
Mass readings for the 13th Sunday in Ordinary Time:
1 Kings 19.16b, 19-21 Psalm 16.1-2, 5, 7-11 Galatians 5.1, 13-18 Luke 9.51-62
There are few (if any) harsher sentiments as expressed by Jesus here than anywhere else in the gospels. He is pretty blunt in speaking of the many people who are spiritual cowards, fence-sitters with regard to their faith life, who are dead or dying in their soul.
Let the dead bury the dead.
Really? Really.
These texts, by the way, are very personal to me. That is, I don’t think they were written especially for me, that would be ridiculous, right? But then, such is the mystery of God’s Word, I can’t help but read them, hear them, as being aimed directly at me.
You see, the very first time I ever preached before an assembly of Christians, these were the texts. And the context of that first sermon, was when I was under the supervision of my Anglican pastor as I entered the process of discernment for ordained ministry in that faith community.
How auspicious, or perhaps ominous, the message that when God calls, the choice is a stark one. The proposition is pretty much all or nothing.
All of us here, I would guess, either in standing up before a bishop or his delegate at the time of confirmation, or at some other significant juncture in life, have said in some way to Christ, “I will follow you wherever you go.”
I won’t question the sincerity of those declarations. However, I might suggest that it was not in every case a well-informed decision. I, for one, wish I’d had a better idea of what I was actually committing myself to.
I have mentioned before standing next to the bishop at recent Confirmations, looking out at the congregation, the confirmandi, their parents, godparents, grandparents, etc. I was distressed because, not only were so many ostensible parishioners unknown to me; I don’t think many knew what this was really all about.
Yet, I can’t say as those confirmandi were anything but sincere. Even those who were smirking earlier in the liturgy sobered up, as it were, when it came time to actually make the promises.
I would say that while sincere, these young people were, with a few exceptions, naïve, uninformed, lacking clear motivation and intention. Of course, they wanted to receive this gift of the Holy Spirit that is confirmation, even if they had doubts about whether it was real or not. They would agree to Pascal’s bargain, at least for the time being, that famous philosophical proposition that one should live righteously even if there is no God, because it will lead to a better life for you; and if there is a God… hey, bonus! You get heaven into the bargain.
But as I said, they had little or no idea of what was being asked of them, that from another perspective, this wasn’t so much a gift as an exchange. The gift was spiritual strength, but that strength was given to live a life in Christ, not just live any old way.
And I could say the same of their parents, godparents, grandparents, and so on. It may very well be true of many of us here today. I will grudgingly admit that even in my sincere desire for eternal life, I still don’t think I’ve entirely grasped all that is involved in having God in my life, and of giving my life to God. I look back at that first time preacher, I realize how naïve I was; that now, twenty-five years on, I can count some of the cost, and that has sobered me up considerably. However, I can’t shake the sense that too often I look over my shoulder, even as I have put my hand to the plough, and as a result I’ve made a crooked furrow more than once, and wasted precious time going over that ground again.
Last week, the year-end mass for St. Bernadette School fell on St. Thomas More’s feast day. Instead of the usual sentimentality and anodyne messaging that comes with the end of the school year, the graduation of students, I kept my remarks focused on St. Thomas More. He was a great man who died at the hands of that infamous villain, King Henry VIII of England for simply being, as More himself stated on the scaffold before they removed his head, “the King’s good servant, but God’s first.”

Our children need to know about that choice, between loyalty to corrupt rulers, be they kings or elected governments, and God; between the powers of this world, be they political, or economic, or social or cultural or familial. We must do what God calls us to regardless of the cost, heedless of what must be forsaken in terms of friends, family, job security, suffered in terms of social stigma, snobbish dismissal by the sophisticated crowd or parental disapproval.
It ought to go without saying, you better be certain that in this defiance you are being faithful to God, and not some lesser deity, a mere human ideology, or one’s own eccentric convictions. And to know with any degree of certainty, you need to spend time with his Holy Word, receive his Holy Sacraments, receive his peace in contemplation and prayer, spend time educating oneself in the accumulated wisdom of the Church’s greatest minds who were led in their thoughts by the Holy Spirit.
Do that, and you will be, if not prepared, at least not completely caught by surprise by the consequences of choosing Christ over the world.
That choice doesn’t mean an inevitable stroll to the scaffold, a trip to the gallows; well, not literally. But some things in our lives will die, will be killed!
“Foxes have holes, and birds of the air nests, but the Son of Man has nowhere to lay his head.” – Why does Jesus say this? This appears to be a statement that only concerns himself. However, we know he’s speaking to prospective disciples, people who say they want to follow him. So, obviously, this is a warning: if you are saying you want to go where I go, follow to where I will take you, know that you will be homeless.
Now, does he mean that literally? In one sense, yes. Jesus spent around three years as an itinerant preacher; but that is nonetheless an exaggeration. We know that he lived in a house in Capernaum, that town was the headquarters of his ministry, at least for most of it. He was afforded hospitality most places he went, but certainly there were nights where he had to sleep rough, with a rock for a pillow and only his own cloak for a blanket.
I think what he is saying here is that we who follow him into the way of all truth will have no home here – and that’s a good thing. We better know that we are making that choice: a life on the road with Him, and all the worldly insecurity that goes with it.
We are to have no illusions about the possibility of finding security for ourselves in the things of this world. In a quite literal sense, the house that you call home, you really shouldn’t depend on it. It can be taken away, by fire, flood, financial catastrophe, or a fiscally irresponsible government plundering those it can.
But this can also be taken more in the abstract: reputation, professional achievement, family, community, fame on the internet; all of these things can, well, go away.
To be clear, I’m speaking about the fantasies we have around these things as making life fulfilling, complete. These imagined lives, these fantasies that shield us from the harsh realities of life, that persist even into old age transforming then into nostalgia. Many try to live in these, make a spiritual home in them.
To give up these illusions is hard. To let go of these common fantasies hurts. Even as the evidence of what life is really about mounts, human beings demonstrate an incredible capacity to continue investing emotionally, psychologically, spiritually in these illusions. These things are what must die or your soul will shrivel and you will spiritually die. You must accept that the world does not conform to your wishes, does not bow down to you, offer the respect you think is your due; and you can’t take your anger and disappointment out on others as the apostles James and John thought to do. The world wasn’t cooperating with their notions as to how they and Jesus should be received, as heroes. Jesus rebukes them, not the inhospitable Samaritans.
When I found myself increasingly ostracized within the Anglican community, for simply asking questions about what was going on, I learned that no one was going to defer to me despite my personal ambition. When my daughter became seriously ill at the age of six, I learned that the world was not going to cooperate in realizing family life as I had imagined it
But I could have persisted in those fantasies as many do, in the sense that these dreams were to be realized because I felt I had the right to have them come true. In my pastoral practice, in my reading on human psychology, I am painfully aware that someone in these or similar circumstances can choose a life of resentment, a twisted kind of fantasy of being wronged by the universe, by God because one can’t surrender that dream. If I could not build my castle in the sky, I’d burrow a hole in the ground and live there, but there wouldn’t be much room for anyone else.
And Jesus rightfully rebukes me, as he did the disciples in our gospel today. Notice that, it was not the Samaritans who refused to receive them who are the object of rebuke, it’s the disciples.
My life is not about me, and my expectations. In that particular moment in my life, my life was about my daughter’s life. I needed to be present to my family, face the harsh truth that life is a struggle, that there is suffering, but strangely also a joy that surpasses anything the world can offer once you let go, and live in the here and now, loving those around you as really the only thing you can do to fight despair of the world.
I will follow you wherever you go; and I will bring only what I need. I’ve got to get rid of a lot of baggage still, take off that yoke of slavery because I have been called to true freedom; the freedom of this open road. Trust that as I look at what little I actually have, how unprepared for the road ahead I am, God will provide for me as he did the Hebrew slaves departing Egypt; called as we are to be slaves to one another, and servants to God’s Word like the great Elisha; servant to that Word that was made flesh, Jesus, to lead us on this road; Christ who is the way.
Amen.