Whole-Hearted Disciples

Wow, I knew it had been a long time since I posted on my blog, but didn't know it had been a whole month. On July 1st I officially became Pastoral Coordinator for the parish -- which means something like pastor, but not quite. It means that there is no priest pastor, but that I am responsible for the day-to-day running of the parish. And St. Bridget is a pretty active parish, which means that when things really get cooking around here, my life will be full.

But not during the summer; the summer is much more quiet in a parish. So I've had some time to do what I've needed to do -- such as move my office, work with people on changing job descriptions, and attend to a lot of "transitioning" kinds of things. I did manage to get a long weekend with my sister, and will get away again next week, so I'm not complaining by any stretch of the imagination.

Attached here is the homily that I wrote on the weekend of July 1st -- Fr. Gary Morelli's first weekend with us. It touches on a theme that I feel strongly about -- discipleship. One of my big themes is being wholehearted (hence the title above).

Clarence Jordan's re-writings of scripture are enjoyable, and often pack a punch. He obviously lived what he believed, founding the koinonia community, which continues to this day.

Overall, the homily fits within a larger theme for me, which I'm developing this year with the parish -- Stewardship. Others have been in that mode too, with more to come. I'll say more on this later.

Thirteenth Sunday of Ordinary Time, Cycle C

Good evening. As I was preparing for this weekend’s homily, I came across a little story told of Clarence Jordan, who was a fiery Baptist preacher who died in 1969. Now you may never have heard of Clarence, but he was a well-known Bible scholar and author who influenced me in my early 20’s, a very formative age. He wrote this book, among others, called the Cotton Patch Version of the Gospel, which is a very challenging translation of Matthew and John into a southern Baptist dialect. The story goes that one day he asked his brother Robert, “Do you follow Jesus?” Now Robert knew that Clarence took his Christianity very seriously, and so he responded, “Up to a point.” Clarence asked him whether that “point” could be the cross. His brother replied, “I follow him TO the cross, but not ON the cross. I’m not getting myself crucified.” So Clarence gave his brother a scathing look, and said, “Then I don’t believe that you are a disciple. You’re an admirer of Jesus, not a disciple.”

I think that most of us can identify with brother Robert; I think most of us do consider ourselves disciples of Jesus, at least we want to be. However I think that most of us are not aiming to get ourselves crucified. So I think that if Clarence Jordan were here right now, he’d want to know just how much each of us is willing to invest ourselves in the mission of Jesus.

Today’s gospel is very much in tune with that question. First of all, the passage begins with an announcement: “When the days drew near for him to be taken up, Jesus set his face to go to Jerusalem.” The words “taken up” remind us that we’re beginning the road to that ultimate end, of Jesus being taken up on the cross, of Jesus being taken up into heaven. And the words “set his face” is a Hebrew phrase that prepares us for opposition and hostility. This is the turning point of Luke’s gospel – from here on out, Jesus is on the journey, a journey that ends with the cross. From now on, Jesus spends a lot of extra time instructing his disciples about what it takes to be a disciple. That’s why today’s passage gives us some examples of those who didn’t make the grade.

Now let’s meet this passage head on. I think it uses examples of would-be disciples that we don’t quite understand, and so we shrug them off. The first is the fellow that says “I will follow you wherever you go,” which sounds just like the kind of unconditional acceptance that Jesus might be looking for. But Jesus wants to be honest with him – “Foxes have holes and birds of the air have nests, but the Son of Man has nowhere to lay his head.” We never find out exactly how that fellow turns out, but obviously Jesus is telling him – and everyone who heard them – that this road they were traveling wasn’t going to be easy, and that there was no place on this journey Jesus could call "home.”

The next is harder – it’s the fellow who asked Jesus if he could go and bury his father. Well that seems like a pretty reasonable request to our understanding of those words. But this was certainly not a request to attend his father’s funeral. If that man’s father would have just died, that fellow would not even have been in the crowd listening to Jesus. To “bury one’s father” in this context meant to fulfill his obligations to his father under Jewish law, to take care of the father until he died, which might take months, or even years. So the request is really to finish taking care of all his duties to his father before he would follow Jesus. Clearly, that’s not the same as merely attending a funeral.

Finally, the last fellow asks Jesus if he might first go say farewell to those at home. But that request would be pretty harmless if it were just a case of saying goodbye. But it’s not that simple; so what we might understand is that there are unmentioned family matters that this man wants to take care of. Maybe it’s a contract drawn up to protect his family rights, just in case this venture with Jesus doesn’t work out. And we might notice that Jesus doesn’t say no – if it’s only a goodbye we’re talking about, maybe he did make a quick run home, we don’t know. Jesus just says “Keep your hand to the plough.” You might have regrets. You might want to look back. But stay focused on the Kingdom.

Are we beginning to feel a little uneasy now? These examples aren’t so easy to shrug off. Here are three would-be disciples who might not be very different from us. Don’t we all have commitments that we’ve made already? How open are we to the voice of the Master, when he says “Come now; follow me”??

So the point Jesus is making here is this: “Folks, the train is getting ready to leave the station. You gotta get on it now! We’ll have difficulties, for sure. But come on, don’t worry, don’t look back, come on now, follow me.”

There’s urgency in this gospel. Jesus is asking for serious, life-changing commitments. Jesus wants us to put our lives on the line with him. This will change our lives!

You know, most of the time in our life, I believe that we think we’ve got all the time in the world -- someday. But we don’t. For a good portion of our lives, it seems there’s a frantic pace to everything that goes on around us; so much so that we feel that we’re doing pretty well if we just hang on, and maintain. And so we often labor under the illusion that we will eventually have all the time we need to do what’s most important – once we’re finished this project or that job. Or maybe when the kids get older and on their own. Or maybe, when I can finally retire. So we put off those more important things, thinking “I’ll have time later.”

But a fact of life, however old we are, is that we might not have all the time in the world to do what we’re being called to do, to be who we’re asked to be, whether that’s being an involved parent, or a loving spouse, or being a whole-hearted disciple of Jesus. For me, Jesus’ words today are not a rejection of family. They’re a rejection of excuses. That’s why Jesus’ words sound so urgent. If today you hear his voice, harden not your heart!

Today, Jesus asks us once more, almost as if it’s for the first time, “Follow me! I love you, I want you, I need you to be with me on this journey.” He tells us up front that there will be sacrifices along the way, there might be rejection, and there might be a cross. But he says, “Don’t make excuses, don’t run away. Come along, put your hand to the plough with me and don’t look back.”

What do we want to be … a disciple of Jesus, or merely an admirer?

Deacon Denny, July 1st, 2007