Twenty-second Sunday in Ordinary Time, cycle C

Luke 14:1, 7-14

It’s hard for us to identify with the men that Jesus is speaking to.  In our society we honor people who seem to be humble, and we find those who strive for status kind of off-putting.  When someone gets all upset because of being disrespected, we don’t think much of them.  But this wasn’t the case in Jesus’ time.  It was a society where your position in society was very important.  There was a strongly reinforced pecking order.  Not only was there a sharp distinction between those who were in and those who were out, but the ones who were in were very sensitive to where they stood on the ladder.  Now a “leading” Pharisee was one whose teaching was respected, someone who had a lot of authority, someone who could give orders and expect them to be carried out.  And probably the leading Pharisee was a person known for his scrupulous attention to carrying out the law.  Now probably a carpenter like Saint Joseph wouldn’t have paid much attention to all this emphasis on being respected.  Most people just did their work and hoped for the best.  But here, the closer you sat to the head of the Pharisees, the more prestige you had.  

Now picture the scene.  The Leading Pharisee announces that dinner is served.  The men in the room, and they are all men, women wouldn't be eating in the same room, are trying to find a place near the head table.  And they are trying to do this while still looking dignified.  Two dive for a spot, one gets rebuffed, his face turns red, he moves down the table.  There is a lot of jostling.  By the way, they are reclining, not sitting.  No chairs.  You might have two guys reclining and a third will attempt to insert himself between the two.  So it’s a funny thing to watch.  And I think Jesus was amused.  Because his answer is not to be humble, his answer is to go to the bottom of the table and wait for the host to ask you to come up higher. Think of the prestige you would get -- the host calls you by name, invites you to come sit closer.  The guests that have snagged the good spots have to make room for you.  

Banquets like these were a form of entertainment.  If you gave one, you expected to be invited to several banquets given by your guests down the line.  So there was an ulterior motive, people didn’t do this out of the goodness of their hearts.  And that’s sort of the same thing; if you got invited to supper it was a sign that you were high up on the social scale.  After all, in the circles in which the lending Pharisee lived, it would be silly to invite someone who couldn't invite you; it would be a waste.  

But Jesus’ suggestion, that when they give a lunch or supper they should invite the crippled, the lame and the blind is not a new thought; the prophets like Isaiah and Jeremiah had predicted that when God finally brought about the kingdom to come, these would be the very people who would take first place in the heavenly banquet.  That’s what Jesus is referring to when he says “you will be repaid in the resurrection of the righteous”.  

So what is Jesus doing here?  I don’t think he’s telling us to be humble.  Humility is a good thing, but being humiliated is not.  Humility after all is knowing ourselves as we really are.  We are almost nothing before God, but at the same time we are loved by God as though we were the only person on earth.  I can look at myself and see that in some ways I’m much more fortunate than many other people -- that’s just true, that’s not bragging; But at the same time, I know I won’t be around when California bans gasoline powered vehicles; I’ll be in my final resting place.  And that’s not bragging, that’s just true.  Humility is recognizing what is true and what isn’t and living accordingly.

But Jesus is talking about humiliation.  And that’s totally different.  Humiliation is a feeling I get when I believe something about myself and someone comes along and contradicts this with some action or word.  I’ve been humiliated a lot, but one time I remember was when I was driving with my new bride on a Montana highway, and I saw a police car and an ambulance attending to the victim of a car wreck.  I stopped the car and ran over, announcing that I was a doctor and I could help.  The paramedic attending to the victim told me to keep away and the policeman told me to get back in my car and get out of there, I was not needed.  

When you are humiliated, it’s a good thing.  It means you need to ask whether your view of yourself is in keeping with reality.  It’s a chance to grow.  And I think in this gospel you can see that Jesus is telling us that the best course of action is not to play the game, not to worry about how we look to others, not to pay attention to our standing in society.  Let others worry about that.  Otherwise we get caught in the trap of being humbled when exalted, and exalted when humbled, and we never find peace.

Twentieth Sunday in Ordinary Time, cycle C

Luke 12:41 - 59

Today’s very brief gospel describes a cry from Jesus’ heart.  He knows that in the end God will triumph and evil will be overthrown.  But he also knows that getting to that point will be extremely painful, not only for himself, but for everyone who is with him.

Much of what Jesus tells his disciples suggests that he is bringing peace, that he is the source of unity for his followers.  Yet today he says he will not bring peace, but rather division.  How do we reconcile this?  The Christian world is certainly no example of unity, and even within the Catholic church there is a lot of division.  About sixty percent of Catholics don’t agree with things the Church says are non-negotiable.  If you are a regular church goer, and only 26 percent of people who call themselves Catholics are, you know what these positions are -- abortion is the destruction of human life; the Eucharist is the Body and Blood of Christ, serious sin requires the sacrament of penance;  sex outside of marriage is a siin, and I could go on.  Of course the Church believes in all ten commandments, but takes a counter-cultural position on a few.  Most of us would agree that murder is bad, as is theft and adultery.  So the Church, like Jesus, seems to bring division.  

And I think that’s what Jesus is talking about.  There are things he says that have been recorded in the gospels that leave many of us, even those of us who try to lead good Catholic lives, a little bothered.  “Sell all you have and give to the poor,” he says, “and you will have treasure in heaven”.  “If your eye offends you, pluck it out…” you remember that saying.  “Whoever would be great among you must be a servant”.  “Blessed are you when people hate you…”.  

Now most of us hear these things and we water them down, and Jesus may have been exaggerating, it’s true, especially with that command of self-mutilation.  But there have been people who have listened to Jesus and tried with all their hearts to follow him.  Saint Clare, whose feast we celebrate this week, lived a life of complete poverty.  Saint Theresa Benedicta of the Cross, formerly Edith Stein, went cheerfully to her martyrdom, as did Saint Lawrence the deacon.  And just about any saint you can name lived an heroic, counter-cultural life that divided people, even those within the Church.  The point is that you can expect push-back, even from your loved ones, when you decide to take Jesus seriously.  And yet, that’s the division that he’s talking about.  Father against son, mother against daughter, and so on.  MY parents were pretty good Catholics, I would say.  But I remember coming home from college at Catholic University of America.  On the drive home I was going on and on about all the great insights I had gotten from my religion classes.  My mother became very upset and made it clear that she didn’t want to hear any of this.  I learned my lesson.  

Following Jesus will bring about division, and the closer you follow him, the more division you will experience.  Sometimes you will just be excluded from polite company, or considered a bit peculiar because of your beliefs.  Other times it will be real persecution; you may face beijing canceled because of your advocacy -- or even physically assaulted as usually happens at the March for Life in DC.  

So where is this peace that Jesus promised in some of his other sayings?  I think it’s different.  I don’t think we can expect global peace during the life of the human race.  It will only come at the end of the world.  People will try and there may be little pockets where peace breaks out for a few years.  And then Russia will invade Ukraine, China will threaten Taiwan, Saudi Arabia will bomb Yemen back to the stone age -- and war will break out again.  But there is a peace.  Saint Paul describes the Peace of God, which passes all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.”  It’s a mysterious peace.  It seems to come from forming a relationship with Jesus, a relationship of intimate friendship.  It doesn’t mean you have to be a monk or a martyr, but it does mean you have to cooperate with Jesus, who wants to form this friendship with you.  This is something anyone can achieve.  Recently I read a very simple plan for spiritual growth.  First, when you go to a restaurant, sometimes choose your second or third favorite thing instead of the first.  Second, when you are standing in line at the DMV, thank God for things.  Third, speak to Jesus throughout the day -- “I love you, Lord.”  “Thanks for taking on my sins and opening heaven for me.”  “Please help that woman who looks like everything she owns is in that shopping cart” -- and maybe I will as well.  You can have a dialogue with Jesus if you take the earbuds out of your ears and put away the cell phone for a few minutes.  This is what the saints did.  It’s what each of us can do.  And that will bring peace, the peace Saint Paul talks about, which surpasses all understanding.  

Eighteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time, cycle C

Luke 12:13 - 21

My wife and I are at that age when we are very much concerned about last things.  We’ve purchased our cemetery plots.  We met with someone at the funeral home.  We haven’t got everything done yet, but we are getting there. My wife’s father had everything arranged, even to the post - funeral luncheon for the people who attended.  She wants it to be like that for us.  On the other hand, I think it would be good for our kids to have to drop everything and spend a lot of time and effort getting me buried.  After all we’ve done for them, you know.  That’s what happened with my dad, who died suddenly at the age of 57.  

One thing we both agree on is that we have way too much stuff.  It wasn’t on purpose.  We’ve just gone through 56 years of marriage and raising a family, and not really throwing away much because we might need it.  I recently bought a battery-operated hedge trimmer for reasons which I could tell you about but won’t. And I decided to take one of my two electric hedge trimmers that required extension cords to the Longmeadow swap shop.  It hurt to give a perfectly good hedge trimmer away; now I only have two.  So as we go through our possessions, and especially our books, we keep wondering why we keep things and at the same time we feel pain when we part with them.  Is that a human reaction? Or is it a reaction of someone who lives in a privileged society and has never really wanted for anything?  Or is it just me.  Am I just a rich fool?  But I’m not the only one.  I once met a Jesuit priest.  Jesuits aren’t supposed to own anything.  When he had to get some personal necessities, he would go to his superior who would give him some money to buy toothpaste, or soap, or whatever.  He found himself hoarding the change from the purchases.  

A person named Marie Kondo wrote a book about decluttering.  YOu are supposed to pick up each item and ask whether it gives you joy or not.  If not, discard it.  If so, find a place for it where you can see it.  I think she’s on to something, but if I did that, I would probably reduce my stuff by about 10 %.  I gave away a lot of my books a couple of years ago but I still have a whole room full of books and then some.  

Several tribes of native Americans in the Northwest practiced a ritual called “potlatch”.  That’s a word from the Chinook language that means “to give away”.  And that’s exactly what it was.  People who had a lot of stuff were expected to periodically have a great big party to which they would invite all their relatives, even very distant ones.  There would be singing and dancing and feasting, and then the rich person would give away everything he had.  There was actually a sort of competition among tribal leaders – who could give away the most.  Now what they gave away was stuff.  It wasn’t land, or the means to make a living.  IT was things you accumulated.  In some tribes, once you turned twelve, you had your first potlatch and gave away all that you had accumulated during those twelve years.  

I’m not proud of all the stuff I’ve accumulated.  I’m even less proud of the fact that when I get rid of stuff, I have an emotional reaction.  It isn’t rational.  And I worry that it is one of the many barriers between me and God.  

Like all of us Christians, I want to be united with God for all eternity.  And according to the scriptures, that’s what God wants as well.  But there are barriers.  They all have to do with things that take God’s place in my life.  If I hold something of mine and it gives me pleasure, then that object is taking God’s place, at least a little bit.  God wants me to give him my whole self.  I want to hold back. 

So what should we do about our relationship to possessions?  After all, you can do a lot of good with stuff.  It’s not wrong to be rich.  Joseph of Arimathea was a rich man who provided a tomb for Jesus’ body.  There was a lady named Lydia who was wealthy and used her wealth to support Saint Paul.  The parents of Saint Therese of Lisieux were not poor at all, they ran a successful lace-making business.  And they are recognized as saints.  

As is usually the case, we can learn from the Blessed Mother.  When the angel appeared to her she was a teenager.  When he told her what God wanted from her, she replied, “Do to me whatever God wants” or “Be it done to me according to your word” which is a nicer translation.  And then she threw herself into allowing God to lead.  And God gave Mary the gift of being the mother of his son.  And God demanded that the gift be returned, and Mary freely returned the gift, though her heart was broken on that day on Calvary.  But she would withhold nothing from God.  

God does not ask us to be poor, to give away all our possessions.  But he wants us to see that everything is a gift, and I should be ready to give it away, to give it back, to pay it forward, at the first sign that it comes between God and me. So we should ask, this Sunday, what possessions of ours might interfere with our giving ourselves completely to God?

And if anyone would like an electric hedge trimmer, let me know.  

Sixteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time, cycle C

Luke 10:38 - 42

This little gospel story is found only in Luke, right after the story of the Good Samaritan, and right before Jesus gives Luke’s version of the Lord’s prayer.  It seems out of place and unrelated to the flow of things.  And of course, the story made my mother mad.  She identified strongly with Martha and had very little use for someone like Mary who would leave the work to someone else.  And I think a lot of people sympathize with Martha and it almost seems as though Jesus is acting out of character.  “Martha, Martha!” he says.  “You are so worried and upset about many things.  There is need of only one thing.  Mary has chosen the better part and it will not be taken from her.”  I wonder how that dinner went.  Martha, after all, had invited Jesus and his 12 companions for supper and it must have felt like a slap in the face.  The fact that Martha continued her relationship with Jesus, as we will see in the Gospel of John when Jesus raises Lazarus from the dead, seems to be the real miracle here.  I know my mother would have taken a long time to get over being put down in this way.

But Jesus knows who he is.  He’s been going around telling people that he himself is the bridge between God and man.  The most important thing any human being can do is accept his invitation to enter into that relationship.  Mary has accepted that.  She sits at his feet like any disciple -- even though she is a woman and acting totally against the norms of that time.  Martha, I think, was appealing to that stereotype --” tell my sister to help me.  That’s what women do, that’s our role.  Back me up, Jesus!”

But Mary has chosen the better part.  She has chosen to enter into the relationship that Jesus offers.  But we are all Marthas and we are all Marys.  Someone has to do the work of living, the cleaning, the making of meals, all the things that have to be done to get on with life.  And yet it is so easy to lose sight of what is really important.  Jesus did not want Martha to stop doing what she was doing.  He wanted her to stop being distracted by what she was doing.  And that’s the real issue here.  A real problem for anyone who is serious about being a Christian is not how we can sit at Jesus’ feet and absorb his wisdom, but how we can take what we do, what we have to do every day, and turn that into a prayer, turn that into making us holy.  

Saint Josemaria Escriva founded the organization he named “Opus Dei”, or work of God, precisely to help people like Martha use their work to become holy.  It wasn’t a new idea -- it seems to be a recurring theme in Christianity.  Many great religious thinkers concluded that to be really holy you had to withdraw from the world.  We have a lot of Christian saints who thought like that.  But we have others, starting with Saint Paul, maybe starting with Jesus and his encounter with Martha, who recognized that most of us would have to become holy through the work we do.  Saint Benedict, whose feast we celebrated on Monday, truly recognized this and in the rule he wrote for his monks, there is a beautiful balance between work and prayer.  Several centuries later, Saint Francis de Sales wrote his classic “Introduction to a Devout life” in which he insisted that everyone was called to be a saint, not in spite of the work they had to do, but precisely through what they had to do.  Francis talked about how it would be totally inappropriate for a woman with small children to spend all her time in church.  He compared the different vocations of Christians to a flower garden where everyone would blossom in their own way.  And Saint Escriva in the 20th century said that we Christians are called to make our work holy, to make ourselves holy through our work, and to make the world holy through our work.  

And in a way it all makes sense.  After all, one of the first things God did when he created Adam was to give him a job; he was to take care of the garden in which God placed him.  

Martha’s problem is not that she is working, but that she is not making her work holy.  And all she has to do in this situation is remember that she is working to please Jesus.  And that makes her yoke easy and her burden light, because when we invite Jesus into the work we do, God joins our humanity, God makes what seems so ordinary and pedestrian into part of his great plan -- through us.  

We can’t always rush around being lost in work; we have to stop now and then to sit at Jesus’ feet and listen to his voice.  The most productive saints knew this and did this.  It’s a wonderful thing to go to our weekend liturgy every week.  It reminds us of who we are, of our relationship with Jesus.  But how much more wonderful to cultivate a prayer life, to introduce some spiritual reading into our day, to visit the Blessed Sacrament now and then -- after all, that’s what Mary was doing and that’s the better part.  Jesus is always there waiting for us to visit him, and when we do this, when we put ourselves in his presence, he gives us the grace to make our work holy, to make ourselves holy through our work, to make the world holy through our work.  So Martha, don’t stop doing what you are doing.  Mary, after you’ve spent a little time with Jesus, go out and help Martha.  And you disciples sitting around waiting for supper, get up and ask how you can help.  And you will all have chosen the better part.  

Fifteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time, cycle C

 Luke 10:25 - 37

Every time Trinity Sunday rolls around, someone says that a sermon on the Trinity is the hardest to preach. But I think the story of the good Samaritan is right up there in difficulty. If I asked, “What is Jesus’ point?” We would all say, “Jesus wants us to have compassion for people in trouble” or something along those lines. We get the point, Jesus. But let's dive a little deeper.

First, why a Samaritan? The usual answer is that Jews and Samaritans hated each other. It was said that Jews who were traveling to Galilee would cross the Jordan river twice to avoid setting foot on Samaritan land. But there are a couple of problems with this. This is the only place where this story is told, and we know that Luke is writing for Gentile Christians. Luke’s understanding of Palestinian culture and geography is not as clear as one might expect if he were writing a first-hand account. And if he wanted someone that his audience could hate, he might have been better off using a Roman soldier or a tax collector as the hero of his story. His audience would probably resonate with that. A few modern scholars think that Luke's concern over Samaritans, which is found in several places in his gospel and in the Acts of the Apostles, has a lot to do with Luke’s interest in demonstrating that Christ brings people together; first, the tax collectors, sinners, lepers, demoniacs among the Jewish people; then the Samaritans are brought in -- ancient rivals of the Jews; and finally the Gentiles as we travel through the Acts of the Apostles.

Another thing about this story is that some of the Church Fathers read it entirely differently. The wounded man was the human race, incapable of helping himself; the priest and the levite were the law and the prophets -- incapable of helping restore the broken man to life. The Samaritan, who represents Christ, uses two sacramental substances -- oil and wine, to begin restoring the man to health. He brings the man to the inn which represents the Church; and he promises to return to pay whatever is necessary -- Christ’s second coming. Saint Augustine preached this analogy and Origen wrote about it.

You may be asking yourself, “What’s the point?” and I don’t blame you. But I’ve got to share a little of my research, yes?

There is something for you and I to think about, though. If you take a group of three or four kids who are roughly between the ages of two and three -- it doesn’t matter what race they come from or what part of the world -- and one of them shows signs of distress, the others will spontaneously move to comfort the child. They drop what they are doing and do to the distressed child those things that they have experienced from their own parents. I remember seeing this with my own children; the three-year-old would comfort the crying one year old. It’s as though we are all born good Samaritans. Why do we stop?

The priest and the Levite probably had good reasons. They might have remembered stories about how bandits would hide until someone stopped to help, and then rob that person as well. Or they might have looked and figured that the man was already dead and there was nothing much they could do. The priest might have been in a hurry and knew that the Levite wasn’t far behind, and he could deal with the problem. The Levite might have thought that if the priest hadn’t stopped, he needn’t stop either.

The Samaritan had places to go and things to do as well. And he was in foreign territory. And if someone came along and saw a Samaritan standing by a dying man, would they immediately conclude that he had done the violent deed? But the Samaritan put all those thoughts aside because he was moved with pity. Luke tells us that he felt it in his guts, like those toddlers feel the pain of their peers.

Our priest may have figured he didn’t have the medical knowledge or the equipment to do a proper job. The Samaritan used what he had -- oil and wine, and maybe strips of his own clothing to bind up the wounds. He might have left the man at that point and promised to send someone back from him -- but instead, he got off his own animal and put the stranger on it and walked alongside until they came to the inn. And you know the rest; the Samaritan never stopped being responsible for the wounded stranger, even to promise to repay the innkeeper whatever he spent over and above the two denarii that were given -- that, by the way, was two- or three-days wages.

So think about this question? What stopped you? Why did you quit being a good Samaritan? Oh, I know many of you are charitable and put your money where your mouth is, but if you are like me, you might give the man some money, or call the salvation army, or even call for an ambulance. But if you are like me, you would be happy to turn the problem over to someone else so you can get back to your life.

Remember the toddlers. Jesus said we have to become like little children. Perhaps that’s what he was talking about.

Fourteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time, cycle C

Luke 10:1 - 12, 17 - 20

As you might remember, Luke and the other gospel writers describe the sending out of the twelve apostles.  Luke is the only one who has Jesus sending out seventy-two disciples on another occasion.  You have to remember Luke’s overall purpose; he’s showing how the Christian movement began with an angel appearing to Mary, Mary revealing Jesus to Joseph and later Elizabeth; Jesus preaching in the temple, and eventually taking on his ministry with the twelve.  If you leap ahead to the Acts of the apostles, you see the Church growing under the ministrations of Peter and John, then Philip, and finally, Paul.  So Luke wanted us to see how, right from the beginning, the Church is a mission church.  Do we know any of those seventy-two disciples?  I doubt it. But I can think of two individuals who might very well have been part of that group.  They are mentioned by Paul more than once.  There was a prominent evangelist in those early days named Apollos.  Prisca, also known as Priscilla, and Aquila, the married couple we are talking about, sat down with Apollos and corrected some of his teachings. They went on to travel with Paul and were tentmakers and missionaries themselves.  Some bible scholars thought that the Epistle to the Hebrews, which is written in scholarly Greek, may have been authored by Prisca, or perhaps by Prisca and her husband together, because even though it contains definite Pauline ideas, it’s written by someone else.  Legend has it that Aquila later became a bishop, and both he and his wife suffered martyrdom.  

During Jesus’ time, we know that he had large crowds following him at different times.  We also know that despite the societal norms of those days, Jesus had many female disciples.  And we know that it was unusual for a Jewish man to remain unmarried by his late teens.  So it isn’t unreasonable that many of the disciples sent out two by two were married couples -- and that’s worth thinking about.  Because couples who are really responding to the graces of the Sacrament of Matrimony make great missionaries.  When my wife and I were engaged, we were introduced to a married couple, who, after raising their children, decided to found a mission in a very poor Mexican community.  They had basically sold everything and moved to that community, where they were using their skills to help the people.  We met them when they had returned to the states to raise more money.  They were, according to them, happier than they had ever been.  To Joan and I it opened up possibilities -- that a married couple could have a vocation to be missionaries, or whatever else God has in store for them -- a vocation over and above raising a family.  Being a deacon, I’ve learned that the diaconate is often a vocation for a couple, not just the man.  

In our gospel today Jesus sends out his disciples two by two.  There are probably many reasons for this.  If you send out three or four, someone will be on the outs.  It’s natural.  If you send out one, a lot depends on that person’s personality.  Some are too shy to make good missionaries.  Some decide to make it all about themselves.  Jesus had a few individuals like that.  Remember the man who was casting out demons in Jesus’ name but wasn’t a member of the apostolic band?  And remember when the apostles who had been waiting at the foot of the mountain when Jesus had been transfigured?  They couldn’t cast out the demon in the boy by themselves.  But two individuals hold each other accountable.  And in a good marriage, that’s really what it’s all about.  

In the book of Genesis, it records the origin of mankind.  Unlike the rest of the creation story, where God simply makes things happen, the story of human creation begins with “Let us make man in our own image and likeness.”  The word for man in Hebrew means “humanity”.  The passage goes on to say that God created man in his image; male and female he created them.  In other words, while we all bear the image of God, married couples have the potential through the sacrament of shining fourth the image even more powerfully.  After all, God is fundamentally three persons in a relationship, and that’s the potential we see in the sacrament of matrimony.  

Most married couples bring a third person or even more into their relationship because they have followed God’s command to be fruitful and multiply.  But like the missionary couple to whom I referred; the marital relationship is open to bringing others into the relationship.  And that of course is what Prisca and Aquila did -- they brought Paul into their union, and Apollos, and who knows who else. 

Of course, most marriages can only strive in that direction.  But the power is there, and in our time, people who take the sacrament seriously and try to reflect the image of God to those around them, especially their children, are the ones who are responsible for Satan falling like lightning from the sky.  So pray for good marriages and live a good marriage if you are married; remember that together you are in a special way the image of God. 

Thirteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time, cycle C

Luke 9:51 - 62

My grandfather had a fourth-grade education, spent much of his early years as a ranch hand and cowboy, drank a fair amount of whiskey, and after his marriage settled down and raised a family with my grandmother.  He stopped his drinking but worked odd jobs -- a salesman on commission, a bartender, a janitor.  He never owned a home or a new car or even a television set.  I remember him with fondness, though.  He used to take my sister and I out for an excursion in his used car once in a while.  There was a drive in where the waitresses came up to the car window to take your order and brought it out on a tray that attached to your car window.  This was long before McDonalds and Dairy Queen.  Gertie’s drive in was one of the more popular spots in town.  Every time we’d go there or even drive past there, my grandfather would reminisce about how he had been invited by Gertie, who was an old cowboy friend of my grandfather and not a woman, as the name may imply, to be a partner in the business when it first got off the ground.  My grandfather would always remark that he would have been rich if he had taken Gertie up on his offer. 

Today we hear a gospel which seems to have two unrelated parts.  There is the part about James and John offering to call down fire from heaven to consume the Samaritans who rejected Jesus’ disciples.  Jesus rebukes them.  Then Jesus meets three individuals who claim they want to be his disciples but want to put off making the commitment because they have other things that they feel are more important.  Jesus in a sense rebukes them as well -- “Let the dead bury the dead”.  “No one who puts his hand to the plow and looks to what was left behind is fit for the kingdom of God.”  

James and John are on a mission.  They went to the Samaritan village to prepare for Jesus’ coming.  The Samaritans decided to have nothing to do with them because they were going to Jerusalem.  Jerusalem, of course , was where the Jews worshiped.  The Samaritans disagreed and worshiped at their own temple.  And over this difference there was a lot of enmity.  In another place Jesus told his disciples whom he had sent out that if they were rejected they were to shake the dust off their sandals and go on to the next village.  Jesus has basically defined the situation the disciples are in, and given them instructions as to what to do.  But James and John are distracted. They know in their hearts that the Samaritans, already heretics and the enemies of the Jews, clearly don’t deserve to live after this insult.  And they lose sight of the mission in order to get even with their enemies.  

And that’s why Jesus reinforces this message with the next three potential disciples.  If you really want to be his disciple, keep yourself focused on the mission.  It’s not your business to judge those to whom you preach.  It’s your business to preach.  And if they don’t listen, that’s not your problem.  After all, response to your preaching is up to the Holy Spirit.  If you are a disciple, your job is to listen to Jesus, and to proclaim his presence, his incarnation, his taking on flesh and living among us.  You do that by your words and actions, knowing that God will move the hearts of those who hear you if that’s what he wants.  

This was the attitude of the saints.  And not everyone who heard them responded to them,  Saint Francis de Sales preached to Calvinists; some returned to the Church but some did not.  Saint Charles de Foucald and some followers lived among the Tuareg people in North Africa.  When he was martyred he had no followers at all, but lived and preached his message right up to his death.  On the other hand, Saint Louis de Montfort had a different approach; while preaching in a town square he saw some young men on the other side who were gambling.  He stopped his sermon, went over to them, and ordered them to get into the crowd who had been listening. Charles was a tough guy and breaking up the gambing required a little physical force, but he got the young men over to hear his preaching.  Charles wasn't worried about conversion.  He just wanted everyone to be offered the opportunity.

Today as we listen to Jesus' words to his potential disciples, let’s ask if we are missing opportunities to preach to our families, friends and neighbors.  I’m sure we are.  But it's something we can do something about if we put our minds to it and remember that now is the time, now is where God’s grace is, now will never come again.