13th Sunday in Ordinary Time

“No one who sets a hand to the plow and looks to see what was left behind is fit for the Kingdom of God.”

How many of us have been planning for a trip, perhaps a 3 or 4 day cruise, and when the time came to pack, we threw in clothes we knew we’d need, clothes that we might need, clothes that would be nice to have if a specific event occurred and extra things just in case something happened to the other clothes that we had packed? By the time that we were done, we may have found that we had 2 or 3 large suitcases for a 4 day journey! Then, on arrival on the ship, we come to find out that the cabin is about ½ the size that we were expecting and we’re stuck with all of this excess baggage and not much room to move around.

In this case, not only have we over packed (which I am guilty of regularly… just ask my wife) but we’ve taken up the space that we could have used to move around the cabin easily, and probably paid extra luggage fees on the plane to boot!

Our readings today deal with the excess baggage that we all carry around with us when we try to follow Christ. How many of us have used excuses like, “I would join the choir, but I need time to take care of my elderly parents,” or “The deacon program sounds good, but I don’t have enough time for my family as it is,” or “I really feel like I should ask my neighbor to come with me to church, but they might think I weird.”

As a disclaimer, I have personally used excuses like these at various times in my life. On the surface, they make sense to us. They seem to be pointing to right priorities, taking care of others, not wanting to offend people. However, this is not what Christ is calling us to do. In both cases, Elisha and the unnamed people in the Gospel had the same priorities, but Christ challenged those priorities. Sometimes our priorities are our baggage. They get in the way of our following Christ. The extra suitcases block us from our journey to him.

What all of us fail to see many times is that when we take seriously Christ’s call to ‘lose our lives to Him,’ as we heard last week, we are not abandoning our responsibilities. We are actually correctly prioritizing our lives. To follow Christ completely—without regard for our families, friends, etc… -- seems like an utterly irresponsible thing to do. We may cringe when the person who wants to bury their parents is told to leave them and “let the dead bury their dead.” However, to live in Christ is to live in complete freedom. To live in Christ is to trust that He will take care of those things in our baggage. To live in Christ is, as St. Paul says in his letter to the Galatians, to be free and not under the law.

Make no mistake about it, St. Paul is not telling us that living in the Spirit is a license to lawlessness. What he is saying is that when we totally, truly have given ourselves up to God, the Holy Spirit gives us the grace, wisdom, counsel and courage to desire to please God in all that we do. When Christ speaks of abandoning family members, not only here but in other places in the Gospels as well, what He is saying is that many people are not in a position to understand that when Christ is our first priority, we not only believe but know that God will take care of everything that we can’t while we are following Him. This will cause many to abandon US. A frightening prospect, but most of the time, this is for the short term as our witness to the radical love of Christ… the radical love of the One God… eventually proves irresistible and many times they will follow along once they see that they too have too much baggage.

So, as we go forth through our week ahead, let’s try to drop some of our excess baggage so that we can more easily prioritize our lives with Christ as the head and journey with Him towards both earthly and eternal happiness.

12th Sunday in Ordinary Time

“Whoever wishes to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will save it”

Fathers. We all have one, whether we have known him or not… whether we like him… or not; whether we love him… or not. Some of us have been blessed with wonderful fathers whom we love and love us—and have even served as role models for us as fathers ourselves. Some of us may even have had fathers who were lacking, or just absent. Either way, it is undeniable that the a father leaves a permanent character mark on his child and his family.

In our faith life as well, we are a family. In our relationship with God… with the Trinity… we see a family dynamic taking place. God the Father created us and loves us so very much that He sent His Son, and through that love we have the gift of the Holy Spirit. This we heard about a few short weeks ago on Trinity Sunday. How much does God love us? And how is this love a model for our families… especially as fathers?

In our first reading, from the prophet Zechariah, we see just how much God loves His chosen people, Israel. He gives them a spirit of grace as they have never known before. What a gift to give one’s children!

In our second reading, from St. Paul to the Galatians, Paul makes it clear that in Christ there is no distinction… whatever status one may have in the outside world doesn’t matter because in Christ all are of equal rank and dignity since Christ died and rose for all equally.

Finally, in Luke’s Gospel today we see that to completely follow Christ, we must daily take up our cross and follow Him. There is more, though… in order to save our lives we must lose it to Him. What a profound statement! To give up ALL for Christ!!! To even begin to ponder that is so profound… that means that everything that we are… our very identities… our very selves… talents, warts and all… each and every element of who we are must be given totally and completely back to God. This is what he is telling us to do in order to save our very lives. That is a challenging call… but if we think about it, it also makes sense. It is what is at the basis of a good family life as well.

Since today is Father’s Day, I will be addressing the dads, but everything I am saying applies to all here present equally. Now… as a father, think about it, what do you want most for your family? In other words, if you could give them anything, what would it be? Would it not be complete and utter happiness? Would it not be the ‘spirit of grace and petition’ that Zechariah speaks of? Again for you fathers, when you look at your family, what do you see? Do you look at your children as the ‘brown haired girl’ or the ‘blue-eyed boy?’ or do you see them as all equal in love and dignity and love them equally but uniquely according to their personalities? This is what St. Paul is talking about when he says that in Christ there is no Jew or Greek, slave or free person, etc…

As for what you would do for your family… if you are like me, there is not one thing that you would not do for them to make their lives better. If need be, would you not put in the day’s work, drive to the soccer or baseball or football field for practice or a game, come home, help with homework, and if your wife is tired or ill make some dinner and finally make sure that everything is in order before you relax? OK… that may seem a little much for some of us, but in truth isn’t this the essence of what a good family life is all about? Is this not what we are called to be AS a family?

Even beyond that, this is what God is calling us to in our faith in him. We are his Children…as much as we love our families, how much more does the God of the Universe love us? Of course it makes sense to lose our life to Christ… the Son of the Living God… because that losing of life allows us to have complete trust in our Savior and Creator! Who better to have that complete trust in?!?

One of the best analogies that I have heard is that the family is a ‘Domestic Church.’ Where better can we see the link between the perfect love of God and human unconditional love than in the love between husband, wife and children? So today, I challenge—firstly all of the fathers—but all here as well, to live the words of Christ and lose our lives for the sake of God, who is found not only in this building but also in the ‘Domestic Church.’