Counting up the cost...

A joyful day for the Church as we celebrate the canonization of Mother Teresa!

Saint Teresa of Calcutta, pray for us!
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Homily: 23^rd Sunday in Ordinary Time – Cycle C

          Today, the accountants out there ought to be pretty happy, because in the Gospel Jesus is talking like an accountant.  Let me explain.  As boring as it may sound (sorry accountants), it seems like Jesus is advising his would-be disciples to complete a “cost-benefit” analysis before choosing to follow him.  In fact, it’s almost like he’s giving a seminar on discipleship to prospective disciples in which he is trying to communicate what it will cost them.

          As we heard in the first words of the Gospel reading, “great crowds were traveling with Jesus”.  At one point he must have thought to himself, “I don’t know if these folks are really want to be disciples or if they’re just interested in the novelty of my teaching.  Perhaps I should get clear about what being my disciple will demand of them.”  Jesus came to make disciples and not to sell out auditoriums and hock merchandise.  Thus he turns to address the crowds and lays out the conditions for being a disciple.  “I’m okay if you want to follow me around,” Jesus seems to say, “but if you are going to call yourself ‘my disciple’, then there are conditions; and here they are…”  He then proceeds to describe those conditions.  Let’s take a look at them.

          First, he says “If anyone comes to me without hating his father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters, and even his own life, he cannot be my disciple.”  This, of course, seems harsh at first because for us “hate” is a strong word that means that we wish harm upon another person.  For Jesus’ hearers, though, this word wouldn’t have had that same harsh meaning.  For them, to “hate” someone was simply to put them lower down on your “loyalty list”.  In other words, “to hate” someone would mean “to turn away from” him or her when you have to make a choice between that person and the one to whom all your loyalty belongs.  With this understanding, we see how it is still possible to love the person that you hate, because even though you have to turn away from them, you can still will the good for them: that is, you can still will that they would have every good thing that they need to find happiness.

          This “hatred” of others can cause conflict, of course, if these others don’t understand your necessary loyalty to Jesus above all things: conflict that could result in these loved ones turning away from you.  This is why Jesus wants to make this clear, up front: If one is not ready to lose their relationship with father, mother, husband, wife, children, brothers and sisters, then this one is not ready to be his disciple.

          Second (and I’m going to jump to the third one in sequence), Jesus says that “anyone of you who does not renounce all his possessions cannot be my disciple.”  Here, Jesus is demanding that we be entirely detached from our worldly goods.  In other words, he’s saying that we must be ready to lose all of our worldly comforts and securities—our houses, our cars, our food, our clothing… everything!—if we wish to be his disciples.  Now, for some, this is a more difficult demand than the first one.  Perhaps they are “loners” and are okay being isolated from others, but they rely heavily on their worldly “securities” to insulate them.  To renounce these, then, too, would truly demand everything of them; and so Jesus declares that this, too, is one of the costs of discipleship.

          Finally, Jesus said “Whoever does not carry his own cross and come after me cannot be my disciple.”  Now, if we’ve been living the Christian life for some time then we know that “carrying the cross” means “accepting suffering patiently”.  But I think that we have to make sure that we are hearing that line in the way that Jesus’ hearers would have heard it when he first said it.  For them, the cross was an awful instrument of torture and death.  Thus, when he says “you must carry your own cross”, what they hear is “You must willingly carry the instrument on which you will be horrifically tortured and willingly carry it to your place of torture, so that you can be tortured and killed on it”!  Notice that this is not a passive “accepting” of suffering, but rather an active choice that must be made, day after day.

          With this, Jesus really couldn’t be any clearer about the cost of being his disciple.  Not only will it cost you your relationships and your possessions, but it will cost you your very life.  And so, why would anyone want to be a disciple of Jesus?  This is where Jesus’ accounting hat comes back on.  We’ve looked at the cost, but to answer the question of “Why be a disciple of Jesus?” we need to look at the benefits.

          Jesus doesn’t detail the benefits in this Gospel reading, but we know what they are: heaven, the fullness of life, peace, everlasting bliss, etc.  Think about your dream life.  Think about what your life would look like if you didn’t have to work for anything and everything existed in perfect harmony.  This is the benefit of being Jesus’ disciple: realizing perfect contentment forever!  If that offer was put on the table, what would you be willing to give up?  Most people I know would give up everything, even their lives, if it meant that they could experience that dream life forever.

          The rub, however, is that we have to take Jesus’ word that, if we remain a faithful disciple, this life of perfect contentment will be ours.  Nobody’s ever come back from the dead to say “Yes, stick with it!  Everything that he promised is true!”  Rather, we just have Jesus, who himself carried his cross, literally, on which he was horrifically tortured and on which he died; but then who raised himself up again on the third day after his death and who continues to live at the right hand of God the Father in heaven.  That’s all.  My brothers and sisters, for me, this is enough!  Jesus has proven that he has power over life and death and so if he asks me to give up my life so that I might enjoy that life of perfect contentment (that is, perfect happiness… perfect joy), then I’m going to give it!

          And this is the example given to us of all the saints down the ages, including the Church’s newest saint, Saint Teresa of Calcutta (did you all know that she was canonized today?).  Her work, and the work of the religious order that she started, is a witness to the fact that, to be an authentic disciple of Jesus, we have to be ready to abandon everything: even our very lives.  Her canonization is an acknowledgement that she has received the benefit for what it cost her.  She trusted, even in her many years of spiritual darkness, that the Risen Jesus would never abandon her; and now she enjoys the life of perfect contentment that comes to those who remain faithful to him.

          And so, my brothers and sisters, our scriptures today challenge us to ask ourselves these questions: “Is Jesus our first loyalty or do we allow our desire for acceptance by others to compromise our commitment to him?”, “Are we ready to give up everything for him, if he asks it of us?”, and “Do we daily choose to take up the difficult thing that he asks from us: to challenge a friend or family member, to respond to the needs of the poor in our neighborhood and our community, or to speak out about an injustice that is being ignored?”  Perhaps during this Labor Day weekend, when we honor those who work by taking a day of rest from work, we can each take time to reflect on the answers to these questions measuring the level of our commitment to being disciples of Jesus.  If the answer to any of these questions is "no" or "well, kind of…" then let's not be afraid of recommitting ourselves to making the answer to all of these questions "yes"!  My brothers and sisters, Saint Teresa of Calcutta is just the latest proof that our "yeses" come with the promise of everlasting reward!

          If you are afraid that you won't be strong enough, believe me, you don’t have to worry.  Jesus is all the strength that we need; and we receive that strength when we encounter him in the Sacred Scriptures that we read and in the Sacrament that we receive from this altar.  And so, as we turn to him now here in this Mass, may the "Amen" that we proclaim at the “Great Amen” and just before we receive him be the first "yeses" of our total recommitment to him and of our confident hope in the everlasting life that he has promised us.

Given at All Saints Parish: Logansport, IN – September 3^rd & 4^th, 2016

Eternity became visible

          Merry Christmas to all of you.  May the joy of the birth of Jesus, Our Savior, fill your hearts and homes throughout this holy season.

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Homily: The Nativity of the Lord (Vigil)

          It was the fall of 2008 when I sat down to the first session of my Early Church History class at Saint Meinrad (which is the seminary I attended).  In shuffles a rather elderly monk: thin, nearly swimming in his black habit, slightly bent over, a few wisps of gray-white hair still on his head (and on his beard, for that matter), thick glasses, a few books in his hand and a gentle smile on his face.  He set his books on the desk and arranged a few papers on the podium (his notes for class, I assumed) and checked his watch to see that it was time to start class.  He began with a simple prayer asking for God’s wisdom to be with us (Fr. Cyprian’s prayers always felt sincere, never contrived, which revealed a deep, heartfelt spirituality).  Then he looked out at us and said: “History is about making dead skulls talk.”

          Of course, the joke is that Fr. Cyprian teaches Early Church History because he is old enough to have been there to experience it himself; but the truth is that he has a deep love of history—not dates and names, but the true human drama that took place at those times and places—and he loves sharing that experience with others.  If Fr. Cyprian was here today to tell us about this great feast that we are celebrating today, I’d imagine that he’d begin in this way:

“Today, we are celebrating a birthday.  And not just any birthday; but rather the birthday of a king: a king who needs no pedigree of his own but who nonetheless shares one with the ancient people of Israel.  He was born into a peasant family—the son of a carpenter and a poor Jewish girl—but his birth was heralded by nothing less than the full army of heaven’s angels.  Yes, my friends, today we celebrate a day unlike any other: a day in which God made history.”

As you might imagine, I did quite well in his class and I learned from it a love of history.  In his spirit, I think that there are three things that we who are here to celebrate this feast should take away with us today.

          First, we must acknowledge that with the birth of Christ something definitive has happened in history.  The birth of Jesus, the Son of God Most High who took on the nature of a human being without diminishing any of his divinity, is most definitely something new.  Even though we did not read through the genealogy of Jesus, which was an option for today’s Mass (and trust me no one here is more grateful for that than Father Eder over there), one can quickly look at it and see that the birth of Jesus marks something new in history.  After forty-two generations of recounting that so-and-so was the father of so-and-so, and he the father of the next one, Matthew arrives at Jesus and says “Jacob the father of Joseph, the husband of Mary.  Of her was born Jesus who is called the Christ.”  Jesus is the only one on that long list whose biological father is not named.  This was definitely something new.

          Then Matthew recounts how the birth of Jesus comes about.  Joseph, who, I’m sure, would have never thought that he would amount to anything more than a small-town carpenter, and who probably never aspired for anything more than to have decent work, start a family, and to leave a patrimony for his children, suddenly finds that his virgin wife has conceived a child.  He can only assume the worst.  As righteous man, he knew he had to divorce his wife (for that is what Jewish law demanded); but apparently he was also a caring man and so he decided to divorce her quietly, so as to keep her from shame.  His dreams, however, began to crumble.  That’s when the angel revealed a new dream.

          Now, I don’t know what my reaction to this dream would have been, but I can assure you that “when he awoke, he did as the angel of the Lord had commanded him” would not have been one of the options!  I mean who ever heard of a virgin conceiving a child without having relations with a man?  That’s just crazy, right?  Perhaps it was the prophecy that the angel quoted: “Behold, the virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and they shall name him Emmanuel, which means ‘God is with us.’”  Isaiah prophesied this to the Judean king Ahaz—one of those kings named in Jesus’ genealogy.  Perhaps Joseph remembered this prophecy and thus, even though he was surprised by its fulfillment, he could have the courage to believe the angel’s message.  Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI, in his book about the infancy narratives of Jesus, wrote that the idea of the Messiah was not yet part of the Jewish religious mindset when Isaiah prophesied this to king Ahaz and so what he did was he formed a keyhole whose key had not yet been made.  Over six-hundred years later, Jesus became that key.

          This, of course, was something new: something that could only happen by God, something that would change the course of history forever.  In fact, it is bigger than history itself.  The theologian Hans Urs von Balthasar once wrote: “Christmas is not an event within history but is rather the invasion of time by eternity.”  This—that something definitive happened at the birth of Jesus—is the first and most important point.

          The second thing that we should take with us today is that this “invasion of time by eternity” is a gift; and it is a gift for all peoples.  In today’s second reading we heard Paul speaking to the congregation in the synagogue in Antioch and addressing not just the Israelites but all who were present (even the Gentile believers, who were called “God-fearers”).  There is no discrimination here.  The Son of God took on human nature to bring salvation—that is, redemption, hope for a life without suffering, and help in the midst of suffering—to everyone: to you, to me, to everyone here and to everyone who is not here.  Jesus is the common ground where everyone, regardless of background, can meet and see in each other a brother, a sister, a friend.

          The third thing is that the receiving of this gift forms those who receive it into a community.  When any one of us looks upon the child of Bethlehem lying in a manger and sees in him—even if only dimly—eternity somehow present in time and accepts it in faith, that one becomes united to every other person who has ever accepted this same truth into their hearts.  We become a community distinguished by this belief who live by this belief and thus become the privileged place of encounter with Emmanuel, God with us.  Therefore, our acceptance can never be partial.  We can never say, “Oh, I like to celebrate Christmas, but I don’t believe that Jesus was truly God made man.”  This is empty!  It is the beautifully wrapped gift box that has nothing inside.  It is a promise of some joy that ultimately goes unfulfilled.  Either you receive the gift, and become one with the community of believers, or you refuse to receive it, and remain outside of it.

          My brothers and sisters, as we celebrate this great day—the day the Word made Flesh became visible to us—let us remember that something new has happened, something that changed history completely; and that it is a gift to us, a gift that still has the power to change our history, too.  And let us remember that when we receive that gift we receive with it a community of brothers and sisters who share in our joy and who long for the day of ultimate fulfillment when Christ returns.

          Today, eternity was made visible to us.  Here in this Eucharist we come face to face with it once again.  And so, to all of us who have received the gift of faith in the Christ-child I say “come, let us adore him.”

Given at All Saints Parish: Logansport, IN – December 24^th, 2014