You Know Not What You Ask The humorist Dave Berry learned a thing or two on his summer internship in Washington forty years ago. But like many internships, his expectations met with very different realities. Years later, and with typical wit and wisdom, Berry deconstructed the distorted values that characterized those corridors of power: “[W]hen I got to Washington I discovered that even among young people, being a good guy was not the key thing: The key thing was your position on the great Washington totem pole of status. Way up at the top of this pole is the president; way down at the bottom, below mildew, is the public. In between is an extremely complex hierarchy of government officials, journalists, lobbyists, lawyers, and other power players, holding thousands of minutely graduated status rankings differentiated by extremely subtle nuances that only Washingtonians are capable of grasping. For example, Washingtonians know whether a person whose title is “Principal Assistant Deputy Undersecretary” is more or less important than a person whose title is “Associate Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary,” or “Principal Deputy to Deputy Assistant Secretary,” or “Deputy to the Deputy Secretary,” or “Principal Assistant Deputy Undersecretary,” or “Chief of Staff to the Assistant Assistant Secretary.” (All of these are real federal job titles.) Everybody in Washington always seems to know exactly how much status everybody else has. I don’t know how they do it. Maybe they all get together in some secret location and sniff one another’s rear ends. All I know is, back in my internship the summer of 1967, when I went to Washington parties, they were nothing like parties I’d become used to in college. I was used to parties where it was not unusual to cap off the evening by drinking bourbon from a shoe, and not necessarily your own shoe. Whereas the Washington parties were serious. Everybody made an obvious effort to figure out where everybody else fit on the totem pole, and then spent the rest of the evening sucking up to whoever was higher up. I hated it. Of course, one reason for this was that nobody ever sucked up to me, since interns rank almost as low as members of the public. ” (footnote: Dave Berry: http://www.thisisawar.com/LaughterDaveWashington.htm) The Gospel reading this week suggests that James and John, and the ten disciples who exploded at them in anger, would have fit quite nicely into the Washingtonian world that stratifies people into a hierarchy based upon their perceived power, worth, or status, and then pursues a zero-sum game of unbridled self-interest. Of course, Jesus’ rebuke of the disciples warns us of our own tendency to do the same. Answering the call of discipleship means that we are baptized into Jesus’ life and ministry. Our baptism plunges us into the dying and rising mystery of Christ. The disciples kept misunderstanding this. Discipleship means emptying ourselves to be servant over and over again and constantly learning the cost of our baptismal yes is. Serving means nothing more than giving our lives for the other. It means when our nerves are frazzled and the baby is crying, we manage to find the energy to comfort and caress. When we hear of a neighbor in need,we ring the doorbell, introduce ourselves and ask how we might help. Serving others means that we look for ways to make the lives of others better. Would that we be so bold about serving others as about seeking our own glory!
Dying to Self My father was a wine maker. He knew the answer to the question: How much time does it take for grape mash to be fermented into good wine? He always answered: it takes time! But the time involved was less critical than the change this time brought about! My dad’s wine making was real transformation! And it was a real experience for our family for over 60 years! The transformation Jesus speaks about in our Gospel today takes a lifetime of time. We learn only slowly to accept the demands of discipleship. We embrace the Gospel challenge because Jesus has promised that those who serve lose their life, and die will be given fullness of life and a share in his glory. And this transformation is worth all the time it takes. Our human instinct is not to die but to cling to life. So what Jesus asks in this gospel is counterinstinctual. To be faithful disciples we must hand over our life by serving, by putting others’ needs ahead of our own, and by dying to self-centeredness. Through such serving and dying God transforms us and gives us a fullnesd of life and glory that we canot even imagine. And this transformation is worth all the time it takes.
Come After Me In 1960 the off-Broadway classic “The Fantastiks” debuted in front of widely approving audiences. The best known song from that popular musical was “Try to Remember,” a sentimental ballad written by Tom Jones and Harvey Schmidt, which is still a crowd favorite at sing-along piano bars and among any of us who consider ourselves to be Broadway divas. Perhaps you remember that song: “Try to remember the kind of September when grass was green and the grain was yellow….” You remember. I love that song. It’s a beautiful reminiscent melody. But do you remember how that song ends? The ending, to me, always seemed awkward. Try to remember and if you remember, then follow, follow, follow, follow, follow, follow, follow, follow. It’s a song with a lot of follows. If I had written that song, I would have just stopped with one follow. Try to remember and if you remember, then follow. Period. After all, less is more. But the composers evidently liked the word follow so they included a whole lot of them. Follow, follow, follow, follow. Sometimes when I hear the Gospel, I experience the same reaction because the Bible is not shallow on follows. Jesus was always calling on people to follow. A good chunk of the stories end with those familiar words and Jesus said, “Follow me.” He said it to Simon Peter and Andrew while they were casting nets into the sea. “Follow.” He said it to James and John while they were mending their nets, “Follow.” Matthew was sitting in a tax booth; paralytics were sitting on their mats. Saul was sitting blinded on a dusty road. Follow, follow, follow.But at other times, it was implied. “Come and see,” Jesus would say. “Go and do likewise,” Jesus would say. “Go into all the world,” Jesus would say. No matter how you phrase it, the haunt is still the same. Follow, follow, follow The words ring in our ears, follow, follow, follow, even long after our initial decision to follow him. Dietrich Bonhoeffer, the martyred German Lutheran pastor who was hanged by the Nazis in 1945 for resisting their ideology of terror and hatred, wrote extensively during his lifetime about the dangers of what he called “cheap grace.” Instead of cheap grace, he said God’s love is a costly grace. Grace comes to us with a steep price attached to it–the death of Jesus, and, therefore, it costs something of us in return. It cost Dietrich Bonhoeffer his life and it should cost us our life as well. Our faith tells us that when we hear and respond to Jesus’ call to follow, to come to the cross, we do not walk alone. We walk with Jesus, we walk with him to the cross; we walk with him to the resurrection and that is Good News.
Fruit of the Vine How disappointing it is to work hard at something, only to have it go wrong and have no god outcome happen. Students might spend hours studying for an exam, only to discover the have studied the wrong questions. A worker puts in long overtime hours on a project, only to have the manager scuttle the project. How disheartening this is for us, and how often it even results in our hesitating to work so hard the next time. God is amazingly resilient despite human forces and frailties that constantly thwart the divine plan for our salvation. Nothing, not even sparing the life of the divine Son, deters God from offering us a rich heritage in divine life itself. For our part we are to be faithful tennants who rejoie in our heritage and acknowledge that we have been given far more than we expect or deserve. What is the fruit we are to produce? The fruit of the kingdom is the life God offers but the only way to produce that fruit is to die to self. The kingdom involves our rooting out anything that keeps us from growing in relationship with God and hearing God’s word, our dying to self so that we can do God’s willl. As faithful tenants we plant seeds of encouragement and hope, we water the growing fruit with prayer, we fertilize it with reflection on God’s word, we cultivate it by good works and we celebrate its abundance by sharing it with others. We are heirs to more than our rightful share. We receive an inconceivable heritage, abundant life that cannot be pressed out.
We Must Lose Our Life Today’s Gospel continues straight on from last week’s and shows how fleeting the disciples’ understanding was. Last week, they heard Peter identify Him as the Son of God – this week, they hear Jesus call Peter “Satan”. What is going on? The problem lies in Peter’s understanding of what being the Messiah – the Son of God means. He had been brought up on the idea of a warrior Messiah – someone who would liberate Israel by his qualities of leadership and even having traveled with Jesus and heard His words in the Sermon on the Mount, Peter is still convinced that this is Jesus’ destiny. Jesus understands things differently. He recognizes that His Kingdom is not one of this world – and that the kind of Kingdom He is building is going to bring Him into conflict with the chief priests and lead, eventually, to His death. This is unthinkable to the disciples – but Jesus is quite certain and recognizes in Peter’s words some of the empty promises offered by Satan in the desert. Hence words which seem harsh: “get behind me, Satan”. Last week, Peter thought in God’s way – this week, he has reverted to human thinking. Jesus makes the point even more strongly – not only is He destined to suffer but those who follow Him are going to suffer too. The true followers of Jesus will, like Him, have to shoulder the burdens of suffering and death. But the promise Jesus offers at the end shows that this is not empty suffering – or pain for its own sake. In the end, suffering and death always leads to new life. The life Jesus offers is worth any price.
Why Have You Abandoned Me? We cry this day, “Hosanna!”, but unlike the people of the city of Jerusalem of long ago, we need not ask, “who is this?” This is Jesus, the one who models for us the mystery of life: dying to self so that we may be exalted, raised to new life. This week we celebrate in pointed liturgies the meaning of our whole Christian living: dying to self so that God can raise us up too. This dying can be as simple as setting aside time to participate in all the Triduum liturgies or as demanding as to recognize what in our lives we still need to abandon to be exalted as daughters and sons of God living new life. Perhaps what we need to abandon is a habit of thinking of ourselves and our own needs first, ahead of others. Perhaps it means not making ourselves the center of attention. Perhaps what we need to abandon is a lot of clutter we’ve accumulated that can tend to take our minds off what is really important. Perhaps we need to abandon the frenetic pace of our lives and cut some things out so we can concentrate on our loved one more or help those in need. In all, what we give up, what we abandon, leads to a new lease on life. Most important, it leads to new and deeper relationships and richer experiences. With Jesus, we pray, “into your hands….”
Christ the King Ask a group of boomers who pops into their minds when they hear the word “king.” Some candidates might be simply “The King” (Elvis) or the King of Pop or, more soberly, some might remember “The Boss” singing: “Poor man wanna be rich/ Rich man wanna be king/ And a king ain’t satisfied/ Till he rules everything.” “King” suggests someone at the top, exercising power and receiving adulation from all quarters. Even today, when kingship seems out of kilter with modern culture. The Gospel on this feast of the Messiah king, Jesus, turns the royal ideology on its head. He reigns not from a throne but from the cross. God, who was to be the protector of the king, seems to have abandoned him as he faces death. Like the servant in Isaiah, he is despised and rejected, as the bystanders ridicule the image of the saving king, challenging him to prove his kingship by coming down from the cross and thus betray his command to his disciples to take up their cross and follow him. The cross is where we least expect a king to be. Yet this is where we find Jesus. The cross is where we least want to be. Yet this is where our discipleship begins: allowing ourselves to be crucified on the cross of self-giving- when we encounter the bedraggled parent with a fussy child, the belligerent teen, the frustrated coworker. Only by beginning here, on the cross, will we hear Jesus say to us: “Amen, I say to you, today you will be with me in paradise.”
Discipleship – At What Cost? What do you find hard to let go of? What sort of things make it hard for you to be a disciple? In today’s selection from Luke’s Gospel, Jesus laid out three “trip wires” for discipleship: attachment to family, the hard consequences of discipleship, and attachment to possessions. All three have a caveat. If someone cannot detach from family or possessions, if someone cannot live out the consequences of Christian life, he or she “is not able to be my disciple” Attachment to family came first. For, place in family defined place in society. Jesus did not condemn society or the clan system that built it. He simply used a Semitic idiom of extreme language to make his point. When he said “hate,” Jesus was not talking about emotional revulsion and physical distance. He was talking about spiritual detachment, the ability to put God first (before relationship or self-interest). Indeed, spiritual detachment requires one to die to self-interest and let God be Lord of one’s life. Without such detachment, one does not have the ability to truly follow Jesus. Next, Jesus spoke of carrying one’s cross. We sometimes reduce the meaning of this phrase to our personal struggles. For early Christians, however, this phrase had a far more literal meaning. As Jesus went to the cross, his followers could taste death for their devotion to the Master. Jesus, then, told his audience they must accept that palpable danger. If they did not, they did not have the ability to be a true disciple. Third, Jesus turned again to the notion of attachment. This time, he addressed the subject of possessions with two parables. The first parable involved a farmer constructing a silo (i.e., a “tower”). Without the money, why should a farmer rush to build a silo that will stand only half-finished? If that happened, the farmer would look like a fool. The second parable spoke of a king planning strategy against a belligerent opponent. Can the king win the battle against an army twice the size of his own? Or should he sue for peace? In either case, the message of Jesus rang out clearly. Stop! Think long and hard about Christian discipleship before a decision is made. Divided priorities drain the ability of the person to be a disciple. We all have possessions, relationships, or ideals we guard zealously. Like Jesus’ challenge to his audience, he asks us if we can stand back and view them in the bigger picture. Before we grab these things, people, or causes and hold them close, can we ask God how important they are and what priority we give them? Can we look to God first and put everything else second?
Who Will Be Saved? “Who will be saved?” If you Google the question, there are pages and pages of search results and books galore trying to distill the answer! Many of the entries try to streamline the response! Our Gospel for this Sunday makes it very clear who will be saved. Jesus makes it very clear, that the journey to Jerusalem, the journey of salvation is very demanding and always requires dying to self. During Lent, we sang a song penned by Rory Cooney entitled, Jerusalem, My Destiny. Part of the refrain contains these words: I have fixed my eyes on your hills, Jerusalem, my Destiny. Though I cannot see the end for me I cannot turn away. We have set our hearts for the way; this journey is our destiny.Let no one walk alone. The journey makes us one. Jesus walks the journey with us and shows us the way to what we desire most in our lives – life with God! Our salvation is not without cost! Being a disciple means daily dying to self and living for the sake of the other – seeking reconciliation with another; accompanying a dying spouse or parent; reaching out in compassion to a neighbor in need. The journey makes us one. Who will be saved? The one who looses their life for the sake of the other.
Cost of Discipleship Sometimes I need a push to dive into something demanding, be it an unpleasant task, a tediously long and boring job or just motivating myself for a variety of tasks. Motivation and persistence do not come naturally to many of us. When I diet I figure that a good way to cut calories and lose weight is to begin early in the morning and skip breakfast and follow a diet from these fat flusher diet reviews. However, everything I read tells me that breakfast is the most important meal of the day. Breakfast gives me the personal jolt I need to get myself going with work or whatever; a balanced, nutritious breakfast also jolts the metabolism and gives off energy. After the resurrection, the disciples need a jolt. They cannot return to their former way of living. They have encountered Jesus during his earthly ministry. Now they encounter the risen Christ and are invited to share in his ongoing ministry. This Sunday’s gospel is one in which the word “breakfast” occurs . It is early in the morning—“already dawn.” The right time for breakfast with all its advantages. The disciples have been out fishing and, upon returning to shore, Jesus asks them, “have you caught anything to eat?” Their answer was a simple, unqualified “No.” No fish, no breakfast. Not so! Jesus invites them, “Come, have breakfast.” It is as though Jesus knows the disciples need a jolt—they need to be tugged out of their familiar routine and transformed. They need the spiritual nutrition of encounter and belief for them to declare their love and follow with fidelity. [Living Liturgy 2013] When I diet I figure that a good way to cut calories and lose weight is to begin early in the morning and skip breakfast and follow a diet from these fat flusher diet reviews. However, everything I read tells me that breakfast is the most important meal of the day. Breakfast gives me the personal jolt I need to get myself going with work or whatever; a balanced, nutritious breakfast also jolts the metabolism and gives off energy, resurge is the perfect vitamin supplement to use on a daily basis while trying to lose weight. After the resurrection, the disciples need a jolt. They cannot return to their former way of living. They have encountered Jesus during his earthly ministry. Now they encounter the risen Christ and are invited to share in his ongoing ministry. This Sunday’s gospel is one in which the word “breakfast” occurs . It is early in the morning—“already dawn.” The right time for breakfast with all its advantages. The disciples have been out fishing and, upon returning to shore, Jesus asks them, “have you caught anything to eat?” Their answer was a simple, unqualified “No.” No fish, no breakfast. Not so! Jesus invites them, “Come, have breakfast.” It is as though Jesus knows the disciples need a jolt—they need to be tugged out of their familiar routine and transformed. They need the spiritual nutrition of encounter and belief for them to declare their love and follow with fidelity. [Living Liturgy 2013] This gospel details the transformation made possible by the risen Christ. The Resurrection transforms the way things are. The risen Christ transforms the way we are, enabling us to obey his ongoing invitation, “Follow me.” We are fortified by Jesus’ risen Presence, by his invitation to follow, by his own love for us that transforms our love into faithfulness and fruitfulness. Risen Life fortifies us for the transformation needed on our discipleship journey of seeing-believing. Risen Life is given to us by Christ, but we must also seek it. Risen Life is a gift, but we must also grasp it. The Gospel for this Sunday is about a journey but the end is not something I would choose. As I reflected on our Gospel I was reminded of the following quote from a book I read early in my spiritual journey – “When Christ calls a man, he bids him come and die.” With these words, in The Cost of Discipleship, Dietrich Bonhoeffer gave powerful voice to the millions of Christians who believe personal sacrifice is an essential component of faith. Jesus is determined to journey to Jerusalem. This might seem like a pleasant trip, until we realize that the journey to Jerusalem is really a metaphor for his passion, death and resurrection! As disciples, we are invited to join Jesus on this journey to new life. The challenge of this Gospel is to accept the cost of discipleship – to accept dying to self that is necessary to following Jesus and to cooperate with him in establishing God’s reign. Frustration and fatigue, disappointment and rejection can stop us dead in our tracks. Even so, Jesus is very patient. giving us the strength we need to continue the journey. This strength comes from the love and support of family and friends, through learning to let go of less important things, by experiencing the good of our self-giving. The Good News – rely on Jesus who has promised to be with us to the end of our journey.
They Did Not Understand How disconcerting we find it when we need to tell another something of great importance and that person is clearly not listening! Their lack of response is hurtful and we experience personal rejection. Often we decide never again to confide anything of importance to that person. Not so with Jesus. The most important concern of his ministry was to help others to grow in new life and to accomplish this he had to suffer and die. The disciples don’t want to hear about. Jesus does not give up on them! Rather, he teaches them what he really is about. In his persistence, Jesus chose to die to self, become servant of all and continue to lead others to new understanding and new life. Jesus persists in teaching us with the same intensity. We hear his Word proclaimed, see his goodness in others. We take up our cross to follow him. In all of this, we are called to be persistent in dying to self for the good of the other.