THIRTEENTH SUNDAY IN ORDINARY TIME
26 JUNE 2022
Saint Luke
tells us that the days for Jesus’ taking up were fulfilled. In other words, his work in Galilee has been
completed. He has announced that he is
the promised Messiah of God. He has
worked many miracles as signs of this truth.
He has proclaimed that God’s kingdom has come. He has gathered around himself people who want
to become his disciples. Now he is
setting his face on his journey to Jerusalem, where he will be crucified,
buried, raised from the dead, and return to the Father in the Ascension.
On the way,
he teaches those who want to follow him what it means to be his disciples. He teaches James and John how to respond to
rejection. The “sons of thunder” want him to call down lightning on his
Samaritan enemies, because they would not welcome him. Instead, he teaches them the path of
nonviolence, of continuing the journey without taking revenge. Ironically, in the second volume of Saint
Luke (the Acts of the Apostles), John will be sent to evangelize the
Samaritans. He will have learned how to
turn revenge into love.
Then Jesus gives
three sayings about discipleship to those who seek to follow him. He says that it will be necessary to renounce
all possessions, as he has done. When
the second person wants to bury his father before following Jesus, he dismisses
the excuse. He does the same with the
third person, who wants to bid farewell to his family before becoming a
disciple. Jesus is even more demanding
that Elijah, who had called Elisha centuries before to follow him. At least Elijah grudgingly allows Elisha to
say goodbye to his family and their wealth.
What are we
to make of these demands? Saint Paul
provides a key in his letter to the Galatians.
He talks about freedom. We often
define freedom as doing whatever we want whenever we want. That is not Saint Paul’s definition. He urges the Galatians to be free from the
temptations of the flesh. By flesh, he
means a focus on our own ego and our perceived needs. We must be free from focusing on ourselves in
order to be free to live by the Spirit.
We can
understand this freedom in the call of Elisha.
When Elisha returns to bid farewell to his family, he realizes that he
cannot be the successor to the greatest prophet of his time if he remains tied
to the great wealth of his family. Very
few farmers could afford the luxury of twelve yoke of oxen! He demonstrates his freedom from that
limitation by slaughtering the oxen and using the plowing equipment as fuel to
boil their flesh to feed his people. He
is now free to take up the yoke of Elijah and to continue his prophetic role.
Jesus challenges
us to examine our freedom to be his disciples.
He is not asking us to abandon all our property and possessions. However, he wants us to examine how much
wealth and possessions dominate our energies and activities. If we are consumed with pursuing those goals,
we are not free to follow him. Jesus
does not expect us to abandon our families and stop going to family
funerals. We often assume that the son’s
father just dropped dead. His father is
probably as healthy as an ox. The son’s
excuse is to delay leaving the family nest until everyone is dead and
buried. Jesus makes the point is that
now is the time to start building the kingdom.
Don’t use excuses to put it off until tomorrow.
If we are
to remain as authentic disciples of Jesus Christ, we must examine our
priorities. We cannot wait until all our
family responsibilities are resolved to embrace the message of
stewardship. We cannot wait to win the
lottery to commit ourselves to the vulnerable and the poor. Freedom for Jesus Christ requires making
sacrifices. We understand the value of
sacrifice when we celebrate the Eucharist.
We bring forward gifts of bread, wine, and our sacrificial tithe to
offer them to God. In return, we receive
much more than we could ever have imagined.
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