Wisdom 9.13-18b ‘Who can discern what the Lord wills?’
Philemon 9b-10,12-17
‘Have him back no longer as a bondservant but as a beloved brother.’
Luke 14.25-33
‘Anyone who does not renounce all that he has cannot be my disciples’.
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It’s
fair to say that based on our Gospel reading today, Jesus never ever promised
that being a Christian, a disciple of his, was going to be easy!
That’s
actually been the consistent message for the last few Sundays.
He
spoke of the division he would bring, pitting even those who are closely
related against each other (Luke 12.49-53, 20th Sunday in Ordinary
Time).
He
spoke of the narrow door through which we must enter the kingdom, by shedding
the baggage that we carry of our own pride and vanity (Luke 13.22-30, 21st
Sunday in Ordinary Time).
He
spoke of the need to be humble in order to sit at his banquet, before being
called to a higher place (Luke 14.1,7-14, 22nd Sunday in Ordinary
Time).
Today
it’s about taking up our cross and renouncing everything, even the people and relationships
most precious to us.
Really?
Great
crowds followed Jesus and what did he do?
Did
he revel in the cult of celebrity; get wowed by all his followers; say smooth
and seductive words to keep people on board with his ‘project’?
No.
Quite
the contrary.
This
is what he actually said:
If anyone comes to me and does not hate his own
father and mother and wife and children and brothers and sisters, yes, and even
his own life, he cannot be my disciple. Whoever does not bear his own cross and
come after me cannot be my disciple. (Luke 14.26,27)
That’s
not out of the ‘how to win friends and influence people’ playbook.
You
can’t accuse Jesus of playing to the crowds; indeed the crowds eventually turn
on him and shout ‘crucify him’.
He
did not come to please, but to walk the way of the cross, and walking the way
of the cross revealed it to be none other the way to life in all its abundance,
inviting us to walk with him into the loving, generous heart of God.
The
community of Jesus, his family, the
Church he brought into existence, is formed by the cross.
The
scene at the crucifixion is of Mary and the Beloved Disciple entrusted into
each other’s care:
When Jesus saw his mother and the disciple whom he
loved standing nearby, he said to his mother, “Woman, behold, your son!” Then
he said to the disciple, “Behold, your mother!” And from that hour the disciple
took her to his own home.
Rowan
Williams described the Church as being, ‘A community without boundaries, other
than Christ’.
In
other words, it is allegiance to being a disciple of Jesus Christ, embracing
and bearing our own cross, that defines the Church in the first instance:
that’s what Mary and John at the cross of Jesus represent.
All
the other allegiances we have in life have to be put into that perspective.
St
Benedict puts it like this:
Prefer nothing to Christ. (Rule of St Benedict 4.21)
The
other allegiances and things we prefer: status, influence, power, money,
whatever it may be that we depend on, other than Christ, are not to be
preferred.
And
that even is about our nearest and dearest.
But
I don’t want to hate the people who are closest to me.
So
I need to read this right.
Jesus
deploys a very typical way that Rabbis speak: he overstates his point, in the
negative, to elicit a response.
The
point is not about dismantling the family and making relatives hate one another,
but to prompt us to examine what life lived preferring nothing to Christ
actually looks like; to understand what the family really looks like and how
love of Christ flows out in love of neighbour, of one another.
What
if I really preferred nothing to the
love of Christ?
How
would that look in the way I live my life?
What
would be the ways I would have to live that I am not doing now?
Do
my possessions, or possessiveness, even something darker, actually possess me?
In
his letter to the Christians of Philippi, St Paul put it like this:
But whatever gain I had, I counted as
loss for the sake of Christ. (Philippians 3.7)
In
fact, he goes on:
Indeed, I count everything as loss because of the
surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake I have suffered
the loss of all things and count them as rubbish, in order that I may gain
Christ. (Philippians 3.8)
Because
he prefers nothing to Christ, he counts everything that was his previous
priority, obsession and allegiance as rubbish – in fact, the Greek word in the
original text is a little fruitier – everything that he had before is like dung, compared to what he has in Christ!
What
freedom, what liberty!
The
essence of today’s gospel is ‘prefer nothing to Christ’.
And
it has bearing on our lives and relationships, be that in our family or
household, amongst friends at school or at work.
Jesus
does not come to destroy families, and human relationships, but to shape them
into being microcosms of the church lived out through the home every day of the
week.
When
we are preferring nothing to Christ we are not exalting ourselves above others;
we are not exalting ourselves even above God, for God is not in competition
with us, but wills our good.
The
Church is indeed ‘a community without boundaries, other than Christ’.
May
our families be ‘a community without boundaries, other than Christ’.
May
our church schools be ‘a community without boundaries, other than Christ’.
May
our nation look like ‘a community without boundaries, other than Christ’.
The
cross can be said to represent north and south, east and west, heaven and
earth, horizontal and vertical, all coming together, and at its centre and
heart: Christ.
Beware
though: preferring nothing to Christ, Christ as the centre of your life, will
not be without cost: it is the way of renunciation, but its rewards are
abundant and eternal.
