1 KINGS 19:16B,19-21/PSALM 16:1-2,5,7-11/GALATIANS 5:1,13-18/LUKE 9:51-62
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Fr. Daniel Evbotokhai
THE VOCATION OF THE THREE ASPIRANTS
Today’s gospel presents us with the “Lucan Travel Narrative” of Jesus Christ (Luke 9:51-56) and the “Cost of Discipleship” (Luke 9:57-62). Lucan travel narrative reflects a time in the ministry of Jesus when he began his march towards Calvary. Jesus sets out on his final journey to Jerusalem; he was determined to finish the race. During this journey Jesus prepares his disciples so that they may truly be his witnesses after his resurrection. This journey carries a sense of purpose, urgency and a frame of danger. Precisely because of this imminent danger those called to follow Jesus tendered excuses. Today’s readings therefore stand to teach us that discipleship is not an easy task and so those called must be determined to follow.
The first reading shows how Elisha rose with urgency and followed Elijah despite his unpreparedness. He had no time to kiss his father and mother goodbye. In fact the yokes of oxen he was using to plough the Bible says he slew them and boiled for the people to eat. True disciples wouldn’t mind the cost of their sacrifice; they respond to the Divine call with a sense of urgency and purpose. Again, no one is compelled to follow Christ; but if you have chosen to follow him then follow him with utmost determination. The second reading tells us that we are called in freedom. Everyone in mission is called in freedom, therefore we must discharge our duties without compromise or complaints. We are bound by love to follow Christ not by law. Law puts us under pressure and fear while love sustains us irrespective of storms. Therefore, let us lay aside our excuses and follow Jesus. If we follow him we shall not wallow, if we follow him we shall come to the heavenly Jerusalem.
The body of Christ today is clouded with disciples who are part-timers; excuses here and there. We chose to follow Jesus but our intentions and motives are not pure. We admire the spiritual journey, we want to be in his convoy but we don’t want the Calvary experiences. We have so much to learn from the excuses of the three different aspirants in today’s gospels.
THE FIRST ASPIRANT: Luke 9:57 says “As they went on their way, a man said to him, “I will follow you wherever you go”. To this first aspirant Jesus said “Foxes have holes and birds of the air have nests; but the Son of man has nowhere to lay his head” (Luke 9:58). Jesus wants him to understand the cost of discipleship before declaring his intention. This shows the honesty of Jesus, before you are enrolled, understand that foxes have holes and birds of the air have nests, but the Son of man is a wanderer. Jesus actually had nowhere to lay his head: in John5:18 the Jews in Jerusalem sought to kill him; in Luke 4:16 his own people drove him out of the temple; in Luke 9:53 the Samaritans refused to lodge him. No disciple can claim he was induced to follow Jesus, even at baptism we were asked “do you reject Satan and all his empty promises?” This is to be sure that you know what you are doing. Even in the seminary the candidates for priesthood are asked to write a letter of application for the priesthood to the bishop. Nobody can claim ignorance of the implication of discipleship.
Again, no one told you to reject Satan in order that you might become rich and live flamboyantly. No one forced you into marriage; if anybody does then the marriage was invalid. Beloved, let us learn to stand for what we believe. Discipleship is not an easy call, we must not comprise Christ’s identity. In Luke 9:23 Jesus said “if anyone would come after Me, he must deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow Me.” The cross is at the heart of discipleship. In fact, discipleship without the cross is a wrong ship and you can’t be in the wrong ship and arrive at the desired destination.
Still on the first aspirant, biblical scholars believe that the response; “I will follow you wherever you go” perhaps was a case of hasty decision. It is possible his intentions were not pure, he may have heard people saying it and so he said it or he may have seen people coming to the church and he came not having an intention, this man also must have thought that joining Jesus was like joining a flight going abroad. Some join the priesthood simply because of what they think the priesthood is and not what it is. Some are married because they felt they were getting old. Beloved, let your decision be guided by the right motive. Discipleship implies self denial, sacrifice, service and suffering.
TO THE SECOND ASPIRANT, Jesus said “leave the dead to bury their own dead”. To us Jesus’ words to this man might sound harsh. However, when someone in the days of Jesus says; “they want to go bury their father” it does not necessarily mean their father is already dead. Instead they really were saying that they wanted to stay with their father until he dies. Or “I will follow you after the death of my father”. This perhaps may be something that might happen years to come. And as matter of fact, the gospel did not say the aspirant’s father is sick or very old. This man was simply looking for an excuse to avoid becoming a disciple of Jesus Christ.
The second aspirant was postponing the call of God. What keeps you from following Jesus as you should? For some; because their children are still very tender; others are waiting until they have money before they can follow Jesus; others still, are waiting for old age and some because they are not chanced – they are too busy with work and office. Beloved, give God your time not your chance for there is time for everything (Eccl 3:1).
THE THIRD ASPIRANT said “I will follow you, Lord, but let me say goodbye to my family” (Luke 9:61). Jesus replied “No one who puts his hand to plough and looks back is fit for the kingdom of God” (Luke 9:62). The decision to follow Jesus must be clear and true. This aspirant wanted to go and bid his family farewell, he forgot what Jesus said in Matt. 10:37-38 “Anyone who loves their father or mother more than me is not worthy of me; anyone who loves their son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me. Whoever does not take up their cross and follow me is not worthy of me.” This does not mean we should not honour our families; rather it means that we should love God above all things. Do we love God above all things? (Positions, power, wealth, shelter etc).
Beloved, just as Jesus says to Peter and Andrew “follow me”, to the Levi “follow me” to John and James “Follow me”. He is saying to us today follow me. Abraham followed God faithfully, Elisha followed Elijah, whether it made sense logically or not. The way you follow Jesus may not be logical and biologically correct to human minds but follow him. Today we sing “Abraham blessings are mine”; but I tell you; you can’t attract those blessings if you can’t pay the price of denial and dedication.
LET US PRAY
O God, who through the grace of adoption chose us to be children of light, grant, we pray, that we may not be wrapped in the darkness of error but always be seen to stand in the bright light of truth. Through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son, who lives and reigns with you in the unity of the Holy Spirit, God, for ever and ever. Amen.
Fr. Evaristus Okeke
” _Do not submit again to a yoke of slavery_ ” (Gal.5:1)
God calls us to a New Life in Christ
Last Sunday, we celebrated the height of God’s love in giving himself to us in the Holy Eucharist. Today’ liturgy gives us the implication of being loved to such extent. By loving us and giving himself to us, God invariably invites us to follow him. The love of God implies the call of God. Since God loves us all, he has called us all. What is our response?
In the first reading God asked Elijah to anoint Elisha as a way of calling Elisha to take the place of Elijah after his departure. Since God was present to the people of the Old Testament through the Prophets, it became necessary that a handover is done as a sign of perpetuating God’s presence. Elisha received this call and understood that it implies leaving everything behind, and so, he immediately sought permission to bid farewell to his parents. Elijah obliged him.
However, in the gospel reading, when Jesus invited someone to follow him, the person also asked to be allowed to bid farewell to his people. Obviously, this person did not get the express permission as Elisha in the first reading. What is demonstrated here is a gradual understanding of the nature of God and his call to us. In the Old Testament, the revelation of God was not perfect and so the understanding of God was also not perfect. When Jesus perfectly reveals the Father in the New Testament, he also perfectly taught us how to understand him. Thus, rather than be a contradiction, the incidents in the first and gospel readings show mankind’s growth in understanding the call that God puts forward towards him.
God’s call demands our immediate and wholehearted response. He does not just call us to do something but to become something. If he calls us to do something, then time becomes a determinant factor. It will therefore mean that once we are done with the task, the call is terminated. No! God calls us to “become him”. This call demands becoming a new creature and putting off our old nature. It is a call to a new life in Christ. To make excuses means that we have not come to understand the richness of this new life that is why we demand some more time to dwell in our old nature.
This is the point St. Paul is making to the Galatians (and us) in the second reading. We have been called into freedom from the slavery of sin. This is one gift that many Christians are yet to appreciate. Are we convinced that sin puts us into the custody of the devil? How strong do we desire holiness? Have you noticed that people hardly go for a crusade with the intention of asking God to help them become holier persons? Is holiness of life ever considered as a desirable theme for a revival or all-night? Lack of appreciation of the New Life Christ won for us has led to a continuous decline in the consciousness of sin. How often do people still feel uncomfortable because they have gratified the desires of the flesh?By virtue of our baptism we receive God’s call to be Christians, Children of God and members of the Church. It is God who calls us not the other way round. Even when we feel the desire to serve God, it is God who has put such desire in us. But for us to serve well, our desire must be purified. To the man who opted to follow Jesus, Jesus laid bare before him the discomfort involved in discipleship. The son of man has nowhere to lay his head. This means that we should expect no comfort, right, security, consolation, appreciation, motivation and so, for doing God’s work. We will have only the words of the psalmist: “it is you, O Lord, who are my portion”.
Beloved, how well are you answering God’s call? You can begin to answer this question by considering how much time you have for God. Of the 168 hours in a week, how many do you spend with God in prayer, in doing charitable works, in talking about him, in living like him? Many of us still keep some part of ourselves away from God because we delight in our old selves – the self of sin. Only those who have answered God’s call in this life will be able to answer his call to eternal life. We have come to the end of the first half of the year. How far about your resolution(s) to become a better person this year? May God open the eyes of our minds to understand the richness of the New Life he has won for us in Christ. Amen. God Bless You!
Fr. Paul Oredipe
Christian Discipleship
To be resolute in answering God’s call
As we celebrate this 13th Sunday of the Year, the readings of today touch on a certain and very important characteristic of Christian vocation. We are all called in a special way to follow the way of love of Jesus Christ. In this calling, there is the need for a resoluteness of intention and firmness of purpose. The Lord requires that we be resolute as we answer his call.
Today’s gospel begins with the announcement that Jesus turned his face with resolution towards Jerusalem. This was no ordinary visit; neither was it an excursion. Jerusalem will be the place of his crucifixion and death. He knew well what awaited him there: rejection, betrayal, and death. But for him there was no turning back. ‘To go to Jerusalem’: this was for Jesus a crossing of a threshold, a crucial decision committing his whole life. To remain in Galilee is to prolong the easy life of the first successes, it is to give in to the temptation of becoming a temporal Messiah, an idol of the crowds, of ‘making one’s own life’.
To go up resolutely to Jerusalem is to accept concretely the will of the Father, which is that Jesus should surrender his life. It is to break away from the past and to move on into an uncertain future in accordance with the Father’s project and task. His Father has given him the task of bringing the Good News of salvation to his brothers and sisters. He would carry out that task, and his Father would help him to be faithful. He was convinced that there was light at the end of the tunnel – his shameful death would lead to the triumph of his resurrection.
Now on his way to Jerusalem, Jesus met three men who are anxious to follow him but who are unfit and unprepared for the challenges involved. The first approached Jesus: ‘I will follow you wherever you go’. To him Jesus promptly pointed out the kind of life he can expect if he genuinely wants to follow him. His mission as the Messiah is a constant coming and going, of preaching the gospel in season and out of season, and bringing salvation to all, and the disciple will be following one who himself has no where to lay his head. Such will be the life of all those who follow him. They will have to be detached from everything that might hold them back, and their dedication will necessarily have to be total, with no reservation.
To the second person whom Jesus invited ‘Come after me’ the man said: “Let me go and bury my father first’. This man thinks another time might be better as there is still some family business to be attended to … He does not realise that when God calls, the best time is now, notwithstanding the circumstances surrounding a vocation, for they might lead to an all-too-human rationalisation to find grounds for postponing one’s dedication.
Jesus Christ’s reply to this second man: ‘Leave the dead to bury the dead’ need to be clearly and properly understood. Jesus was not discarding the good work in burying the dead. Rather than discarding the good nature of burial, Jesus was sending a deeper message.
The message is loud and clear: that the answer to Christ’s call must be prompt, cheerful and unconditional, and be instinctive with a spirit of detachment. The point Jesus was making is that in everything there is a crucial moment: if that moment is missed the thing most likely will never be done at all. Jesus urges us to act at once when our hearts are stirred. Nothing must get in the way of doing what Jesus asks of us. Jesus rejects all excuses and delays. His call demands a radical response and it takes precedence over all other obligations. It cannot be softened by any human conditions or circumstances. This is the same message for the third man who said ‘let me take leave of my people at home.’ Jesus answered: ‘Once the hand is laid on the plough, no one who looks back is fit for the kingdom of God’. This calls for self-discipline, sacrifice and total commitment to the goal.
St Francis of Assisi was one of the thousand who took to heart literally the Gospel of Jesus and lived it literally. Though he had everything – wealth, name and fame, – he renounced them in order to be a true disciple of Jesus. No half-hearted discipleship would do justice to the call of Jesus. The imitation of Christ must be total and complete and permanent. Jesus does not want ninety-nine percent but one hundred percent. His call is radical, without ‘if’ and ‘but’ without reserve and condition, but whole-hearted.
“There are two words used a great deal by Jesus in the Gospel. One is ‘Come’ and the other is ‘Go’. It is no use coming unless you go, and it is no use going unless you come.”
The great message given in the Gospel about following Jesus promptly and without any condition is dramatically illustrated in the First Reading. It was a time of difficult religious persecution. Elijah is now old and tired, he needs somebody to take his place and God chooses Elisha, son of Shaphat, a rich landowner, as his successor. As Elisha was at the ploughs in the field, Elijah approaches him and takes off his cloak and throws it over him without saying a word, and keeps going his way without even turning round to see the reaction of Elisha.
At the time of the prophet Elijah, the cloak was considered an integral part of the person wearing it and it was common opinion that the force and extraordinary powers of its owners were concentrated in it. Elisha responded and asks for permission to go and greet his parents. Elijah grants him this permission saying: “Go, but come back”.
In Elisha’s case, he went home, slaughtered the oxen, burnt the implements of his old profession, and on this fire he roasted the meat, shared it with all the people present. This gesture of his is very significant. It means that he is giving up everything: he is abandoning for good his life of rich farmer and he is embracing a new profession: to be a prophet in the following of Elijah.
In this way, the words of the Psalmist of today was fulfilled. ‘You are my inheritance, O Lord’. For the one called and chosen, there is no other destination or goal. The Lord himself is our portion and cup and in him alone is our fullness of joy. Until we experience this, we have not yet freely and fully responded as we should. Some break down or drop out at the first demands of discipleship. We are not his disciples unless we follow him. To follow him means to put our hands in his hands, our steps in his steps. It is to take the same road and to stay on it. It is to let our fears fall away, putting our confidence and trust in him. It is not an easy road. The Master did not hide this fact from his disciples. But he won sure victory and did promise final victory to those who stick it out to the very end.
Now, all these may sound like compulsion, force or manipulation. It is like saying that when God calls, our choices and freedom are all taken away. Could this be the case? St Paul answered this question in the Second Reading. He talks about Christian freedom which is an integral and indispensable part of Christian discipleship. The Christian vocation is a call to freedom. Jesus liberates us from sin, fear, death and evil. In the words of St. Paul ‘When Christ freed us, he meant us to remain free’. He who follows the call of Christ knows only one law and norm: LOVE. That is the only law for the follower of Christ. It is a freedom dictated and directed by love. It is a freedom for love.
When Jesus call us to come after him, he calls us to follow him to Calvary and to die with him. This is not an invitation to be crucified as he was. It is not an invitation to physical martyrdom. Rather, it is an invitation to carry with love the daily cross of living and suffering, and more than anything else, an invitation to die to selfishness, pride, jealousy, anger, gossiping, tearing down reputations and all dissensions. These are the lusts that St. Paul talks about as always in opposition to the spirit.
Jesus has freed us from slavery to all such manifestations. But how do we claim this freedom and realize it in our everyday life. The only way is to be guided by nothing but LOVE, sincere love, selfless love, genuine love. And to know whether you have this love just examine yourself against its major characteristics and manifestations. St Paul gave us a great checklist. What he wrote to the ancient Church of Corinth still holds true for us today, even in our situation and circumstances:
“Love is always patient and kind; love is never jealous; love is not boastful or conceited; it is never rude and never seeks its own advantage, it does not take offence or store up grievances. Love does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but finds its joy in the truth. It is always ready to make allowance, to trust, to hope and to endure whatever comes. Love never comes to an end.” (1 Cor. 13: 4 – 8)
One of our hymns in the Hymn Book provokes our inspiration as we sing it thus:
1) “Beloved, let us love. Love is of God, In God alone has love; its true abode.
2) Beloved, let us love., for they who love; They only are his son, born from above.
3) Beloved, let us love., for love is rest; and he who does not love, remain unblessed.
4) Beloved, let us love., for love is light; and he who does not love, still dwells in night.
5) Beloved, let us love., for only thus; shall we behold that God, who so loves us.
The important thing is never to give up. At this Mass, we should thank the Lord for giving us the time to get to know Him, and pray the Lord to give us perseverance in His holy service.
May the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, the everlasting love of God the Father and the sweet fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you all. Amen. ….
