Proper 18 C 2013
http://www.lectionarypage.net/YearC_RCL/Pentecost/CProp18_RCL.html
A young monk sought out one of the old Abbas, the elder monks of the desert. The young monk began to speak to the Abba about very profound spiritual matters, highly advanced notions of prayer. The old Abba listened patiently for a time. Finally, when the young man had paused for a moment, the elder remarked “You have not yet made your way to the shore. You have not yet made yourself a boat. You have not yet crossed the sea. You have not yet climbed out of your boat onto the shore on the other side of the sea. And yet you wish to speak to me about the streets of the city that lies on the other side of that sea.”
I empathize with that young monk as I am confronted with today’s readings. Today we are faced with just how profound a commitment it is to follow Jesus. We are faced with the severity of the Gospel, and with the richness of the mercy of God all at once.
Today it is Jesus who provides the most severe note. I do not know of any newcomer committee who would print his teaching on their brochure or on the homepage of the website! “Unless you hate father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters, and yes even life itself, you cannot be my disciple.” Many preachers will take this text and in essence try to tame it, to say that Jesus did not really mean what he said, that there is some inner or symbolic meaning at work here.
When the Gospels were composed, this text was meant quite literally. One of my biblical professors told us that the four Gospels are “handbooks for martyrs.” I agree. The Gospels were composed in communities who were struggling to be faithful amidst stress and pressure and persecution. In those early decades, followers of Jesus were being cast out of synagogues. This made them very vulnerable, because in the Roman Empire Jewish folk enjoyed a certain amount of protection and privilege. If these followers of the Way were not Jews and also did not acknowledge neither the divine Emperor nor the official state worship, they could be tried, pressured to submit to the Empire’s worship, fined, imprisoned, or even killed. As fear and anxiety built and people were betrayed by friends and family, as they were hauled off or forced into hiding, many wavered and renounced Jesus for the sake of their own and their family’s safety. These communities reflected and prayed on what they were to do and what was God’s will for them. So they remembered their Master, who also was betrayed and tried and went to his cross. These are the Gospels we have today.
This fierce reality, the life and death immediacy of following Jesus, often feels far removed from us today.
When I was in my twenties, I lived under fear and threat while working as a missionary with base Christian communities in the Philippines. Our work training local lay leaders and helping raise up communities who reflected on the Gospels and the realities of their lives was labeled “subversive” by the government. We were often shadowed by the military and informed on by spies. I had friends who disappeared or who went into hiding. When I was about to return to the States, some of my local friends said to me, “We’ll pray for you, returning to the belly of the beast. It is a luxury living a Gospel life here, where choices are clear and where there is real risk in following Jesus. Back where it is easy—that will be harder for your soul.”
They were quite right. Here it was possible to live a risk-free Christian life, or at least one that is lived comfortably. It is possible to profess the name of Jesus and have that profession of faith not interfere much with life lived in the comfortable and prosperous developed world. I wonder if some of the indifference of the surrounding culture to the Gospel lies not so much in a rejection of it, but rather people do not see evidence that it much matters if one practices Christianity or not. Why bother with a little inconvenience in the Sunday schedule if there is little evidence in churchpeople’s lives that this is a commitment that matters?
I am painting with broad brushstrokes here. I know that there are many of us who quietly observe a costly faith. Since our own empire does not find enough offense in us to persecute us, the demands of the Gospel become more interior, a personal way of transformation, a cost paid that is not easily visible. But today our Lord is gracious in reminding us that the journey with him is costly. Following Jesus is not to be taken lightly or half-heartedly. Over and over again in my life I bump up against these stark demands, and I am called to account, again and again.
But with these demands there is help, and there is mercy.
Fierce old Jeremiah lends a note of hope as he watches the potter at his wheel. Perhaps you’ve seen a potter at work in real-life. It is delightful to watch a pot begin to rise from the spinning wheel, only to have the potter bring it back down to a lump of wet clay and begin again. There is infinite possibility in the clay, and there is always the capacity to begin again.
On our own strength, following Jesus is impossible. Perhaps that is why we tend to gloss over fierce texts like that of today. But with God this journey is possible. And always we begin again.
Another old desert abba said, “When you pray, just say this: ‘As you will, and as you know, have mercy on me O Lord.’ And when the fight get fierce, say ‘Lord, help’.” Lord have mercy, Christ have mercy—the ancient cry of prayer that is a matter of life and death. God is rich in mercy—the Greek word for mercy refers to olive oil, poured out richly on us. Mercy enfolds and surrounds us and bears us up. All we need do is ask.
As I write this, a next-door neighbor is walking the 500 km road to Santiago. It is a long, hard road, and on her ‘blog she writes that she has already run into some difficulty and injury. She is 70 years old.
It is funny that we worry about empty space in our church pews, but the hard Road to Santiago is thronged with people. Perhaps we need to make it clear that our journey here is challenging and difficult too.
