Fr. Rick Spicer

There are many places in the Gospels where Jesus used tough harsh words to catch the attention of his listeners. In today’s gospel he says that we cannot be his disciples if we come to him without hating father and mother,wife and children, brothers and sisters, and even our own lives.

What kind of talk is this? Jesus isn’t telling us to ignore the Fourth commandment and no longer honor our parents, noris he telling us to literally sell our possessions. Jesus often used hyperboles to illustrate the costly demands of being one of His disciples, which is often overlooked.

To be a disciple of Christ means to make time first for the things of God and live beyond the insignificant things that we throw into our lives. When Jesus speaks about hating father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters and even our own lives, he is using apocalyptic language, which is shocking, telling us to hate anything and anyone that causes us to lose our focus on Him.

Last Thursday marked the 22nd anniversary of the death of St. Teresa of Calcutta. Many of us have been blessed with being witnesses to her life. We all saw how she would not allow anything to get in the way of her serving God. She and her sisters would spend hours in prayer so they could spend hours serving God’s presence in others. In her own way, Mother Teresa taught us today’s gospel: we need to hate anything that could keep us from being a disciple of Christ, including the perceptions we have of ourselves.

Many stories exist about this saint but I suspect that you haven’t heard this one. Fr. John Fullenbach, a theologian, contacted Mother Teresa’s sisters in Calcutta and asked if he could join them for a few weeks. They welcomed him to join their work. He flew to Calcutta, found the Missionaries of Charities’ hospice, and had just finished telling the sister in charge that he was willing to do anything they needed to be done, when another sister came running in saying that there was a man dying on the streets. The sister in charge turned to him and said, “Father, could you please go with her and bring the man back here to the hospice?”

Fr. Fullenbach followed the sister through the back alleys of Calcutta, in and out of narrow streets, and finally came upon what looked from the distance to be a heap of dirty rags. It was the dying man. Fr. Fullenbach bent over him and tried to comfort him and told him that he was going to take him to a nice, clean place where he could be cared for. The man opened his eyes; saw that it was a priest talking to him, and spit in his face. The priest felt a rage rising up within him.

He came all the way from Rome to help these people. And this man responded by spitting on him. The sister explained that most of the people on the streets are not Catholic, but we still need to care for them. So, Fr. Fullenbach picked the man up and carried him back to the hospice where the man was cleaned, given fresh clothes, fed a bowl of soup, and put on a bed to die with dignity.

The sisters then asked Father to help out by rolling up some clean strips of cloth that could be used for bandages. He was doing this for about an hour, rolling the strips, and still feeling upset over the man spitting on him. Suddenly the whole hospice shook with the screams of a little girl. On the other side of the room there was a poor little girl, about nine, and covered in sores. She was standing in a basin of water as one of the young sisters was trying to clean her, bathe her sores. The little girl was enraged, hysterical, throwing a fit. She kept screaming and kicking and splashing the sister. Fr. Fullenbach was watching this horrible scene when he noticed that everyone was looking at one of the doors.

There stood Mother Teresa. She had heard the racket and was coming in. She started walking to the little girl. “Well,” Fr. Fullenbach thought, “Now we’ll see what a saint is made of.” As she approached the little girl, she waved the young sister away. The girl saw her and kept screaming, and then began splashing Mother Teresa. Mother Teresa kept walking towards her, very slowly, with a smile of love on her face. By the time she got to the girl, she was drenched, but she didn’t seem to mind. Instead, she just kept smiling. Then she held out her arms. The child fell into them and just cried and cried and cried. Mother Teresa let her cry for as long as she wanted. Then the little girl let Mother Teresa wash her and put clean clothes on her. Fr. Fullenbach said to himself, “And that is what a saint is made of.”

Our lesson is this: we need to hate all that keeps us from the Lord and love all that brings us closer to him for nothing is more important than serving God. Not our stuff, not our likes, not our perceived position among our peers, not even the people in our lives. We must not allow anything to stand in the way of being a disciple of Jesus Christ. The price of discipleship is total commitment so consider those parts of your life that are actually tearing you away from Christ.

Simply put, if being one of his disciples really matters to you, then faith must be your priority, otherwise, your relationship with Jesus could grow shallow. Through the intercession of St. Teresa of Calcutta, may we have the spiritual strength we need to truly be one of the Lord’s disciples.

If Jesus were to give this parable today, he might have made his point about humility with the difference between first class and economy class on an airplane. If one who exalts himself will be humbled, it would be that passenger who sneaks into an empty seat in the first class cabin. An alert flight attendant will soon escort that now embarrassed soul to the back of the plane while other passengers will be watching and smirking. The readings today stress the importance of humility, especially for those in high places. Modesty often comes to mind when we think of humility. That seems to be what Jesus is suggesting when he tells the guests where to sit at the banquet table. Sirach also advises us to conduct our affairs with humility yet this virtue has fallen on hard times. Self-help books abound instead promoting assertiveness training, “feel good” therapy and affirmation. Humility is not the in thing, which turns people on right now. That makes sense if our perception of humility is the award winner who says, “I really don’t deserve this,” or the habitual drunk who laments, “I’m no good.” Such humility under the guise of modesty or self-deprecation denies who we really are. Putting ourselves down or downplaying our abilities is not what humility is about, at least that is not the meaning portrayed in these readings. Authentic Christian humility is the recognition of our status before God. Humble people can look at the heights and depths of their beings without becoming proud over one attribute or discouraged by another. Humility allows us to accept our mistakes, admit our limitations and even laugh at our failures. Jesus may come across as Miss Manners in the gospel but he isn’t talking here about table manners or social protocol. Rather he is speaking about eschatological etiquette. What really matters if we care to spend the rest of our days in the kingdom of heaven is not our status in the sight of others but our status in the sight of God. Keep in mind the audience that Jesus is addressing. Since they were diligent followers of the law, the Pharisees viewed themselves as the holiest people in Israel. By elevating themselves, they were quick to dismiss many others as totally unworthy of ever being seated at the heavenly feast. Consider the guests whom Jesus speaks of in his parable. The rich and the poor have exactly the same worth in the sight of God. As a person of wealth, the rich guest is superior in that one dimension of human achievement yet at the same time, he or she could be inferior to the poor guests in all other dimensions, e.g., love, compassion, and mercy. Once again, Jesus cautions his listeners, “everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, but the one who humbles himself will be exalted.” We tend to measure our self worth by comparing ourselves to others as the Pharisees did yet in the end, our special talents, abilities, attractiveness, or success do not add to our worth in the sight of God. When people ridicule and make fun of us, they do not detract one bit from God’s love for us. When they praise and honor us for our success, they do not detract one bit from the fact that we are still sinners. St. Mother Teresa of Calcutta comes to mind as one who approached life with the quality of humility that Jesus has in mind here. In her ministry she reached out to the poor, the crippled, the lame, and the blind. She was able to find God in anyone she met no matter who they were and what they did. Many religious people look in the wrong places for God and get sidetracked by all the wrong issues. After two thousand years the church is still struggling to embrace the vulnerable, the poor, the unclean, the sinner in our midst. They stand in front of us, seeking to be welcomed and accepted as sisters and brothers. In biblical times there was a residual prejudice against those who were physically or mentally impaired. In our time there is a residual prejudice against those who are from south of the border, gay or lesbian, or not Caucasian. Jesus is challenging us to open our eyes and welcome those who through no fault of their own are shunned by our society. Imagine how society might be impacted if the followers of Jesus allowed humility to uproot our arrogance, anger, greed, pride and ambition? We are being challenged to be truly who we are at all times, in all places, with everyone we meet, not just with those who can pay us back. The late Karl Popper, a British philosopher observed that society will only heal when it takes the interest of the weakest of the weak among us first. The gospel today reminds us that Jesus not only had a big heart but big eyes. He observes us in all that we do. Before we can learn to love like him, we must learn to see like him those who are in front of us. Sirach’s opening line provides advice we must really take to heart. “My child, conduct your affairs with humility, and you will be loved more than a giver of gifts. Humble yourself the more, the greater you are, and you will find favor with God.”

These readings are difficult, very difficult. They are difficult because they remind us of the true cost of discipleship. To be a disciple of Jesus is to be inflamed with the love of God. Consider the plight of Jeremiah. He was persecuted because he dared to proclaim the truth of God. Life would have been easier for him had he kept quiet, but no, he dared to speak out. The princes who did not want to hear his message mocked him, then, they threw him into a muddy cistern to die. Jeremiah was rescued but the near death experience did not silence him. He would not reject the burning of God’s truth within his bones. We then heard a passage from the Letter to the Hebrews. The author tells the second and third generation Christians to keep their eyes fixed on Jesus and persevere in running the race set before them. Keep in mind that being a disciple in those times was perilous. Then and now, being a follower of Jesus was never promised to be an easy undertaking. The early Christians were reminded that Jesus himself endured much opposition from sinners who rejected him and his message. He did this so that they and we could endure the wrath of sinners who reject him. If, like them, you think being a Christian is too demanding, just think, you haven’t resisted the evil one to the “point of shedding blood.” Finally we came to a very demanding gospel passage that began vividly. “I have come to set the earth on fire, and how I wish it were already blazing!” Jesus wasn’t talking about forest fires. He was talking about the fire of God’s love. Alas, he knows that too many people have yet to experience that love because not all his disciples endeavor to truly love others and God. He then delivers this rather startling statement, “Do you think that I have come to establish peace on the earth? No, I tell you, but rather division. From now on a household of five will be divided, three against two and two against three…” Yes, Jesus cautions us that being one of his disciples is costly. We don’t want to hear that choosing Christ can put our lives at odds with those around us or that we will be persecuted for our beliefs and mocked. Instead we want our religion to be easy and private. We don’t want to have to pay a price for living our faith but sooner or later we may have to since we live in a culture that opposes many tenets of our faith. When we encounter resistance to contemporary moral issues like capital punishment, the treatment of immigrants, racism, caring for the poor, abortion, artificial contraception, sexual activity outside of marriage, porn, to name but a few, we are at times tempted to be quiet on the matter or even join the opposition and reject the moral truths of our faith. But if we are to be true disciples, we can do neither. In his book, The Cost of Discipleship, Dietrich Bonhoeffer makes a distinction between what he calls cheap grace and costly grace. He didn’t use the term grace in the manner that we Catholics do, as something coming from God. Rather for him grace was another word for religion. To paraphrase Bonhoeffer, “cheap religion is the preaching of forgiveness without requiring repentance, baptism without church discipline, or communion without confession. Cheap religion is a religion without the cross, a religion without Jesus Christ.” Cheap religion is to hear the gospel of Jesus Christ as this, “Of course you have sinned, but now everything is forgiven, so you can stay as you are.” Costly religion confronts us as a gracious call to truly follow Jesus. It comes as a word of forgiveness to the contrite heart and broken spirit.Bonhoeffer calls this costly because it compels us to be willing to die for Christ, which as you and I both know, many martyrs have literally or figuratively. Because we have chosen Christ, we are sometimes mocked perhaps even within our family for our beliefs. The pseudo-intellectuals of our times belittle the truths of our faith as children’s tales or may even think of us as Jesus freaks. Because we have chosen Christ, we are confronted with difficult decisions at times that we need to make if we are to be true to our convictions as Catholic Christians. We embrace the cost of discipleship when those of us who are married or ordained remain committed to our vows in difficult times as well as easy times. There are no perfect marriages because marriage is the union of two, normal yet imperfect people. The cost of discipleship demands that spouses accept each other’s limitations and love each other even when they don’t like each other. We embrace the cost of discipleship because God’s kingdom is more important than even one’s family. Infused with God’s love, we are more concerned about others than ourselves. We are more concerned with their eternal salvation than anything they can do to us in this lifetime. We know God loves us and we know that God wants others to experience His Love. Filled with the warmth of his love, we will happily join the Lord in setting the world on fire with love. And we will do this no matter what personalcost this entails: For the cost of discipleship is temporary, but the Treasure of God’s Love is forever.

Jesus presented us with a parable, at the end of which, he cautions, “You also must be prepared, for at an hour you do not expect, the Son of Man will come.” This prompts me to share the story of a spider who lived in a cornfield. It had built a comfortable nest and had constructed an elaborate web among the cornstalks. The spider became fat and happy dining on all the insects trapped in its web. One day the spider snagged a tiny bug in its web. As the spider was about to feast on its little victim, the bug spoke up: “If you let me go, I will tell you something that will save your life.” The spider stopped and listened. “You had better leave this cornfield. Harvest time is here.” The spider scoffed. “What is this harvest time you talk about? I think it’s something you just made up.” “Oh, its true. The farmer of this field will soon come to collect the corn. All the stalks will be cut off and the corn will be gathered. You will be crushed by a giant machine if you stay here.” The spider sneered, “That’s preposterous. Harvest time and giant machines to cut down the corn? Prove it!” The little bug insisted, “Look at the corn. Look at how it has been planted in neat rows. That proves this field was designed by someone who is very wise.” The spider laughed. “That’s silly. This field has grown up on its own. That’s the way corn grows.” “Oh, no!” the bug argued. “The field was planted by its owner and at harvest time he will come and gather up the corn.” The spider said, “Ridiculous! I have lived here since the corn was a foot high and no one has ever disturbed me. Nothing ever changes in this field. I’ll be here forever.” Just as the spider was about to dine on the little bug, a rumble broke the morning stillness. The rumble grew louder and louder. Soon a thick cloud of dust surrounded the spider. The stunned spider gulped, “Oh, oh.” Might we be saying that when we are about to take our last breath? No matter how fat and happy we are, our cornfield will one day be harvested. The challenge of faith as these readings point out is to understand our cornfield with the wisdom of the little bug who sees beyond its immediate surroundings to realize an order and connection of the various elements of life to the giver of life, namely God. The sad fact, however, is that we live our lives with the complacency of the spider: we live for the moment; we are satisfied with meeting our immediate needs. We fail to see beyond “our own row of corn.” This life God has given us is fragile and fleeting. If we have truly embraced the spirit of the gospel, we are always conscious of the brevity of this life and live our days in joyful anticipation of the life to come. “Gird your loins and light your lamps and be like servants who await their master’s return from a wedding, ready to open immediately when he comes and knocks. Blessed are those servants whom the master finds vigilant on his arrival.” Last week, we heard a brief passage from the Book of Ecclesiastes, the only time that book is ever quoted on any Sunday. Too bad the editors of the lectionary didn’t think to quote from its third chapter. “There is an appointed time for everything, and a time for every affair under the heavens. A time to be born and a time to die.” God knows every moment but because God has given us free will, God can’t decide those moments. Before we were conceived, God knew the moment of our birth and of our death. Unless we take matters into our hands and commit suicide, we would not know the moment of our last breath, but are we ready to encounter God when that moment comes? For some, death comes with a warning, for example, a terminal illness, but for a good number of people, death comes unexpectedly as it did for the victims of recent mass shootings. They woke up that morning never imagining that they would not see the sun set that day. Hopefully they were ready like vigilant servants to greet the Son of Man that day. In the early days of the Church, many believed that Jesus would literally return in their lifetime but as the first disciples began to die, it became apparent that Jesus was speaking of meeting his believers when they died, provided their faith in him as the Son of Man had not waivered. Jesus commends the watchful servants, that is, those who are prepared for his return by prayer and faithfully fulfilling their duties. His return is a moment of joy for he invites them to participate in a great banquet. As the passage from Hebrews points out, faith motivates people to live the way shown by God. Abraham ventured forth not knowing where God was leading him. By faith he sojourned in the Promised Land and he had descendants “as numerous as the stars in the sky.” Likewise, faith and hope point us toward the fullness of life in God’s kingdom. One 90-year-old aunt said to her niece, “If I don’t see you here on earth again, I will see you in heaven.” That is faith and as the years go by, whenever heaven or the God who calls us home to dwell there seem like illusions, may that faith become more solid for you for faith is the assurance of things hoped for, and evidence of things not seen.

It is no secret that we live in a materialistic culture. For some people, the pursuit of wealth and possessions has become their religion. Many scripture passages including those we just heard have wise things to say about money and possessions, advising us that we shouldn’t make them into a god. Since life is fragile, these readings caution that we need to sort out what really matters before it is too late, mindful that our greatest need is God. The marquee outside a church once warned those passing by, “Don’t wait for the hearse to take you to church.” Many who are preoccupied with worldly pursuits find little time for God in their daily lives and will often ignore that advice. Someday a hearse may bring them to church one last time but as the late evangelist Billy Graham once said, “You will never see a hearse pulling a U-Haul trailer.” When a very wealthy man in town died, a local news reporter asked the rich man’s pastor, “How much did he leave?” The pastor replied, “He left it all!”In ancient Egypt, the pharaohs thought they could take it with them. King Tut had quite a hoard buried with him, which I viewed in Cairo years ago. Imagine God saying to you, “You fool, this night your life will be demanded of you; and the things you have prepared, to whom will they belong?” They certainly won’t belong to you once you take your last breath. Greed, one of the seven deadly sins, has always been a temptation for many people, blinding them from what really matters. In the past few decades two of the fastest growing industries in our country have been home security systems and self-storage units. What does that say about our culture? How might Jesus adapt this parable if he told his gospel parable to us today? Greed can take on the form of accumulating anything unnecessary, blinding us from appreciating what really matters in life. Jesus cautions “Take care to guard against all greed, for though one may be rich, one’s life does not consist of possessions.” Because we tend to buy more than we need or can even use, clutter has taken over our lives, duping us into a sense of false security. Growing up as an army brat, I never lived in one place more than three years until I became a pastor. Now that I have been in one place so long, I have become like that rich man. I don’t have barns full of grains but I have other goods as a consequence of being a packrat. If clutter is taking over your life, if your many possessions possess you, you need a touch of “Kondo magic.” Marie Kondo is a Japanese expert in the science of — no kidding — tidying up. She has written four best-selling books, including The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up. Her name has become a verb among her millions of fans around the world: “I Kondo-ed everything” means you have purged your house and home of every non-essential thing cluttering up your life. Marie Kondo’s approach to keeping and disposing of possessions center on three principles: First, she advises that you pick up each item you own and ask yourself if that thing “sparks joy.” It takes time and thoughtfulness, but asking that question of every possession can be liberating. If done correctly, you find yourself living happier with less. Second, Ms. Kondo points out that the hardest things to get rid of are the things that make you feel guilty. An example: that expensive dress you bought five years ago and wore only once because it made you feel dumpy, or the ugly but expensive knickknack given to you by a close relative or friend. Let it go — to some charity or local thrift shop like Good Cheer that can see that it’s put to good use. And, third, Ms. Kondo writes, “If you’re having a hard time getting rid of something, thank the item for the role it has already played in your life.” For example, say, Thank you for giving me joy when I bought you or Thank you for teaching me what doesn’t suit me. Then you’re free to let it go. It may all sound ridiculous, but her charming insane tips can bring great peace of mind. You approach what you own as the means to joy and not joy in themselves; in new ways, you realize how blessed you have been in what you have. Marie Kondo’s quirky approach to de-cluttering, like the parable of the rich man’s barns, challenges us to look at all the “stuff” we possess and to realize the real valuables in our lives. Often something’s true worth has nothing to do with its monetary value or the momentary pleasure it gives us. Its value is in the memories it preserves, in the time it saves us for more important and joyful pursuits, in its enabling us to experience the selfless and affirming love of God in the good we are able to do for family and friends. Jesus calls us to take inventory of our lives and the things that “clutter” them and refocus our attention on the things of God: compassion, love, mercy, forgiveness, and consolation. Certainly we will likely have possessions as long as we live and we will leave them behind as well as the people we know and the wisdom we have accumulated, but notice that Jesus tells us throughout the Gospel of Luke of the dangers of wealth for our eternal life. The proper use of our goods, for ourselves and for others, indicates that we must have the right orientation, namely generosity towards others and toward God. It is only when we are rich toward God that we can say to our souls: “Relax, all is in order.”