Experiencing God 241 Cost Of Discipleship

One of the more popular game shows that ran on the CBC from 1957 to 1995 was “Front Page Challenge”.  Most of you, I suspect are familiar with it.  Gordon Sinclair, a very vocal, and often uncompromising journalist served on this panel show for most of those years.  Gordon Sinclair, as you know, was a colorful character. You couldn’t help but like him a bit, but he often proudly professed, in no uncertain terms, to being an atheist.  I remember on one of the “Front Page Challenge” shows where he announced quite brashly:  “How can you be a Christian when you are told in the Gospels that you cannot be a follower of Jesus unless you hate your father, mother, spouse, brothers, sisters, and even your own children.”  I have a feeling that Gordon Sinclair probably had a deeper understanding of this Gospel passage then what he portrayed that night on TV. 

But his question does cause us to ponder and to ask ourselves what is Jesus getting at in today’s Gospel with His very challenging conditions to being a disciple?  Is Jesus putting people off from being His followers when His demands are such that no reasonable person would seriously consider being a disciple under the circumstances?  First of all, we must understand that the language used by Jesus in today’s Gospel is deliberately strong.  There is a strong point that Jesus wishes to convey to the crowds. 

But we must also understand that we cannot interpret his words in a fundamentalist way.  His words must be understood in the way that He intended.  If we ask ourselves a simple question: Did Jesus love his parents? Did he love his mother Mary? The answer to these questions are obvious.  In fact, even during His excruciating and painful death on the cross, Jesus openly expressed deep concern for His mother, for her care and welfare. In the Gospel of John, we read: “When Jesus saw his mother and the disciple whom he loved standing beside her, he said to His mother: woman, here is your son, and to John he said: Here is your mother. So why is the word “hate” used in the Gospel.  We must hate our mother, or we must hate our father etc.

The word “hate” as used in this passage from Luke is what is called a “Semitic idiom”.  It is not referring to the negative emotions directed towards another as we would normally understand it, but has to do with preference.  What Jesus is saying is that we have to give lessor preference to our relationship with family members than to God. We have to give lessor preference to even our own life than to our relationship with God. In other words, we must put God first.  It can be said that when things are put right with God, then they are also put right with all others including ourselves. God knows what is best for us even before we know what is best for ourselves.

It is from this context that we can begin to understand and embrace Jesus’ other very strong challenges of discipleship: That we must take up our cross and follow Him: That we must be willing to give up all of our other possessions, or to "prefer them less" than our relationship with Christ. After all, worldly possessions are passing things, but Christ is eternal.

The second question we can ask ourselves from today’s Gospel is: Why at this point of time did Jesus use such strong language for discipleship which could easily have turned people away. Is His timing good?

Jesus spoke these words during his final journey to Jerusalem, a journey that would end in his own death by crucifixion.  The opening line of the Gospel reads:  “Large crowds were travelling with Jesus”.  Jesus challenged them because he saw that the crowds were caught up in an excitement, a fascination towards the person of Jesus Himself.  They were seeing Jesus as a superstar, a celebrity, and they were reacting to Him as we often do when a celebrity comes to town.  We can put on the tee shirt, or we can wave the flag, but that does not make us a follower.  It makes us only a fan. 

The crowds witnessed the miracles of Jesus.  They saw people being healed. They were impressed by his teachings.  And like many caught up in the amazement of the moment, they wanted to follow their new celebrity.  But they knew little of the sacrifices that were needed to be a follower.

Discipleship with Jesus could not be just a human fascination with passing event.  He challenged the crowds with two stories too illustrate that the cost of discipleship was much greater than just being an admirer.  It was important to Jesus that they were aware of these demands and to weigh them carefully.  Without that, they could begin to lay some sort of foundation, but not able to complete the construction.   

Saint Paul knew the full cost of discipleship.  In our second reading from his letter to Philemon, he speaks from prison, an imprisonment for preaching the Gospel of Jesus Christ.  His “yes” to Christ, his willingness to be faithful to the Gospel, makes him ready to accept whatever may come to be faithful to God’s mission. 

Understanding correctly the challenges proposed by Jesus and lived out by St. Paul; we are also given that opportunity to affirm our faith in Jesus, and to express our willingness to be His disciple.  Jesus is again reminding us that our choice to follow him is probably one of the most radical decisions we can ever make in our life. 

To make such a decision, Jesus has be to more important to us than our family, more important to us even than those we love most in the world, certainly more important to us than anything we could ever possess.  And Yes, Jesus must even be more important than our own comforts, status, health and life itself. 

On Thursday, we celebrated the feast day for St. Mother Teresa, our patron saint.  We are fortunate to have her as an example for the church as one who really did follow Jesus, one who was a true disciple.  As the price for her own discipleship, Mother Teresa gave herself completely. She made no attempt to trust in herself but relied totally on the Lord who promised to give her all she needed in order to be faithful to him.  May her example be an inspiration for us to live out our own lives as Jesus' disciples.