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September 5,
2010
Twenty-third Sunday in Ordinary Time (C)
Fr. Jeffrey M. Kemper
Wis
9:13-18b
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Ps 90:3-6, 12-17
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Phlm 9-10, 12-17
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Luke 14:25-33
Jesus tells us not to begin something
we aren’t sure that we can successfully complete.
Using the stories of the king going off to war
without sufficient soldiers and strategies
and the man who begins building and can’t finish,
he really isn’t giving military or business advice;
he is really speaking of our spiritual life:
before we choose to follow him,
are we able to measure up to the demands of the Gospel?
When you reflect upon this,
Jesus’ demand can be very intimidating.
Do we have what it takes to live out the Gospel?
When we look at the number of canonized saints –
men and women who obviously lived up to Gospel demands –
compared to the number of Christians,
the percentage is pretty small.
If we choose not to follow Christ,
we are condemned to damnation.
To understand how what Jesus is saying
is not a message of hopelessness,
but a realistic call rooted in hope,
let us look at this teaching in context
of the rest of the Gospel.
What we find when we look at
“the rest of the story” as Paul Harvey would say,
we find that we are indeed called
to invest ourselves whole-heartedly in the Gospel way of life.
Jesus never minces words on this.
Never are we told that following him would be easy.
If anything,
Jesus is uncompromising in his proclamation
that to follow him involves loss, self-giving, and the cross.
Yet, at the same time,
he assures us that we need not do this by our own strength
(or even that we can do this by our own strength).
Rather, he tells us that we can do this
only because the real source of strength
is not our own,
but the gift of divine mercy and Christ’s Spirit dwelling in us.
For the tax collector in the parable of the Pharisee and publican,
it is God’s mercy that pulls this sinner into the realm of grace.
For the disciples who will face persecution and martyrdom,
it is the Holy Spirit who will tell them what to say.
For Peter, so haltingly faithful to the power of Christ,
it is the grace of his calling that brings him to lead the Church
in a new era.
Jesus’ teaching on assessing our situation
before committing to him
demands of us
an estimation of our willingness to follow full-heartedly.
He calls us not to pick and choose what is attractive or easy
to follow and drop what is harsh and difficult.
Rather he calls us to embrace the Gospel,
lock, stock, and barrel.
Christ knows that such an acceptance
is intimidating, difficult, and frightening.
He knows that we will not be able ever to do it on our own.
And for that reason,
He promises us that he will be with us, be our strength,
and make possible the impossible.
Through Christ’s word,
proclaimed in the liturgy and our own reading of the Scriptures,
in times of listening to the Lord in the silence of private prayer
Christ teaches us how to think, see, hear, speak, and act
according to the Gospel.
Through the gift of the Holy Spirit,
received first in baptism,
and encountered in a new relationship in Confirmation,
Christ strengthens us
to think, see, hear, speak, and act
according to the Gospel.
In this act of Eucharist,
Chirst nourishes us
to think, see, hear, speak, and act
with fidelity to the Gospel.
In our practice of the faith,
we over and over again practice
the ability our thinking, seeing, hearing, speaking and acting
according to the Gospel.
Working together with God,
we can rest assured that
what God has called us to embrace
is indeed do-able
that we will not look like an unwise king or builder
but rather people to can confront evil and be victorious,
people who can truly build for God’s kingdom.
© 2010, Jeffrey M. Kemper
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