Catholic Caucus: Sunday Mass Readings, 06-26-16, Thirteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time

"I will follow you . . . go and proclaim the kingdom of God"

Sunday Word: http://www.usccb.org/bible/readings/062616.cfm

1 Kg 19: 16, 19-21

Gal 5: 1, 13-14, 16, 18

Lk 9: 51, 57-62

O God, who through the grace of adoption

chose us to be children of light,

grant, we pray,

that we may not be wrapped in the darkness of error

but always be seen to stand in the bright light of truth.

(Roman Missal: Collect of Mass)

In this land where we have an abundance of nearly everything, unlike so many other parts of the world, the cost of daily living is as much a genuine concern as for all citizens across the globe. Yet, we live in a culture that says you can have it all and that can be very tempting at times and expensive. What’s wrong with one more of the same thing? And if two are good wouldn’t three or four be better?

Whether it be clothing, a restaurant meal, technology, education, a new car, a home, medical services or whatever we are often singularly focused on getting the most we can for the best price. The game show “Let’s make a deal” is a kind of mantra of our economic system. I remember my Father in his retail business would always counsel us to “Never pay retail but only look for things on wholesale.” If he came home and proudly proclaimed, “I got it wholesale!” we would laugh and congratulate him for his wise business choice.

Our Gospel this Sunday is a continuation by theme of Jesus teaching last week on discipleship. This time we hear of how much we must pay. Last Sunday (Lk 9: 18-24) we were advised: “If anyone wishes to come after me . . . he must take up his cross daily . . .” This weekend (Lk 9: 51-62) Jesus continues to teach about the cost of discipleship. In response to requests by those who in various ways stated: “I will follow you wherever you go” Jesus demands: “No one who sets a hand to the plow and looks to what was left behind is fit for the kingdom of God.” In other words, we must be single focused on Christ and his mission, leaving behind all other attachments and distractions, then follow in the way Jesus shows us – to carry out and live his mission in the world today whether we be married, single, ordained or religious.

So, let’s see: a daily cross and a renunciation of all other attachments, including familial relationships to a certain degree, to follow him. I don’t know about you but on the surface I don’t find that particularly attractive at times. In fact, it may sound a bit over- the – top and certainly no bargain. It’s quite a price to pay for Christian discipleship and does not promise the easy way. It’s somewhat insecure with no guarantee of success or a positive outcome; certainly not fame, fortune or popularity; maybe for Jesus but for me too? Yet, on a deeper level, which is where we are always called to go with Jesus’ teaching, there is something more convincing. What would that be?

This Gospel takes place as Jesus is going up to Jerusalem, meets a not unexpected hostile reception as he and his disciples travel through Samaritan territory, and he calms down the hot headed reaction of James and John to that rejection: “. . . call down fire from heaven to consume them?”

The point of this journey for Jesus, and for us, is the single focus of his life on the mission entrusted to him. He is traveling face forward as it were, without flinching, without looking back or holding on, to carry out his ultimate prize – our salvation through his death and resurrection. It becomes a journey with us as well as for him and the model of Christian discipleship. We are like the disciples who followed him to that Jerusalem.

So, this talk of the “dead bury their dead” and to “not look to what was left behind” is another way of saying that for all of us, we need to find our Jerusalem. Do we live our Christian lives and our rich Catholic traditions in a way that sees them as treasures above all else or is that just another thing we do? Jesus’ single minded commitment to his mission is the model and road we should always stay on as we live our Christian lives. That’s quite a “price” to pay in a world that says you can have it all because we must choose between

Paul in our second reading from Galatians I think refers to the daily battle we all face: that between the tensions of spirit and flesh; between the material world we live in with all of it beauty and advantages, its challenges and rewards and the world of the spirit, which calls us to higher values that demand sacrifice and overcoming our own tendency to take the easy way or to satisfy ourselves through some form of instant pleasure. We must balance our lives as we live in these two worlds at once. For, as Paul reminds us, “For freedom Christ set us free . . . you were called for freedom.” To live and to “serve one another through love” rather than argument and revenge is what Christ calls us to as we journey to our Jerusalem.

It all ultimately comes down to how we choose to live in this world. How we choose to grow spiritually and in right relationship with one another. How we choose to live by greed and self-centeredness or to live by generosity and compassion; by forgiveness and charity towards our neighbor. If we freely choose to follow Jesus, then we must learn from his example and walk in his way. It may cost us more than we bargain for but imagine the pay off in the end – eternal life. There is a very good reason why Pope Francis entitled his first official Apostolic Exhortation the "Joy of the Gospel."

As we gather to break open word and bread with each other, we welcome Christ among us and once again renew our promise of discipleship, no matter how much it cost – priceless.

When God Calls, Burn Your Oxen

June 26, 2016
Thirteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time
First Reading: 1 Kings 19:16b, 19-21
http://www.usccb.org/bible/readings/062616.cfm

Most of life just drifts along. Day after regular day, the monotony and the routines drone on. We rarely see changes, which is why we celebrate them when they happen—weddings, baptisms, even funerals, punctuate the regular rhythm of working, eating, sleeping, living. Yet every once in a while, a divine hand breaks through the humdrum of every day life and seizes our hearts, issuing an urgent and demanding call.

Discovering the Call

When we were young, discerning the path our life was to take, most of us would have gladly traded places with young Elisha, plowing on his farm in this Sunday’s first reading. For him, finding God’s call on his life was easy: the wizened prophet Elijah shows up while he’s working and personally throws his prophetic mantle around the young man, marking him as his successor. Often our search for God’s plan is not nearly so crystal clear. We must pray, think, listen, learn, ask advice, build relationships and even then, the path itself may be murky. We might only be able to see the next step, or not even that! However, once we do make the essential decisions about vocation, career, state in life and so on, we can reach that equilibrium I mentioned at the beginning, that place where life no longer unfolds as a series of new and exciting adventures and opportunities, but rather as the living out of commitments made long ago, the holding true to the promises we made.

Follow Through

Most of life then, after excavating and laying the foundation, is about follow through. It is about doing what we committed to do with consistency, fidelity, zeal. Follow through does not write headlines. Doing what you said you would do is not exciting to a tabloid. There only infidelity, broken promises and messy problems win fame and attention. One wonders if the divorce crisis in our world would be so intense if the magazines wrote about beautiful, faithful, life-long couples instead of the fourth and fifth divorces of Hollywood celebrities. Elisha, the young man, shows us what real commitment looks like. At first, we find him at his daily work, in the midst of the humdrum, and he’s not sitting on his hands. He is working with 24 oxen! The text says “twelve yoke” and each yoke would involve two oxen. He’s plowing his family’s field as efficiently as any modern tractor. Elisha’s commitment to his work demonstrates his readiness to be called by God to a new kind of work, that of prophetic ministry.

Decisive Action: Burn Your Oxen

Though Elisha readily does his daily work with fidelity, when the moment of God’s call comes, he is ready to jump on it. His readiness to serve God’s call reminds me of St. Paul’s encouragement that we wear symbolic boots which represent “readiness for the gospel of peace” (Eph 6:15 NAB). Elisha knows who he is and is following through on his daily commitments to his family, but when the prophet comes knocking, he is ready to spring up and take action. He responds to God’s call with a willing and generous heart. To solidify his new commitment to God’s call, Elisha destroys his former means of sustenance, the oxen themselves. He isn’t just throwing a barbeque for the neighbors, but putting his money where his mouth is. When he slaughters the oxen, it becomes clear that he is embarking on a new way of life and cannot easily return to the old. This act concretizes his commitment to prophetic ministry.

Elijah on the Run

Yet the call itself comes with a layer of ambiguity. The great prophet Elijah, despite his great success at Mt. Carmel in defeating the prophets of Baal, is now being hunted by the evil queen, Jezebel. It turns out his victory was pyrrhic. Elijah is on the run from Jezebel, cowering in fear, praying for death (1 Kgs 19:4). The Lord has to calm him down and search for a replacement, which he finds in Elisha. The Lord even tells Elijah “you shall anoint Elisha to be prophet in your place” (1 Kgs 19:16), a clear instruction. Yet when we get to the point where Elijah and Elisha meet, Elijah does not anoint him, but only throws his mantle on him and brings him along as an assistant (1 Kgs 19:21). While Elijah might still be acting out of human fear, God utilizes the prophet’s possibly mixed motives for his greater purposes. Elisha does eventually succeed Elijah and receives a double anointing (2 Kgs 2:9), so everything turns out in God’s plan.

This story of two prophets, one on the wane, running from God’s call and the other green, inexperienced, yet willing to embrace the call of God whole-heartedly when it comes, offers us a dual portrait of our own experience of relationship with God. When things are new, fresh, exciting, filled with possibilities, it is relatively easy to invest our energies, embark on a new adventure and get on board—like Elisha was willing to do. Yet after many successes and failures, many years of fidelity and trouble, even persecution, a life of fidelity to God can wear on our human frailty. We can start to coast, take things easy, forget some of our commitments, smooth over the little ways in which we fail to keep our promises, even run from the call of God. When that happens, we would do well to circle back to Elijah’s yoke-fire and taste some of that seared oxen flesh, remembering how decisive and complete his commitment to God was and how we too can “drop our nets” and follow Him—but’s ok if you go back to kiss Mom goodbye!

Scripture Speaks: Following Jesus

Today, Jesus surprises us by being merciful to those who resist Him and harsh with those who don’t. Why?

Gospel (Read Lk 9:51-62)

St. Luke tells us “when the days for Jesus’ being taken up were fulfilled, He resolutely determined to journey to Jerusalem.” Other translations use the phrase, “set His face,” to describe this determination, calling to mind how God told the prophets Jeremiah and Ezekiel to “set your face” against Jerusalem and preach its evils (see Jer 21:10; Ezek 21:2). Jesus was about to do the very same thing. The words, “being taken up,” describe His Ascension into heaven after completing the work God had given Him to do. This long journey into Jerusalem from Galilee provides the setting for the rest of St. Luke’s Gospel, in which he unfolds the “orderly account” he wants to give his readers of the life of Jesus (see Lk 1:1-4).

We find that Jesus wanted to enter a Samaritan village, but when the people there found out that He was a Jew traveling to Jerusalem, they refused His visit. This infuriated James and John, who wanted to “call down fire from heaven to consume them.” They were likely thinking about Elijah, the prophet, who, centuries earlier, had called down fire on messengers from Samaria in a time of great covenant infidelity in Israel (see 2 Kings 1:9-14). Jesus “rebuked” them for this idea. Why was He merciful to people who refused to even allow Him to enter their village? Was it because they were acting out of their inherited prejudice against Jews, a tradition of hatred that had been handed down for generations? This kind of collective blindness is the sort of “invincible ignorance” about which the Church speaks in merciful tones, too (see Catechism of the Catholic Church, #1793). Later, in fact, many Samaritans responded to the Gospel of Jesus, as we know from the Book of Acts. The zeal for revenge in James and John (called by Jesus “sons of thunder,” with good reason), had Jesus allowed it, would have made this highly improbable. They journeyed on.

Here, St. Luke tells us that men began to individually respond to Jesus. One says, “I will follow You wherever You go.” Surely this was what He was looking for. However, instead of telling him to join the group, Jesus gives him a warning: “Foxes have dens and birds of the sky have nests, but the Son of Man has nowhere to rest His head.” Why did Jesus sound so downbeat? Why did He emphasize the rootless life of His followers? Perhaps He saw in this man an eagerness that was more emotion than will. Jesus wanted him to count the cost of true discipleship (see Lk 14:28).

“And to another, He said, ‘Follow Me.’ But he replied, ‘Lord, let me go first and bury my father.’” Here we see Jesus extending a direct call to a man whose first thought was his family responsibility. Burying a dead parent was an important, noble expression of honoring one’s parents. We would expect Jesus to make allowance for it, yet His response seems harsh: “Let the dead bury their dead. But you, go and proclaim the kingdom of God.’” We see here a touch of the Semitic hyperbole we frequently see in Jesus’ teaching (“hating” mother and father, cutting off an offending hand, plucking out an offending eye, etc.). Jesus is telling this man, whom He desires as His disciple, that as sacred a duty as burying a dead parent is, the need to respond to His call takes priority. “The dead,” or those who are not going to be disciples, the spiritually dead, can bury the physically dead. A true disciple must be willing to leave everyone, even his father’s home, as Jesus Himself did, to do God’s work in the world.

Finally, another said, “I will follow You, Lord, but first let me say farewell to my family at home.” This request brings to mind an episode in our First Reading today, when the prophet, Elijah, called young Elisha to be his disciple. He requested permission to say good-bye to his family, too; Elijah granted it. Surely the Jews familiar with this Old Testament story would have been surprised at the severity of Jesus’ response: “No one who sets a hand to the plow and looks to what was left behind is fit for the kingdom of God.” Instead of accommodation, the man gets a warning from Jesus. Why? We must remember that Jesus could read men’s hearts. Did He see something more than mere familial sentiment in this man’s request to say farewell to his family? Did He see a reason to warn the man against inordinate attachment to anyone or anything that might distract him from his need to follow Jesus wholeheartedly?

These responses from Jesus to men who seemed to desire to follow Him can surprise us if we forget what St. Luke told us in last Sunday’s Gospel. There, Jesus said that everyone who intends to follow Him must deny himself and daily take up his cross to fulfill that desire. The call to discipleship is radical. We cannot respond to it only out of emotion. It will cost us everything, just as it did Jesus.

To “follow” Jesus means exactly that.

Possible response: Lord Jesus, I must admit the call to follow You unreservedly in this Gospel makes me uncomfortable. Maybe I am too prone to making excuses. Please heal me.

First Reading (Read 1 Kings 19:16b, 19-21)

Here is the story of Elijah calling Elisha, in which we seen how leniency was given to Elisha’s request to bid farewell to his family before departing for good to be Elijah’s disciple and, eventually, successor. We also have an opportunity to see that Elisha did not use this desire for farewell as an excuse to delay his response to Elijah’s call. He made a meal of the oxen he had used for plowing—a definitive break with his previous vocation if ever there was one! Perhaps this seriousness in Elisha to obey Elijah’s call was what earned him the permission to take leave of his family. There was no chance that in saying good-bye, he would begin to have doubts about leaving.

In our Gospel, did Jesus see something different in the man who asked the same favor? Is that why He had to warn him not to “look back”? Elisha, in his immediate slaughtering of his oxen for the farewell feast he made for his family, showed himself already looking forward to his new life. No looking back for him.

Possible response: Lord, help me not to look back to what might have been once I’ve decided it’s Your will to let it go.

Psalm (Read Ps 16:1-2, 5, 7-11)

The psalmist writes a prayer of complete abandonment to the will of God. If our other readings stir us to renew our desire to put our Lord first in our lives, these words can help us express that: “I say to the Lord, ‘My Lord are You. O Lord, my allotted portion and my cup, You it is Who hold fast my lot!’” In the flood of things that compete for our attention in any given day, it is profitable for us to sing with conviction, “You are my inheritance, O Lord.”

Possible response: The psalm is, itself, a response to our other readings. Read it again prayerfully to make it your own.

Second Reading (Read Gal 5:1, 13-18)

St. Paul gives us some helpful pastoral direction that touches on our Gospel message. First, he reminds us that when we resolve to put Jesus first in our lives, we are alsoresolving to put our neighbors first, too. See how he says that “the whole law is fulfilled in one statement, namely, ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.” In his epistle to the Galatians, St. Paul teaches about salvation that comes through faith in what Jesus has done for us and not through works of the law. In other words, we cannot make ourselves good enough for God to save us. Jesus came to do that for us. Now, however, although we don’t work our way into heaven, we do work hard at living our faith, because faith without works is dead (see James 2:26). One of the clearest ways we can express our love for God and all He has done for us is to love our neighbor. So, if we find a desire in our hearts to follow Jesus wherever He leads, we can count on Him to lead us into loving those around us.

Second, as we all know, it is hard to love our neighbors! St. Paul explains why: “The flesh has desires against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh; these are opposed to each other.” Anyone who seriously desires to follow Jesus will find this battle raging inside nearly all the time. It is only with the help of the Holy Spirit that we can live the life to which Jesus calls us.

We should never expect it to be easy, as both Jesus and St. Paul tell us today. Yet we should not miss the encouragement we have because, as St. Paul assures us, if we live by the Spirit, we “will certainly not gratify the desire of the flesh.” Hope!

Possible response: Holy Spirit, thank You for making the life of love possible to a sinner like me.

One Bread, One Body

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<< Sunday, June 26, 2016 >>

13th Sunday Ordinary Time

1 Kings 19:16, 19-21
Galatians 5:1, 13-18
View Readings

Psalm 16:1-2, 5, 7-11
Luke 9:51-62
Similar Reflections

FIREPLACE?

"Would You not have us call down fire?" —Luke 9:54

James and John asked Jesus: " 'Lord, would You not have us call down fire from heaven to destroy them?' [Jesus] turned toward them only to reprimand them" (Lk 9:54-55). On another occasion, Jesus proclaimed: "I have come to light a fire on the earth. How I wish the blaze were ignited!" (Lk 12:49) Sometimes Jesus wants to call down fire; at other times, He doesn't.

Elijah was the world champion in calling down fire from heaven (see 1 Kgs 18:38; 2 Kgs 1:10, 12; Sir 48:3). However, on at least one occasion in Elijah's life, "the Lord was not in the fire" (1 Kgs 19:12). Why is the Lord in some fire and not in others?

The Lord is not usually in the fire of destruction but in the fire of discipleship. Elijah's astounding power to call down fire surrounded the greatest ministry of his life, the calling of Elisha to be his disciple (see 1 Kgs 19:16ff). After Jesus rebuked John and James for wanting to call down fire on the Samaritans, Jesus focused on the call to discipleship (Lk 9:57-62). This culminated in the first Christian Pentecost. "Tongues as of fire appeared, which parted and came to rest on" 120 disciples (Acts 2:3). This led to three thousand people being baptized into discipleship (Acts 2:41).

The Lord wants us to call down fire if we call forth disciples. "Light a fire on the earth" (Lk 12:49) to "make disciples of all the nations" (Mt 28:19).

Prayer: Father, set our hearts on fire (Lk 24:32).

Promise: "Remember that you have been called to live in freedom — but not a freedom that gives free rein to the flesh." —Gal 5:13

Praise: Praise You, risen Lord Jesus, for sending the Holy Spirit to light a fire upon the earth. We give You our hearts in worship.

Father Matthew Kaderabek, LC

Luke 9: 51-62

Introductory Prayer

Petition

Only One Thing Is Necessary

Patriotism Must Come Second

Once You Have Set Your Course, Don’t Look Back

Conversation with Christ

Resolution