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The Season of Lent is traditionally a time for re-setting
our bearings; about getting to the heart of the matter; about growing in faith;
and about facing up to the gravity and urgency of Jesus’ call to ‘come, follow
me’.
Jesus’ words from our second lesson sharpen the focus of his
call and our response.
And it’s a stinging one. It is costly, it is difficult: it
goes against the grain of all we hold dear; family, friendships, identity.
It’s one thing to say ‘my brother’s really annoying’, or
‘my dad’s unbelievably embarrassing’ – both of which may be true – or even an
impetuous ‘Oh, I hate you’ to a loved one, but that’s not what Jesus is saying.
But let’s be clear: this is a rhetorical point not a
literal one. Hatred of father and mother is rather contrary to the fifth
commandment for a start, and real hatred of self is to deny the precious
character of each human being made in the image and likeness of God. Self-
hatred, and hatred of anyone, is quite obviously pernicious and destructive.
The point that Jesus’ striking image draws out is the
radical nature of the choice that faces anyone contemplating following the Way
of Jesus Christ.
There are many cultures, including Jesus’ own, where family
solidarity and honour is privileged above all else. It’s a prevailing nepotism
that has different forms in different cultures, sometimes visible, sometimes
hidden, but still there.
Response to God’s call is developing as a theme here at the
Minster this Lent.
One way we have been doing that is reflecting a good deal
on Jonah. Jonah appreciated the radical and demanding nature of God’s call,
such that he shot off in the opposite direction away from God.
I might just make clear to visitors; that is not what we’re
commending! Quite the contrary: how alive a church can be when gifts, callings
and talents are uncovered, delighted in and celebrated, such that the
brilliance of others shines and brightens us all so that each one of us might
see clearly our God-given talents and vocation.
The greatest call, which can be worked out in many and
diverse ways is the call to be a follower of Jesus Christ and be drawn into the
deep love of God.
But that goes counter to many of our preferences and our
comfort zone. St Basil the Great referring to tonight’s passage says it is a
‘severe decree’. Yet the call of our baptism is to be a disciple of Christ.
When Jesus uses the word translated ‘disciple’ in this
passage he is using the Greek word mathētēs
meaning ‘learner’. As we see later in St Luke’s gospel, one cannot learn at
the feet of Jesus without coming to be like Mary of Bethany, undistracted by
the many claims of family: such a focus on Jesus Christ is ‘the one thing most
needful’, as he says to that Mary.
Family members are to be loved but are not to be used as an
excuse, as you might remember some did in sending their regrets to the master’s
feast to which they had first been invited (Luke
14.20).
This is the background for Jesus saying, as he has said
before (Luke 9.23), that unless one bears one’s cross coming
after Jesus cannot be his disciple.
Do you want to learn the way of life? Do you want to learn
the way of wisdom? Do you want to learn the deepest form of love for God, of
yourself and your neighbour?
If the answer is ‘yes’ to all those things then Jesus
Christ offers the way to them: life, wisdom and love. (Quite the opposite of
hatred of anyone).
This is about ordering our loyalties. If the call of Jesus
Christ is to have any impact and significance for us it will mean that our lives
will be lived with assumptions, beliefs and actions that may well mark us out
from those around us, and may well not sit well with our preferred instincts
and actions.
This brings us back to the time of grace and space that is
Lent. Counting the cost is a critical part of the decision to follow Christ,
just like Jesus’ examples of planning a building or a strategy.
In the Rule of St
Benedict monks are counselled to live life with a ‘Lenten character’. That is
not to say that they should be absolute misery guts, moaning about the lack of
chocolate/caffeine/meat etc in their lives. Rather that they should live in a
constant sense of prioritising Christ: of seeking life, growing in wisdom,
learning the deepest forms of loving God, self and brethren.
It also means that the monk’s whole life tends towards
Easter, as should ours.
At Easter we see Jesus Christ, wholly at one with the
Father: Christ’s will with the Father’s will, bound together in the Holy
Spirit.
We are invited in to the unity of that communion, in the
grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, in the love of God, and in the fellowship of
the Holy Spirit. Truly to dwell in that divine love and to take on that divine
character means our habits, allegiances and calls upon out time and interest
are re-shaped, moulded afresh into the abundant life that Christ, the Good
Shepherd, came to bring.
© Andrew Bishop, 2019
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