new disciple of Christ, Onesimus had to leave Paul, face his owner as a runaway slave and accept the consequences. Paul challenged Philemon to express his commitment to Christ as a true disciple by treating Onesimus “no longer as a slave but a brother,” thus transforming the relationship between master and slave, bravely facing the contempt and scorn of his social equals and incurring social and economic liability as well. (The traditional belief is that Onesimus was later made the bishop of Ephesus and suffered martyrdom in Rome.)
In the gospel, we see Jesus on his way to Jerusalem where he would be crucified. But the crowd thought that he was going to Jerusalem to oust the Romans and to reestablish the old Davidic kingdom of Israel. Jesus was enormously popular with the crowds as a great healer, brave teacher and miracle worker. Looking at the cheering masses, however, Jesus frankly put before them the FOUR strenuous conditions for discipleship:
1) We must renounce family relationships, giving priority to God. Today’s passage in Luke puzzles a lot of people, because in the Middle East, anyone who deliberately cut ties with family and social network would lose the ordinary means of making a living. Further, a person’s life and family relationships were a necessity for security and identity, regardless of social position. Why was Jesus, who had been recommending that his followers love everybody –including their enemies–suddenly announcing that no one could be his disciple unless he hated his own family? The Hebrew language does not have comparatives — it is not possible in Hebrew, for example, to speak of loving something “more” or “less” than another thing. It is only possible to speak of loving or hating. The phrase, “If anyone follows me and does not hate father and mother” should be understood in this way: “If anyone follows me, without preferring me to father and mother….” To see that this is so we only need to look at the same matter in the Gospel of Matthew where Jesus says: “Whoever loved father and mother more than me is not worthy of me” (Matthew 10:37). Besides, the word hate, as used in this case, “is Semitic exaggeration and may reflect an idiom which means ‘love less than'. So, it is clear that Jesus’ “hating” one’s family is a Semitic hyperbole or exaggeration, spoken for effect. Matthew’s Gospel makes it clear. “Whoever loves father or mother more than me is not worthy of me; and whoever loves son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me; and whoever does not take up the cross and follow me is not worthy of me.” (Mt 10:37-38).
2) We must bear our crosses: Taking up our own cross does not mean seeking out suffering. Jesus did not seek out his cross; he took on himself, in obedience to the Father, what men put on his shoulders, and with his obedient love , he transformed it from an instrument of torture into a sign of redemption and glory. Jesus did not come to make human crosses heavier, but rather to give them meaning. It has been rightly said that “whoever looks for Jesus without the cross will find the cross without Jesus,” that is, he will certainly find the cross but not the strength to carry it. Though “bearing a cross” is often equated with welcoming chronic illness, painful physical conditions, or trying family relationships, it also includes what we do voluntarily, as a consequence of our commitment to Jesus Christ. Further, it is the spirit in which we freely and deliberately accept and endure the pain, the difficulties, and even the ridicule involved with these choices, that transforms them into real cross-bearing. We need to be prepared to suffer out of love for Jesus.
3) We must calculate the cost of discipleship: Using the two parables of the tower-builder and the king defending his country, Jesus says we must think long and hard about Christian discipleship before making this commitment. In the first parable, the builder was not financially able to finish the building. The second parable spoke of a king planning strategy against a belligerent opponent. Could the king win the battle against an army twice the size of his own? Or should he sue for peace? Just as a tower builder needs to have enough in the budget for materials and as a general to win a war needs to have enough well-trained troops to defeat his opponents, so we, to be followers of Christ need to know the sufferings that keeping this commitment will demand. Perhaps these parables also illustrate that discipleship is not a one-time decision and that the commitment involved needs to be an ongoing decision to persevere in the ministries that are integral to following Jesus. When we first decide to follow Christ, we know simply that there will be a price to pay. Only as life unfolds can we begin to assess the full cost. Jesus warns us to expect significant cost overruns because the cost for him was the cross at Calvary.
4) The fourth condition for being a disciple of Jesus means not only surrendering material possessions but sometimes one’s very life. In today’s reading, we hear the phrase, “whoever does not renounce all of his possessions and even life itself, cannot be my disciple.” Jesus asserted it in the Sermon on the Mount: “No one can serve two masters; for he will either hate the one and love the other or be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and mammon” (Mt 6:24). When Jesus says that we must give up all our possessions in order to follow him, he doesn’t mean that we must all hold a giant yard sale and live as mendicants on the streets. He means that we should lead a detached life, willingly sharing our blessings with others. The four conditions of discipleship as outlined by Jesus indicate a kind of total commitment that every follower of Christ should be prepared to live. The radical demands of Jesus call us to center our lives on the suffering and risen Christ.
Dear friends, Jesus’ challenge of true Christian discipleship can be accepted only if we practice the spirit of detachment and renunciation in our daily lives. Real discipleship demands true commitment to the duties entrusted to us by life, circumstances, the community, or directly by God Himself, and by loving acts of selfless, humble, sacrificial love offered to all God’s children around us. Let us remember that all this is possible only if we rely on the power of prayer and the guidance of the Holy Spirit. Mother Teresa said, “If we have our Lord amid us, with daily Mass and Holy Communion, I fear nothing for the Sisters nor myself; he will look after us. But without him I cannot be. I am helpless”
We should be ready to embrace spiritual paths, such as: 1) by daily recharging our spiritual batteries through prayer, i.e., by talking to God, and by listening to Him through our meditative reading and study of the Bible; 2) by sharing in God’s life through frequent and active participation in the Eucharistic celebration; 3) by practicing the spirit of detachment and the renunciation of evil habits; 4) by giving our time, talents and resources generously, for the Lord’s work in the Church universal, and especially in our parish community, relying on the guidance of the Holy Spirit, 5) by loving all God’s children, especially the less fortunate ones, through humble, selfless acts of kindness, mercy, forgiveness, and service; 6) by showing true commitment to the obligations and duties entrusted to us by our vocation in life and our profession, for example, by fidelity in marriage and firm adherence to justice in our living and profession.
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