13th Sunday of Ordinary Time (7/1/2007)

Homilist: Fr. Donald Brick

Most of the readings in ordinary time are practical readings about discipleship. We should come to Church hoping to learn more about being a disciple. This is true about the first reading. It is from the Old Testament, the first book of Kings, it is a description of the call of the successor of the prophet Elijah whose name is Elisha. The names are very close and easy to confuse. This is a scripture passage where God tells the prophet Elijah to call Elisha to be his disciple. This notion of discipleship is related to Jesus’ call in the Gospel reading.

The Lord God said to Elijah you shall anoint Elisha as prophet to succeed you. It says Elijah set out looking for him. He came upon Elisha, son of Shaphat, as he was plowing with twelve yoke of oxen; Elisha did not think of himself as a prophet he was a farmer and apparently a rather successful farmer because he had 12 yoke of oxen pulling the plow. This must have been a really big plow. There are those double wide combine this would be the equivalent of a double wide combine in Old Testament times. A great big plow with a lot of oxen. Elijah went over to him and threw his cloak over him. The throwing of the cloak over the man’s head was to inherit the role that was presently carried by the prophet Elijah. Elisha left his oxen and ran after Elijah please let me kiss my father and mother good bye and I will follow you. Do those words remind you of the Gospel. Someone said they will follow Jesus but first he had to take care of his family. There is similarity between this first reading and Gospel. Something strange happens, Elijah answers, “Go back! Have I done anything to you?” Obviously he did he threw his cloak over him. What is being indicated by these words is that Elijah was telling Elisha that being a disciple requires freedom and a free choice. Discipleship is not something that can be imposed on us. It is something that we have to freely accept. As we reflect on our discipleship in relation to Jesus that is an important question. If we are begrudgingly following Him or we are doing it simply because we were baptized as children by our parents, then it is not what discipleship is about. Discipleship is a free choice to follow the master or the teacher, so freedom is very much a part of being a disciple of Jesus. Not freedom from Him but freely having chosen Him to be our master and our Lord. After this dialogue it says, “Elisha left him and taking the yoke of oxen slaughtered them; he used the plowing equipment for fuel to boil their flesh, and it to his people to eat. Then Elisha left and followed Elijah as his attendant. What did he do here? This is full of symbolism, the cloak is symbolic but what happens here is this farmer takes the things that are significant for his work and livelihood and completely destroys them. He kills the cattle and cooks them for his friends and the fire he uses his plow. This symbolizes that he is giving up everything. His entire previous identity in order to follow the prophet Elijah and be his attendant. Discipleship after this pattern is what the Lord requires from you and me. If not literally but at least figuratively. We have to be willing to submit everything in our lives to this discipleship of the Lord even to the point of leaving it behind if necessary.

Now let us look at the Gospel for a fuller understanding of what it means to be a disciple. It begins by saying, “When the days for Jesus’ being taken up were fulfilled, he resolutely determined to journey to Jerusalem.” This is a moment in Jesus’ life when He begins His pilgrimage towards His cross and His Resurrection. It is at this moment that He talks about discipleship, so there is a relationship between a disciple and walking with Jesus on this journey to Jerusalem. It is along this journey that asks all these questions of those who want to be His disciples. This tells you and me that part of discipleship and the call to follow Jesus is to join Him in the journey of the cross. Remember for us the cross is not a symbol of suffering; it is a symbol of sacrifice and self-sacrificing love. Discipleship for Christians means participation in the journey of self-sacrificing love. Along the way two of Jesus’ disciples who were preceding Him got into a conflict with some Samaritans. We remember that the Samaritans were mixed blood Jews and they were the ones left behind at the time of the Babylonian captivity and they inter-married with pagans and so the Jews saw them as people who were really not faithful to the traditions of the Jewish people. They had their own temple. It says that because Jesus was journeying to the temple in Jerusalem they would not offer Him hospitality. These two disciples James and John, who were called the Sons of thunders in the Gospel of St. John, got angry and said to Jesus, “shall we call down fire from heaven to consume them.” They are disciples of Jesus and Jesus said so many times in the scriptures they we must love our enemies. This is a moment when the disciples James and John reveal they did not understand that teaching. It is probably true about us too. We think there are a lot of people that God should reign fire down upon. It is not the way of discipleship. It says that Jesus rebuked them for saying this and then they continued on their way. He meet various people who wanted to be disciples and Jesus enters into dialogue with them. A man runs up and says, “I will follow you wherever you go.” Jesus answered him, “Foxes have dens and bird of the sky have nests, but the Son of Man has nowhere to rest his head.” What does this mean? I think one of the things that it means is that if you are a disciple of Jesus there is never a moment in your journey to Jerusalem. It is a life long journey where you can settle in where you can have your den or nest. We who want to be disciples have a tendency to be nesters. We get so far along on the journey and we want to stay were we are in life. For those who want to be His disciples, Jesus says, the Son of Man and you if you are going to be my disciple and you if you will be my disciple will have no place to lay your head to rest. You expect it will be easy and you get mad at God when it gets difficult. When you have a really good month, week, year and life and then things fall apart and you say, “Well I have been your disciple.” You owe me this! Jesus tells us from the beginning those who want to follow Him will have no place to lay their head.

He then encounters another person along the way and He says to that person, “Follow me.” Jesus said this to you, you and you and each one of us here. He says, Lord, and Lord is master so this is an act of submission. “Lord, let me go first and bury my father.: But he answered him, “Let the dead bury their dead. But you, go and proclaim the Kingdom of God.” When I read this I thought of my mother and father as they get older and more frail. Here Jesus tells me not to worry about that let the dead bury the dead. I am suppose to go and preach the Gospel. Jesus is saying this to me. He is also saying it to each one of you, because discipleship is not measured by the priests of our church; it is measured by the baptism of each one of us. Each of us because we are baptized are called to equal discipleship in following Jesus. Now how many of you mothers would want your daughters to become missionaries for the rest of their lives and never come home. I do not want you to raise your hands but I want you to think about this question. Would you do that? Does the Lord have the kind of priority in your live that relativises all those other important relationship that mean so much to us. Whether it is a relationship to our husband and wife, to our children and parents, to our brothers and sisters. This is what Jesus is saying, He is not saying that we can not come home to our parents. I expect to go to my mothers but if that would stand in the way of my preaching of the Gospel then the Gospel must come first. We are never to hate our relatives what Jesus is telling us is that if any of those primary relationships in our life stand in the way of the Gospel then the Gospel must come first. If we do not believe that then we are not yet disciples of Jesus.

Another said, “I will follow you Lord, but first let me say farewell to my family at home.” To him Jesus said, “No one who sets his hand to the plow and looks to what was left behind is fit for the Kingdom of God.” This describes all of us here especially those of us who wine sometimes about the cost of discipleship. We are following Jesus but we are looking back and counting the cost of what it means. If that is the case then we are not set yet for the Kingdom of God. It is a huge challenge for the quality of our discipleship, whole hearted, enthusiastic, complete is all that the Lord will be satisfied with those of us who want to be our disciples.

The second reading is a reading from St. Paul to the Galatians who begins by telling us For freedom Christ set us free. In some ways freedom is at the heart of the Gospel. St. Paul was writing this letter to Jews who were confused about discipleship. They were wondering if they were still bound by the law of the Jewish people. St. Paul said to them that they were not bound by the customs of the Jews. We are all bound by the laws of God, but they were not bound by the religious cultural customs of the Jews. So he says, “Jesus has saved you and freed you and it is for freedom that Christ set us free. Christians should be characterized by freedom. Are you free? Are you a free woman? Are you a free man? Are you a free young adult? It should be a characteristic of your life in Christ, freedom. That unfortunately for those of whom want to do what we want, Christian freedom does not mean simply doing what we want. Americans tend to define freedom this way. But for freedom for St. Paul and the freedom Jesus urges on for is the freedom to be good and to do what is right. In other words the freedom from selfishness and sin to be available to the things God wants you to do! Are you a free woman? Are you really free to respond to what God want you to do. Are you a free man? Are you a free young person? Or are you caught up and paralyzed by yourself and all the things that you want and tie you down.

St. Paul goes on to say, “Do not use this freedom as an opportunity for the flesh; rather, serve one another through love. For the whole law is fulfilled in one statement, You shall love your neighbor as yourself. Our task of our freedom is whether or not we love our neighbor. If we love ourselves we are not free. The only real test of true freedom is to love your neighbor as much as your love your self. St. Paul goes on to say, “Live by the Spirit and you will certainly not gratify the desire of the flesh. For the flesh has desires against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh; these are opposed to each other, so that you may not do what you want. Most of the time we hear the word flesh we think of our bodies and many of us think of sex. The world of flesh and the devil makes us think of human sexuality. The Jews in St. Paul’s time did not think of that, the world flesh for them meant whatever is part of the human person that stands in the way of God, that is opposed to God. This is what St. Paul is talking about the war that goes on with us, between what is opposed by God and the action of the Holy Spirit to be free from ourselves in order to love God and our neighbor. It is a battle a struggle placed in the lives of each one of us. St. Paul is telling us to let the Holy Spirit reign so that we might be truly free. Do you want to be disciples of Jesus Christ?