He says;
“If anyone 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.
Whoever does not carry his own cross and come after me
cannot be my disciple.
Jesus gives a very
strong and uncompromising call to discipleship. Following Jesus, requires a
radical commitment to him which is above all other commitments in our life. He does not really want us to hate our parents, but Jesus wants us to understand that he is above our family commitments. Our commitment to him even is above the preservation of our life
in face of persecution for the faith. In imitation of him, it involves carrying the cross. Jesus' words are not a metaphor, though we can carry crosses in lesser ways.
The word disciple means to be an
apprentice of the master or rabbi. Following the master as a disciple,
meant more than just learning a few essential truths about the faith, it meant to literally imitate the master's life as well. We cannot treat our faith like McDonalds fries. Would you like faith with that? Being a disciple means more than passively jumping on the tourist bus
to ride along with Jesus, and getting off at various stops to tour the sights.
We might think about the call that
Jesus gave to his first disciples. The call to be a disciple demanded a radical
change of life, and a complete commitment of our heart. In fact it
cost everything!
As Jesus was walking by the Sea of
Galilee, he called out to the fishermen Peter and Andrew saying, “Come after
me, and I will make you fishers of men.” The two men “At once they left their
nets and followed him” (Matthew 4:19-20).
The fathers of the Second Vatican
Council characterized the “breach between faith and daily life” as “one of the
more serious errors of our time” (GS 43). “Let there be no false opposition,”
they admonish us “between professional and social activity and the life of
religion. The Christian who neglects his temporal duties neglects God and
risks his eternal salvation” (GS 43). Faith can never be a personal and private
matter that does not affect our entire life.
During the Nazi occupation of Germany,
a Protestant minister named Dietrich Bonhoeffer complained about this very
issue. Bonhoeffer contrasted what he termed ‘cheap grace’ or a failure
to live the fullness of faith through our life with ‘costly grace.’
His courageous defense of uncompromising faith eventually led to his martyrdom.
He wrote,
Cheap grace is
the preaching of forgiveness without requiring repentance … Cheap grace is
grace without discipleship, grace without the cross, [and] grace without Jesus Christ,
living and incarnate.
Today we might hear someone say, “I am
spiritual but not religious.” They might proclaim, “My faith is personal and
private, but I don’t need religion, or the church.” While we support the
freedom of each person to follow their own conscience, exalting our own
personal and private faith is not following Jesus. Jesus reminds his
disciples, “Whoever does not carry his own cross and come after me
cannot be my disciple.” Discipleship involves imitating the master, and
following him.
In our Gospel last week (Luke 14:1,
7-14) Jesus reminded his followers, “For every one who exalts himself will be
humbled, but the one who humbles himself will be exalted.” The key to
humility is the recognition that everything we have is from God and a
willingness to submit ourselves to his divine will. We need this kind of
humility to begin our journey as a disciple. As Jesus says in the beatitudes,
“Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.” (Matthew
5:3). St. Gregory of Nyssa asks, "
It is the one who has given the
riches of the soul in exchange for material wealth, this is the one who is poor
for the sake of the spirit.[1]
In the end, it is actually our heart, or our will which is a
stake, rather than our possessions. But the things of this world weigh us down.
St. Gregory of Nyssa notes,
“Gold is a heavy
thing, and heavy is every kind of matter that is sought after for the sake of
wealth—but virtue is light and bears souls upwards.”[2]
This is why Jesus says,
“In the same way,
anyone of you who does not renounce all his possessions cannot be my disciple.”
Above all Jesus wants the full commitment
of our hearts, the submission of all things to him. As the apostle James
reminds us, “For that person must not suppose that a double-minded man,
unstable in all his ways, will receive anything from the Lord” (James 1:8,
RSVCE).
Today as we consider these words of
Jesus anew, let us humble ourselves before him, and take up our cross
and follow him.
[1] St. Gregory of Nyssa, “The Beatitudes,”
in St. Gregory of Nyssa: The Lord’s Prayer, The Beatitudes, ed. Johannes
Quasten and Joseph C. Plumpe, trans. Hilda C. Graef, vol. 18, Ancient Christian
Writers (New York; Mahwah, NJ: Paulist Press, 1954), 95. I have revised the
quoted translation which is “Would you like to know who it is that is poor in
spirit? He who is given the
riches of the soul in exchange for material wealth, who is poor for the sake of the spirit”
[2] Ibid.,
95.
No comments:
Post a Comment