July 2, 2017

13^th Sunday in Ordinary Time

Not a Mere Donation but Total Commitment

Msgr. Thomas Gervasio

There is a story of a magical barnyard—magical because all the animals were able to speak to one another. One day, the hen said to pig, “Look at how good Mr. Green Jeans is to us. He rises early every day. He feeds us and cares for us. I think we should do something special for him.” I was thinking that tomorrow morning we could give him a great breakfast of bacon and eggs. The pig replied, “That’s fine for you…for you it’s a donation, for me it’s total commitment.”
 
Total commitment is what the Lord requires of us…a commitment to a point that is rather disturbing and unreasonable: “Whoever loves father or mother…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.”
 
In St. Luke’s Gospel, this teaching is given a harsher tone: “Whoever comes to me and does not hate father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters, and yes, even life itself, cannot be my disciple.”
 
Strong words, no? Don’t our parents and family have a valid claim of our love and respect? Love of our parents is a commandment. This is doesn’t sound like the Jesus of love and mercy…Jesus, the shepherd and healer! Didn’t Jesus love His Mother and St. Joseph?
 
Mark Twain said, “It isn’t the parts of the Bible that I can’t understand that bother me…it’s the parts that I do understand.” Today’s Gospel is a good example. Jesus is not instructing us to hate or somehow neglect our parents and family.
 
Our Lord in powerful hyperbole teaches us that discipleship involves giving God the first place. This can involve suffering, it involves dying to self, it means detachment. Jesus, if you will, wants us to “read the fine print” of our baptismal commitment. Our faith isn’t a life-style option to be juggled with so many other interests.
 
Faith must pervade every aspect of our life, it must influence our thinking, our decisions, the choices we make. And all our relationships are to be assessed or valued in light of this commitment to Christ. So often we prefer a casual relationship with Christ…a relationship of our own private terms, when we want it and however it suits us. But the Lord wants a commitment that is unconditional and exclusive.
 
Think about the priesthood or matrimony. We would want anyone considering these vocations to clearly understand all that is involved in that commitment…the sacrifices and expectations that are required. We would not want a husband, wife, or a priest to say at some later point at the first sign of difficulty, “That’s not what I signed up for!”
 
But those who seek sacred ordination or holy matrimony don’t think of what they are giving up; they think only of what they are gaining. Getting married, ordination, is a joy, a delight, something to celebrate!
 
Discipleship must be like that too! Yes, there is sacrifice and the cross but we must also want to gain Christ! Remember how Jesus described this…as finding a pearl of great price…so precious that one would sell all he had to possess it? Dr. Bill Kynes expressed it this way: “Once we see Christ for who he is, and we taste the sweetness of his love and grace, we will not see these words of Jesus as some onerous demand upon us. Instead, we will see this as our natural response to his beauty and grace. What joy we will have in him more and more of ourselves!”
 
A few years back, an ad for the Marine Corps stated, “We don’t accept applications, only commitments.” I think Jesus would agree. In our commitment to him we will found all our joy!
 
Reflections taken / based on article “Becoming a Disciple of Jesus” Dr. William Kynes
Knowing and Doing (C.S. Lewis Institute) 2010 www.cslewisinstitute.org