Wis 9:13-18b
Ps 90:3-4,5-6,12-13,14-17
Phmn 9-10, 12-17
Lk 14:25-33
With the U.S.’s potential involvement in the civil war in Syria, today’s Gospel seems to be quite serendipitous; especially about how one must be able to consider the cost before entering into conflict. It is easy for me to give my personal opinion on the matter, but the truth is – I don’t have all the facts – and so I don’t have an answer as to what exactly should be done. Our faith does spell out necessary conditions for one to enter into armed conflict and I don’t think we’ve satisfied them. These are spelled out in the Catechism of the Catholic Church paragraph #2309: conditions for legitimate defense by military force or “just war” doctrine (see bottom). So, we do know one thing that shouldn’t be done right now. That all being said and as fitting as the Gospel may seem to point in that direction, I don’t want to get into that. I believe that our message today is not political or military message, but one of discipleship. What does it mean to be called a disciple of Jesus Christ? What does it mean to pick up your cross and follow Him?
I can’t help but think about my own family and the families that I knew growing up. When Jesus 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, He is putting a great condition, a price on discipleship. The faith – the Catholic faith – is an all or nothing faith! And even if this notion seems unbalanced in this “tolerant” world, it can be no other way than this.
The faith is not something that is simply subscribed to like a “wine of the month” club or some Netflix movie account. It’s not a cellphone plan. Even though all of these are a part of life, you can cancel them anytime! But the faith is something different. The faith is not something you can cancel anytime because it is a living, breathing, relationship with God and His Church – the community around you. The Catholic notion of “grace” means that it permeates you and makes all of your actions not only naturally ordered, but supernaturally ordered to God. It can’t be canceled, it’s always there by your baptism.
For those who truly follow Christ, you cannot picture a life without God because you walk so intimately with Him. For everyone else – including those of you that do not come regularly and ESPECIALLY those of you that do not live the way God wants you to live the other six days of the week – your faith is clearly only an insurance policy: “…so I don’t burn in hell.” When our Lord says that one must hate their own immediate family – even if it means it sours your relationship with family or friends – that’s a radical call to discipleship, that is a complete life, not an insurance policy. The call to follow Him is truly radical; it is that intense – to put Him even over and above those who are closest to you.
Does this mean that as a priest, I hate my parents, my family members, and everyone else around me? No, absolutely not. In and through following Christ – believe it or not – I actually am able to love them even better and even more than I could ever love them without Christ. If you don’t believe me, just ask them. It’s because I have tried to put my life in right order and priority. When things are properly ordered in my life: God first (as the first three of the 10 Commandments), then family and neighbor (the other 7), my life runs so much more smoothly, if not better! It’s like going from DVD to HD Blu-ray; so much better, so vivid - that if you were to go back, you wonder how you were able to live life before it. When we put God first, the other things in life fall into place.
The cost of discipleship is great; not because God is greedy and wants it all, but because it is for our own benefit – relying on Him completely and totally. It is difficult to translate the eternal plans and wonders of God into our tangible reality. As we hear in our First Reading, Who can know God’s counsel, who can conceive what the Lord intends? For the deliberations of mortals are timid, and unsure are our plans. For the corruptible body burdens the soul and the earthen shelter weighs down the mind that has many concerns… When we rely on Him and depend on Him and cooperate with Him, we are not only picking up our crosses, we are helping ourselves. We rely on His playbook instead of ours.
If salvation could simply be accomplished by a simple declaration from God, we wouldn’t value it. However, because God allows us to cooperate with His salvific work – we appreciate and see the dignity of that work and we see tangible growth in the sanctification of our lives. We aren’t robots or puppets that simply act on instruction (we might have when we were children), but human beings that engage and experience the things around us in freedom, which we must have the correct understanding of what freedom is. (Hint: it’s not doing whatever you want.)
Our Second Reading shows just that: an exercise of freedom to do the right thing; not because we are told but because it is the right thing to do. St. Paul had found this guy Onesimus, who was Philemon’s runaway slave (for whatever reason). Paul writes to the master, Philemon, asking that he treat Onesimus as a brother in Christ rather than as a master would a slave. The call to discipleship is an invitation – not to upset the social order per se – but to transform it in respecting human dignity and also exercising charity; even at the expense of “losing property” (i.e. the slave). So the cost of discipleship is great – because it requires our complete investment: soul, mind, and body; and in addition, it requires that investment to be done freely, not like robots.
When Christ gives these military analogies of building towers, measuring resources, and negotiating peace, He is showing us where prudence must enter into our discipleship with God. The zeal in which many of us Christians enter into with God eventually cause burnout and perhaps even repulsion to religion. The cost of discipleship is a marathon, not a sprint – in both cases you are still running but the former requires you to engage in the action of judging and discerning where to spend your energies. You may build a great and awesome foundation, but your tower never gets off the ground. You may have an army ready to mobilize, but you lack the skill and the unity to defeat the enemy. Therefore even if you are willing, wanting, and desiring with all your heart, mind, soul, and body to pick up that cross and follow Him, you must do it prudentially. In a culture of “everything right here right now”, that’s going to be hard and it will take a lot of patience, endurance, and perseverance.
So here in our scriptures today, we have some points of what it means to be a disciple. First it must be complete – you can’t serve two masters, you cannot put anything before God. Second, it must be done freely – we are not robots but people that have free will to express our love for God without coercion. Finally, discipleship means exercising prudence and judgment so that your zeal is tempered and not blinded. In three simple words: objective/goal, will, and intellect the cost of discipleship is simply delineated; but mind you, it takes a lifetime to master. Therefore, let us continue to worship together in the Holy Eucharist so that we may have the strength to engage ourselves in this journey of discipleship together.
Catechism of the Catholic Church
2309. The strict conditions for legitimate defense by military force require rigorous consideration. The gravity of such a decision makes it subject to rigorous conditions of moral legitimacy. At one and the same time:
These are the traditional elements enumerated in what is called the "just war" doctrine.
- the damage inflicted by the aggressor on the nation or community of nations must be lasting, grave, and certain;
- all other means of putting an end to it must have been shown to be impractical or ineffective;
- there must be serious prospects of success;
- the use of arms must not produce evils and disorders graver than the evil to be eliminated. The power of modern means of destruction weighs very heavily in evaluating this condition.
The evaluation of these conditions for moral legitimacy belongs to the prudential judgment of those who have responsibility for the common good.
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